A golden girl

One of India's most formidable beauties passed away earlier this month. The odd thing is she would absolutely hate this obituary; she hated being written about and avoided publicity for all of her nine decades. Indira Aswani was 93 when she died. But anyone who encountered her, even briefly, was in such awe of her grace and poise, and one could not but remember her forever.

- NAMRATA ZAKARIA

Aswani was the wife of Pessumal Aswani, an ultra wealthy Sindhi businessman with global interests, especially between Africa and India. Along with Sunita Pitamber, Uma Dubash and Parmeshwar Godrej, Indira Aswani made for the golden quartet of Bombay's grand dames. They were very wealthy wives, renowned hostesses and upholders of the highest echelons of privileged society. They existed before Instagram, or the internet, or the glut of gushing glossy magazines. They entertained fabulously, wore international fashion, collected art before it was an acquisition, they could sniff an antique from far away, simply because it probably came back with them in one of their 10 suitcases. Their drawing rooms were where you met India's nation builders, American presidents, Hollywood stars and a sprinkling of royalty from across the world. You almost never read about these evenings. If you knew you just knew, before it became a hashtag.