The time was eight minutes and 27 seconds past 9 o’clock on October 31. All the activities in the palatial residence of the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, in New Delhi were as usual in full swing.

Peter Ustinov, world renowned actor, director and writer, was sitting on the spacious lawns of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s residence. He was making a film on Mrs. Gandhi, and, along with his entire film unit, he was waiting there to interview her.

The Prime Minister stepped out of her house at No 1, Safdarjang Road. No sooner did she step on the lawn three gunshots were heard. Then came a volley of shots from a Sten gun. Two of the Sikh security guards had shot her. She could not utter even a last word. She was immediately taken to AIIMS in a state of unconsciousness and one and a half hours later she was declared dead by the senior doctors attending her.

Peter Ustinov, commenting on this sad occasion, said. “I wanted to ask her how, as a single child, she came to terms with her loneliness.”

This was indeed the most pertinent question that could be put to her at that critical moment in her life. But now the question we have to ask is how she, the Prime Minister of a country of 700 million people, is going to face the situation when she finds herself all alone in another world.

Since man finds himself safe and sound amidst family and friends, he blissfully ignores that, at any moment, death can separate him from the props of this mortal world. Then he will be left to wander alone. He will have no one to assist him. How awful that day will be and how ignorant man is of this grave reality which must inevitably come.