Political assassinations, & Vangelis' Bollywood connection | #105

Also, how Bangalore inspired a Nobel laureate ➡️

May 21, 2022

Hello friends,

31 years ago, Rajiv Gandhi took a flight from Visakhapatnam and landed in Madras. He was then taken in an Ambassador car to Sriperumbudur, for his campaign speeches along the way. At about 10PM, he reached his final campaign stop and was walking towards the stage as school children and Congress workers garlanded him. The assassin, Dhanu (Thenmozhi Rajaratnam), approached and greeted him. She then bent down to touch his feet and detonated an RDX explosive-laden belt tucked below her dress at exactly 10:10 PM. Rajiv Gandhi was killed along with 14 others in a gruesome explosion.

This week, we take a look at stories related to assassination of political figures.

Things we learnt this week 🤓

If P Chidambaram is to be believed, the dress worn by Dhanu, should have alerted the security involved. In the 1990’s it wasn’t very common for women in rural Tamil Nadu to wear a salwar kameez. Had the security spotted this anomaly, they could have kept Dhanu at an arm’s length from Rajiv Gandhi.

Dhanu in a salwar kameez with the garland with which she killed Rajiv Gandhi

Talking about sartorial choices and assassinations, the most consequential assassination of all time is that of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. His assassination, started a chain of events that led to the first World War. But he could have saved himself, if he had worn a slightly baggier suit. When Ferdinand was shot, doctors’ attempt to tend to the wounds were impeded by his layers of clothing, which he liked to be sewn in to get a perfect fit. By the time they managed to cut through the clothes, he was gone. Ferdinand’s dress should be highlighted in the Flannels of history.

Peter Ustinov, one of the few actors to have played the famous sleuth Hercule Poirot, was incidentally one of the key witnesses for a famous assassination. Indira Gandhi was assassinated when she on her way to be interviewed by Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish Television. Ustinov and his cameraman were detained for about 6 hours and released only when authorities realized they hadn’t captured the assassination on camera. All of this was too much for his little grey cells to process.