FOOD, FAMILY AND A LOVE FOR WILDLIFE

Supriya Sule uses her father’s office but never sits in his chair. This is not so much about tradition as it is about upbringing. But then Sule is wellbred. Being the only child of the wellknown politician Sharad Pawar, she could have been spoilt or pampered but she comes across as grounded and sober.

As a kid, there was a time when she wanted to eat out of silver because some of her friends did. One day she complained to her dad about the stainless steel plates at home: “Why can’t we have beautiful and expensive cutlery? My friends live so well and we so badly,” she told him. At which Sharad Pawar sat her down and told her that if her friends came to her house for the material things in it, then it was simply not worth it: “It is better not to have such friends”.

That sentence hit hard, and became a thought she has always carried with her. It is another matter that several years down the line, her declared assets as a Member of Parliament crossed the ₹100-crore mark.

Well-turned-out, often in exquisite saris, Sule was in the eye of a storm when she told a group of college students that MPS often indulged in small talk and discussed saris in Parliament. It was a politically incorrect statement, but Sule stood her ground and said that her point had been that politicians also lead normal lives and think like ordinary people. For her part, Sule hates shopping; saris come as gifts or through a cousin who works with weavers.

Supriya Sule’s biggest critic is not her father, it’s her husband, Sadanand Sule. They’ve been married nearly 30 years. They share their love for the wild and often take off together to see tigers. Supriya is crazy about tigers and can look at one straight in the eye. For her, that one moment is frozen in time: “My husband’s only rival is a tiger. If I could, I would love to keep a cub”.

Theirs is a family obsessed with festivals, celebrations and food. “We barely finish lunch and start worrying about dinner,” she says, adding that ironically she herself is a “terrible cook”. Her mother, by contrast, is a “great cook” and loves to feed the family.

Her parents are kind of different people. “My mother is a very private person, while my father loves having people around him all the time. She is religious and my father an atheist. I have a bit of both: like my father, I reach out, and like my mother I

SULE WAS IN THE EYE OF A STORM WHEN SHE TOLD SOME COLLEGE STUDENTS THAT MPS OFTEN INDULGED IN SMALL TALK AND DISCUSSED SARIS IN PARLIAMENT