Leena Nehru

b. 1963

Born: 10 Nov 1963, Mumbai
Country of birth: India

Living person. The family sees only the name, dates and photo; everything else stays private unless they choose to share it.

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Birth10 Nov 1963, MumbaiProbable1 source

A life in time

10 Nov 1963
Born · Mumbai
Birth, Mumbai

What was it like?

The world around Mumbai, 1963: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Leena was born around the same time as Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, and Jodie Foster.

Born around the same time

Jim Carrey
1962 · Canadian-American actor and comedian (born 1962)
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1962 · American actor and film producer (born 1962)
Jodie Foster
1962 · American actress and filmmaker (born 1962)
Gary Lineker
1960 · English football pundit and former player
Naruhito
1960 · Emperor of Japan (born 1960)
Keir Starmer
1962 · Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2024 to 2026

Fashion

Festive dress of rural Rajasthan women

In rural Rajasthan, women wore thick, full-length skirts with colorful tie-dye designs and heavy silver jewelry that jingled while they worked. On festive occasions like weddings and temple visits, women dressed in their finest colorful clothing to celebrate.

Men's changing daily attire in villages

In the 1950s, older men in north Indian villages typically wore a loincloth called a dhoti, a shirt, a turban, and country shoes known as juti. By the 1970s, younger men often shifted toward city-style clothing including trousers, shirts, and factory-made sandals.

Music

Folk Music in Daily Indian Life

Folk music was ubiquitous in daily life, often accompanying life events like births, weddings, and festivals, as well as seasonal agricultural work.

Instruments Used in Religious Devotion

Worshippers played harmoniums, brass cymbals called tal, and wooden or metal clappers known as kartal during religious devotional songs called bhajans.

Getting around

Multi-day journeys and steam travel

Summer trips across India could take four to five days and involved multiple train changes before direct services became standard. Steam engines were common, often leaving passengers covered in coal specs that blew in through open windows during the journey.

Long-distance rail travel in the 1960s

During the 1960s and 1970s, long-distance rail travel was a major undertaking that often required planning one month in advance and enduring delays of 5 to 10 hours. Trains were frequently overcrowded, with more passengers on board than available berths, forcing travelers to share space in aisles and near toilets.

Daily life

Cooking without modern appliances

Homes relied on traditional earthen coal stoves called angithis or chullahs, as kerosene stoves were only gradually introduced, and households lacked modern appliances like refrigerators, requiring daily boiling of milk and fresh cooking.

Storing and cooling water

Water was scarce and stored in terracotta pots like matkas, which naturally cooled the water through evaporation, or drawn from village wells where children often helped maintain hygiene by adding potassium permanganate.

Food

Economics of Daily Meals

Poor households in Madras State often ate millet instead of rice because rice required costly side dishes like kuzhambu or rasam, making millet meals significantly cheaper.

Government-Promoted Dietary Substitutes

In an effort to conserve grain reserves, the government urged citizens to consume substitute foods like tapioca, yams, bananas, and groundnuts instead of rice and wheat.

Prices and wages

Cost of food items

In the 1950s, a big loaf of bread cost 4 annas, and by 1974, a mutton biryani could be purchased for 2.50 rupees.

Starting monthly salaries in the 1960s

In the early 1960s, a peon earned a starting monthly salary of 70 rupees, while a class two gazetted officer earned 300 rupees.

Work

Around 1958–1959

Working seven days a week

Engineers and workers at the Rourkela Steel Plant site typically worked seven days a week, eight hours a day.

Around 1950–1959

Agricultural wages in the 1950s

Agricultural laborers in India earned an average daily wage of 17.5 annas, with significant local variations across different states.

News and letters

Fast inland mail delivery in the 1960s

In the late 1960s, mail service could be exceptionally fast; a letter mailed on a Monday from Bangalore often reached Secunderabad by Tuesday.

Long waits for urgent telephone calls

In the 1950s and 1960s, few people had telephones, so those needing urgent communication went to a telegraph office and often waited over two hours for a trunk call.

During their lifetime

1969
Nationalization of 14 banks
The government nationalized 14 leading commercial banks through an ordinance on July 19, 1969.
1970
Operation Flood launched
A nationwide milk grid, known as Operation Flood, was launched in 1970 to increase milk production.
1975
National Emergency declared
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a nationwide National Emergency on June 26, 1975, leading to the detention of 676 people.
1984
Bhopal gas tragedy occurs
On December 3, 1984, a toxic gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal caused over 2,000 immediate deaths.
1991
Economic liberalization begins
In July 1991, the government began a major process of economic liberalization to address a severe balance of payments crisis.

Family

Spouses

Christian Schimertb. 1963Confirmed