"The time has come the walrus said to talk of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings."
—Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking Glass

Clearly, Lal Krishna Advani believes that the time has come to put the many controversies of his life to rest or at the very least give his version of events.

Many speakers said it was unfair to depict Advani as a hardliner. Jaswant was blunt: "The real Lalji is far removed from being a mosque-breaker."

As a public relations exercise, his 985-page book, My Country My Life, should reap him dividends. It clears the air on many issues involving him and the BJP. Moreover, the release of the book has been used to reaffirm his position in the party, get the endorsement of the RSS and larger Sangh parivar, and restate his acceptability to existing and potential NDA allies.

Most book releases by politicians are dull affairs. But then Advani is no ordinary actor on the political stage. Besides, his current position as leader of the opposition and the NDA's prime ministerial candidate ensured a packed house at Delhi's Siri Fort auditorium where the book was released by ex-president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on March 19. Such a huge traffic jam built up outside the hall an hour before the event that Kalam chose to walk the last stretch to the venue.

Inside the packed auditorium, politicians sought seats in the media section, senior editors had to sit at the back, Orissa CM Naveen Patnaik sat quietly in the middle till a seat was cleared for him in the front row with other chief ministers and political heavyweights. No Congress leader chose to attend the show. But there were enough political handshakes and bonhomie. Signals were read in the presence of the two NCP leaders, Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel. Also significant was the attendance of Om Prakash Chauthala, whom the BJP is wooing for an alliance in Haryana.

Atma chintan: Advani speaks at the book release

The captains of industry too sat through the three-hour-long function. Anil Ambani, Ramoji Rao of the Eenadu group, Sunil Bharti Mittal, C.K. Birla among others. True, there were some dull speeches, but the audience could be entertained by the movements of the celebrity guests. Such as actor Sanjay Dutt, convicted in the Mumbai blast case, who made it a point to greet Gujarat CM Narendra Modi who chose to give him a long and warm handshake. Munnabhai was eventually seated next to Sushma Swaraj in the same row as Anil Ambani. Singers Sonu Nigam and Abhijeet too were seen as was director-producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

The glamour quotient was high in what was essentially a political event. But the trivia apart, the undertaking was essentially about the substance of Advani's life and career. It was also about getting the full endorsement of the RSS through a speech made by Mohanrao Bhagwat, in line to be the next sarsanghchalak. At the same time, the function was also about widening Advani's acceptability. Speaker after speaker at the function spoke of the "unfair" depiction of Advani in the media as a "hardliner". Jaswant Singh put it quite bluntly: "The real Lalji is far removed from being a breaker of mosques...."

Who is the real Lalji? A quick read of the book gives us an insight into a man who has tried to be bigger than the ideology that he was initiated into. Today, he doesn't want to take hawkish postures unless compelled to. Like Atal Behari Vajpayee, he is seeking an acceptability beyond the BJP and Sangh parivar's traditional constituency. He remains unapologetic about the Jinnah episode and gives his arguments in defence of positions he took during that momentous trip to Pakistan.

Yet in the popular imagination, Advani continues to be associated with the Ram Janmabhoomi movement culminating in the demolition of the Babri mosque. In the book, he analyses the movement and demolition and gives a complex explanation for why he called December 6, 1992, "the saddest day of my life". It's also clear that since that fateful day, he has been struggling to move on. Today, he has certainly travelled a long distance away from Ayodhya.

The scholarly and bookish Advani also comes through in My Country My Life. Each of its chapters is preceded by a quote from figures like Plato, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vajpayee or Eleanor Roosevelt. One always knew Advani is an erudite man—conversations with him would invariably involve the mention of an idea drawn from a book he was currently reading. Arguably, a quote close to his heart is Plato's: "There will be no end to the troubles of humanity till philosophers become kings...and political power and philosophy come into the same hands."

It is the sort of quote that would appeal to a man who has been an ideologue of the Hindu right but is today seeking a greater acceptability across the political spectrum. Advani uses the Plato quote to begin the chapter that deals with the birth of the BJP in 1980. Twenty-eight years later, he is still the central figure shaping the party's destiny.

Advani's book has dealt with all the big events that have shaped his life and career. But what he hasn't explored is arguably one of his biggest gifts to the party. Advani is probably the only politician today who has groomed an entire second generation of leaders. No one else in politics (including Vajpayee) has cared to promote anyone besides themselves or their cronies. Advani's most exceptional quality perhaps has been his ability to spot political talent, groom it and then allow it to flourish independently. Many individuals he once mentored have fallen out with him—such as Uma Bharati, K. Govindacharya, even Kalyan Singh—and Pramod Mahajan has passed away. But other proteges are flourishing—Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M. Venkiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar make up the second rung and owe a lot to Advani. There is also Narendra Modi, another politician backed to the hilt by the veteran who some see as the future leader of the BJP in a post-Advani era.

For as long as Advani is there, no one in the BJP can overtake him. He is cut of a different cloth. The Partition, Emergency, Ayodhya, Pokhran, Agra...his book is the sum of a life that has partaken of history many times over.