New Delhi, April 9 -- Nine days after Raj Kumar Hirani's "Lage Raho Munnabhai" hit the theatres, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) met in New Delhi on September 10 to plan the centenary commemoration of Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha in South Africa. When it was her turn to speak, Mohsina Kidwai invoked the movie-an unusual reference in a CWC meeting-and told her colleagues to learn from it on how to communicate Gandhi's message to the new generation.

Born in 1932 to an aristocratic family in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district, Kidwai was a staunch loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhi family, particularly Indira Gandhi. The platform for her entry in politics, however, was laid way back in 1954 when 22-year-old Mohsina met Jawaharlal Nehru with her f...