Loanne L. Snavely

Nayantara Sahgal wrote Prison and Chocolate Cake when her mother, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and her maternal uncle, Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first prime minister of independent India. It is a memoir of a time when her family's support of Satyagraha, Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence and non-cooperation that freed a nation, resulted in lengthy terms in prison. My grandparents shared Gandhi's cause when they lived in India, and while there, my mother was a schoolmate of Tara and her sisters. Upon returning to the United States, my grandparents hosted the sisters when they came here to study. I have always been a great admirer of Gandhi, and the themes of peace, local sustainable practices, the power of education, diversity and the dignity of each individual that this book speaks to. A recent visit to India re-connected me with this book which I first read so many years ago and with a bit of family and world history.