SINGAPORE had an Indian summer last week. Indian President KR Narayanan and his wife Usha Narayanan were on a five-day visit here.
Even as Mrs Narayanan met old friends such as Nominated MP Claire Chiang, she charmed others with her gentle smile and soft voice - just as she won over the young Indian diplomat Narayanan in Myanmar almost four decades ago.
Mrs Narayanan, or Tin Tin (her Myanmar name), met her husband on his first Indian Foreign Service posting in Yangon.
He was fresh from the London School of Economics, where he had been social economist Harold Laski's best student.
"We met in Rangoon when Narayanan was posted there as a novice diplomat. I was working for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) after my graduation from Rangoon University... I had to organise a seminar on political free thinking and human right.
"It was not easy to find someone bold enough to talk on this sensitive issue. I heard that there was a young Indian diplomat who had just come to Rangoon.
"He was well educated and would be able to talk on this matter, so I wrote him a formal letter,"she told a Mumbai-based magazine, Savvy, in 1997.
And the speaker captured not just the audience's hearts but the organiser's as well.

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Narayanan was absorbed in the Indian Foreign Service and was shortly posted to Indian Embassy for Myanmar (Burma) as a secretary. There he met his present day wife.

Since then he worked as Secretary with the Indian Missions in Vietnam and Australia. After these assignments, he was sent as Indian Ambassador to countries like Thailand, China, and Turkey on different occasions. While in China, he tried to improve the Sino-Indian relationship. After his retirement as Indian Ambassador to China, he was made the Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

In the year 1980, he was appointed as Ambassador to Washington. In 1986, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Ottappalam Parliamentary constituency on a Congress ticket. Shortly he became a minister in the Rajiv Gandhi cabinet. He won parliamentary elections of 1989 and 1991 from Ottappalam.

On 21st August 1992 he became Vice president of Indian Republic and was later elevated as the President of India.

Narayanan is married to Ma Trint Trint, a Myanmarese woman. She was later renamed as Usha and they have two daughters, Chitra and Amritha.

Usha Narayanan is involved with social welfare activities for women and children. As National President of KARUNA, an all-India organization for the welfare of women and children form 1985 to 1992, she was responsible for building working Girls' Hostels and Day Care Centres, Potters' Cooperatives and Sericulture projects in Kerala.

In addition to her interest in landscaping, gardening, orchid cultivation, Ikebana and Bonsai, she is also a short story writer. She has translated several Burmese short stories into English. A collection of her translations of Thein Pe Myint's Burmese Short Stories was published as a book entitled 'Sweet and Sour' in December 1998. Usha Narayanan has also worked with All India Radio for many years, translating, and broadcasting news and talks for the External Services of All India Radio.

Ref: http://www.keral.com/celebrities/krnarayanan/

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