Hailing from a humble background, AR Antulay studied law at Lincoln's Inn, London, from 1952 to 1955, on scholarship. He came back to India and began working at a Mumbai law firm. As is the case with arranged marriages, he met with a couple of potential matches on his return, but nothing materialised. Until he met Nargis, a demure, strikingly beautiful girl from Konkan. "For him, it was love at first sight," she says. Nargis was only 16 then. He waited for four years and they got engaged in 1957.

Nargis Antulay with daughter Neelam at their Churchgate home. Neelam says she picked 70 letters of many more for the book. Pic/ Suresh Karkera

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While Antulay was known for his penmanship and flair for languages, his wife was still an amateur. "It's endearing to see the erudite, refined letters that he would write to her in unsullied Urdu. My mother would, sometimes, admit that she had a hard time understanding those words," laughs Neelam.

Heady in love, there was no cap to the number of letters her father would write in a day. Some would begin with a tender 'Meri apni, Nargis'; others, with a lovelorn, 'meri dil ki rani,' or 'jaaneman'. Apart from declarations of love, the letters also contain mundane details of the day; the food he ate, the people he met and his agenda for the following days. "What began during their courtship, extended to post marriage because he would often travel for work and be absent for two to three months on end," she says. The sheer volume of letters meant she had to sift through the pile to select the "relatively less personal" ones. It took her nearly three years to come up with the book. "Some traits that my father possessed stayed with him till the end. You see that in his writing as well. For instance, he did not fear anybody. He writes, "Main sari duniya ka muqbala kar sakta hoon, agar tum mera saath do (I can fight the world, provided you support me)." Unlike her two sisters, who married and moved to their husband's homes, Neelam continued living with her parents at their current abode. "I was lucky to marry my cousin, which meant I could continue living in this house. So, I was privy to the relationship my parents shared even in their sunset years. He would discuss everything with her, both personal and political. Through the ups and downs, she was his comrade."

While the family would often goad him to write an autobiography, he never warmed up to the idea till the very end. "He categorically told me that a tell-all book would inevitably hurt the sentiments of a few, so he doesn't want to go down that path." For Antulay, her father was less of a politician and more of a social worker. "He knew each photographer and reporter personally. In fact, he would sometimes halt a press conference till they arrived. He was, basically, a good man. "

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