Bimla Bissell, assistant to the ambassadors and social center in India, has died at the age of 92

Pimla Bissell, the indispensable and well-connected social secretary for four American ambassadors to India, who was herself an unofficial ambassador, a skilled local guide to the culture and complexities of a sprawling country, died on January 9 at her home in Delhi. . She was 92 years old.

Her daughter, Monson Bissell, said the reason was complications from diabetes.

He was Ms. Bissell’s first ambassadorial president John Kenneth Galbraithan erudite liberal economist who developed a deep relationship with Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. And he followed him Chester Bowlesbroadcaster turned civil rights hero.

Both were appointees of John F. Kennedy, and Ms. Bissell’s job was to organize, among many complex diplomatic occasions, Jacqueline Kennedy’s nine-day trip to India in 1962, an event that was relentlessly covered by the world press. “Mrs. Kennedy gets ceremonial welcome on arrival in India”. Front page title In the New York Times, when the first lady landed with her sister, Lee Radziwill.

It also fell to Mrs. Bissell to gently inform Kennedy that the gifts she had given her Indian hosts—leather picture frames stamped with the words “100% American Beef”—would not be appropriate.

when Richard Celeste Appointed to be Mr. Bowles’ personal assistant and embassy protocol officer in 1963, he was impressed by the latter job description. So Mrs. Bissell took him in her hand.

“She took charge of my education with ease,” said Mr. Celeste, who went on to become director of the Peace Corps, governor of Ohio, and President Bill Clinton’s envoy to India. She also took him to dinner every night until his wife arrived with their newborn.

By all accounts, Mrs. Bissell was a one-woman socialite, an accomplished salon hostess who seemed to know everyone of any importance in every field.

Her friends and associates said she was reserved and diplomatic. She was curious, playful and social. She read 14 newspapers every morning. She was politically astute, and in her later years could often predict local elections based on vote counts. She had an uncanny ability for compassion and friendship, and for nurturing and maintaining those friendships.

Among her admirers – and they were a legion – were heads of state, diplomats, policy makers, NGO leaders, journalists, film directors, authors, craftsmen, artists and students, all of whom she gathered for lavish lunches and dinners in her sprawling stucco house. In a leafy developing area in South Delhi, which was filled with handicrafts, textiles, arts and antiques.

She and her husband, John Bissell, were a Delhi institution. He was a lanky, Connecticut-born Yale graduate who traveled to India in 1958 on a Ford Foundation grant and never left, having fallen in love with the country and his future wife. He founded a company to export Indian handicrafts, then established a school to teach artisans.

Mary Brenner, one of several journalists Ms. Bissell included in her circle, said their home was a North Star. Others have called it Grand Central East for its open-door policy. “It was always full of special people,” Ms. Brenner said. “The operational energy was this very high level of political and intellectual discourse.”

“John was the dreamer and Pym was the doer,” Mr. Celeste said. She was very knowledgeable, and her instincts were very well founded.

At some point, Mr. Celeste realized that Ms. Bissell was juggling between two jobs. In the mid-1950s, she founded The Playhouse, Delhi’s first progressive preschool, which would become a launching pad for generations of Indian and expatriate children.

“Over time, I realized that the Playhouse School was a magnet for ambitious and hardworking Indian families,” Mr Celeste said. “Pim was building a dynamic set of relationships, which, as social secretary, gave her a unique rolodex.”

Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, a family friend, called Ms. Bissell “an extraordinary citizen diplomat for India.” (He was born in India; his father, Douglas Bennett, was also an aide to Ambassador Bowles.)

“For the generations of newcomers she welcomed to Delhi — especially young people whom she loved and would enchant with stories of her remarkable life — she was a guiding light,” he added in an email.

Bimla Nanda, known as Bim, was born on October 12, 1932 in Quetta, now part of Pakistan. She was the eldest of three daughters of Sita (Sibal) Nanda and Pran Nath Nanda, a veterinary surgeon who became the first Education Commissioner in independent India. He was also a table tennis champion, having invented a unique way of holding the racket, which became known as the “Nanda grip,” according to Ms. Bissell.

Bem grew up in Lahore, in the Punjab region, until just after Partition, in 1947, when the family moved to Delhi. She majored in English at Miranda House Girls College, Delhi University.

Her first marriage, an arranged match with a government aide from a suitable family, was short and unhappy. Divorce was out of the question at the time, but Beam left her husband and India for the University of Michigan, where she earned a master’s degree in education in 1958. When she returned home, she was ostracized and banned from the local gymnasium, the school’s social school. The club that was a remnant of the Raj.

“She broke all norms, but she did it without trying to make a point,” her daughter said. She did it because this was the life she needed to live.

Bim Nanda was working for a government organization promoting traditional crafts when Mr. Bissell arrived with a Ford Foundation grant. He was immediately struck with it; She thought he was in love with her country. However, they became fast friends as Mr. Bissell courted her with great enthusiasm and discipline. For the next five years, she says, he sent her a letter and a red rose every day.

At one point, Mr. Bissell’s mother intervened. “I want to know your feelings about my son,” she said to Pim. “He’s in love with you.”

“He loves India,” Pym replied.

“I know my son, and it’s time to fish or cut bait,” Ms. Bissell said.

They were married in 1963 at Mr. Bowles’ home.

With the help of his wife and connections, Mr. Bissell founded a company, FabindiaTo sell products – home furnishings, clothing and jewellery – made by Indian artisans using traditional techniques. At first he worked from a room in his rented apartment. Over the decades, it has developed into a household name in India, with a thriving export business as well as hundreds of retail stores across the country.

After Mr. Bowles’ appointment expired in 1969, Ms. Bissell served his successors, Ambassadors Kenneth B. Keating and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose terms ended in 1975.

She then joined the World Bank as an External Affairs Officer in India, where she worked primarily as the bank’s cultural ambassador and as an overall coordinator, helping expatriate bank officials find housing and schools for their children, shop with their wives, and even set up their own phone lines. She has worked with dozens of NGOs, and founded one of them. industrywith the aim of empowering Indian women entrepreneurs.

In addition to her daughter, Ms. Bissell leaves behind a son, William, who runs Fabindia, two grandchildren, and a sister, Meena Singh. Mr. Bissell died in 1998.

After leaving the World Bank in 1996, Ms. Bissell worked as a consultant for a number of organizations and remained at the center of the cross-cultural social spiral. She sold her school, The Playhouse, in 2005. Her home remained the center of a glittering array of politicians, artists and literary figures who, until her death, relied on her for her political acumen and were supported by her friendship.

Eric Garcettithe former mayor of Los Angeles and the departing US ambassador to India, admired Ms. Bissell just as his predecessors had.

“You are India,” he told her. “And India is you.”