That Shahnaz Husain is a veteran of India’s beauty industry is a known fact. What is really interesting is the fact that she has been a good friend of the India’s first family — the Gandhi family — especially the former prime minister Indira Gandhi. “Not many people know it, but Indira Gandhi and I were family friends and the friendship between our families spanned across three generations. My grandfather was a good friend of Motilal Nehru (Indira Gandhi’s grandfather) just as my father was a friend of Indira’s father Jawaharlal Nehru. So Indira and I too were good friends,” explains Shahnaz.
Reminiscing about their first meeting, Shahnaz says, “I remember meeting Indira Gandhi in the 70s when she was the I&B minister. And I was struck by her amazing personality. In fact, Indira has always been all about the personality. She wasn’t someone who gave a lot of importance to looks and outer appearances and yet she had this ability to make her presence felt wherever she went.”
Interestingly, Indira was also into Ayurveda. “She loved Ayurveda and while beauty didn’t matter a lot to her, good grooming did. She was the epitome of elegance and truly represented the Indian woman. She believed in what I call spiritual beauty,” notes Shahnaz.
So did knowing Indira change her own (Shahnaz’s) definition of beauty? “Clichéd it may sound, but she embodied a certain kind of mental strength that has its own beauty. And it was great to know her as a person,” she points out.
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