“What can you do with such lovely people cast in such a grand mould when all they want to do is dance on the edge of a precipice?”

The Masanis and the Srivastavas were indeed cast in a grand mould — one, an austere, middle class Parsi family with great regard for intellectual achievement and an interest in social reform; the other a high society Hindu family with strong ties with the ruling British class. Their orbits may never have crossed but for the chance encounter of Shakuntala Srivastavas and Minocher (Minoo) Masani that began in a grand love story and ended in acrimonious tragedy.

And All is Said: Memoir of a Home Divided is a son’s stark yet deeply poignant account of his parent’s life. Zaheer Masani, best known for his controversial biography of Indira Gandhi, pulls no punches as he chronicles his parents’ lives in the belief that “the truth, warts and all, will do more justice to their memory than the usual Indian fashion for family hagiography.” But there is no malice in his writing; indeed his love for his parents, and his guilt over what he perceives as his contribution to the failure of their marriage, make And All is Said a riveting story about two flawed but fascinating, and at times endearing, individuals.

A family drama worthy of any soap opera, the story of Shakuntala and Minoo plays out against the political upheavals of early 20th century India; indeed, as Masani puts it “in our home the personal was never far from the political.” This is hardly surprising as the Masanis had always been highly politicised with Minoo starting his political career in college by supporting Gandhi against his father’s pro-British leanings. Before Independence he was Congress Party’s first bench spokesman on food policy; by 1959 he had launched an opposition party, the Swatantra Party.

While Minoo and his siblings spent their youth courting arrest, marching in rallies and publishing anti-British tracts, Shakuntala and her sisters attended balls and parties graced by the crème de la crème of viceregal India. But the Srivastavas girls were no empty-headed debutantes; though Shakuntala was prevented from following her sisters to Cambridge due to her mother’s illness, she graduated from college in Lucknow with a first-class degree in history, politics and Sanskrit. She was also “an excellent horsewoman, adept at painting… dancing the foxtrot… schooled in Urdu and Indian Classical dance.”

Married in April 1946 in teeth of family opposition from Shakuntala’s side — Minoo was not just from a different religion, he was also twice divorced and 15 years her senior — the Masanis spent the first few years of marriage in idyllic bliss. Minoo was appointed ambassador to Brazil and later chairman on the UN Commission on Minorities and Shakuntala, with her Western polish and “Eastern charm”, became the darling of foreign dignitaries. But when her husband founded the Swatantra Party the duties of being a politician’s wife began to get onerous.

“Was it coincidence that Mother and I both started to fall out of love with Father around the same time?” muses Masani, recalling how he blamed his father for forcing Shakuntala to accompany him to Delhi, leaving Masani behind with his grandparents. Though Masani holds himself deeply responsible for contributing to his parent’s break-up, it’s obvious that the marriage was already in doldrums. Minoo, always a ladies’ man, had gone back to his philandering ways and she in retaliation had set up her own court of admirers. But the death blow to the relationship came when Shakuntala, egged on by her son, announced her intention of joining Indira Gandhi’s party which put her squarely against her husband in the political arena.

Shakuntala’s flirtation with Congress ended in disaster and disillusion — “having thrown Mother’s career to the wolves it cost Mrs G [Gandhi] very little to be kind and solicitous on a personal level” says Masani in a pungent description of Indira’s ruthless brand of politics — and finally cost her her marriage. She spent most of her last years in London as her health deteriorated and she became increasingly dependent upon her son.

Though Masani describes the book as an attempt to offer his mother “some of the dignity that adverse circumstances denied her in later life” one may also read it as a beautiful apology by a son to his parents and an attempt to “offer them in death the understanding, acceptance and respect we found so difficult to achieve in life.”

And All is Said: Memoir of a Home Divided (Memoir) By Zaheer Masani Penguin India, New Delhi ISBN 9780143417606 248pp. Indian Rs299