These are just my words, not a book by me: Indira Gandhi

It was, by all accounts, an unnerving encounter. On the morning of February 10, a group of hall-a-dozen eminent writers led by a New Delhi publisher walked up the front gate of 1 Safdarjang Road, the prime minister's residence. The group included Punjabi writer Amrita Pritam, Hindi writer Rajendra Awasthy and Congress(I) MP Sreekant Verma, himself a writer and the moving spirit behind Mrs Gandhi's election campaign of 1980. Its object: to present copies, hot from the press, of the prime minister's latest outpouring a 196-page hardback volume entitled My Truth, priced at Rs 100 a copy, and published by Vision Books in New Delhi, an associate of Orient Paperbacks, and Rajpal & Sons, an old publishing house.

As the group waited around the few chairs laid out for a small presentation ceremony, the prime minister walked over after her morning darshan with Verma. Without warning, or pausing, or waiting upon ceremony, she looked at the copies and snapped at the publisher V. N. Malhotra, and his son Kapil: "This is most improper. These are just my words, not a book by me." Continuing her frontal attack, she said: "What do I get? I get no royalty," and repeated the remark a couple of times.