Many of Swarup Rani's husband's suits were tailored in Savile Row, her son's toys came from England, and the family was the first in Allahabad to own a car.

[8] An early family portrait has Victorian-looking style, and Jawaharlal sits in a sailor suit, but Swarup Rani and the other Nehru women in the household exerted a traditional Hindu influence on him.

Despite becoming increasingly unwell herself, Swarup Rani went to much effort to keep at bay 'the evil eye' from those who were envious or who excessively admired her only surviving son, by applying a black dot on his forehead.

[4] During the First World War, Swarup Rani helped knit and gather woollen clothing for soldiers, along with groups of European and Indian ladies.

[9] Sometime before 1916, Swarup Rani received a letter from her son Jawaharlal, suggesting that he preferred not to have an arranged marriage, and might choose to stay a bachelor.

However, Swarup Rani had consulted a trusted pandit, and after having their horoscopes compared, Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Kaul were married on 8 February 1916.

[10] A swami once recounted that Swarup Rani was "a devout, traditional Hindu whose one regret was that Jawaharlal and Kamala had no living son".

[17] Their daughter Krishna was taken out from school, the twice daily meals merged into one, and stables, staff, the fineries of life including crockery and crystal were reduced.

[19] On 26 January 1922, with the aim to recruit women to the Indian Congress party, Swarup Rani presided over a meeting in Idgah where 1000 people attended.

[21] In 1930, with the launch of the civil disobedience movement and Gandhi's salt march, Motilal gave Anand Bhavan to the Indian Congress Party.

[11] During another incident, a day after visiting her son in prison, Swarup Rani was found by a swami to be sitting in a room in the sweltering heat and without the fan switched on.

The swami reported "the mother's heart was touched, and henceforth she refused to enjoy the comfort of an electric fan while her son rotted in the hot prison cell".