King Size Life March 2025

Brigadier Toni Lidder’s wife remembers the love of her life in a moving book. An extract

Geetika Lidder

He was rapidly developing a good rapport with the General and had started understanding many facets of his personality. At the same time, Mrs Rawat and I formed a wonderfully close bond. Genteel, simple, caring and concerned, she was easy to relate to. She would just call and have a casual conversation, ‘What have you cooked for lunch? Or ‘You will need to buy some suits, so let’s go to Dilli Haat.’ This humility endeared her to people. When it came to her work, she was very clear about what she wanted. She had her ideas about how she wanted a few things done as the president of the Defence Wives’ Welfare Association (DWWA). Her major contribution was to bring all the services under one roof. I think I mostly understood her requirements. She admired my way of independent functioning and the fact that I could make presentations and reports by myself without any support. In fact, she often joked that I was her one-woman army. After a short period, we understood each other even better and developed a comfortable rapport. The lady officers who were with Mrs Rawat also appreciated the way we all functioned together as a team. Here I must mention the contribution of Colonel Kavita Gusain and Colonel Aarti Chopra—both of them were Staff Officers to Mrs Rawat in succession. We have spent many wonderful times together under the umbrella of kindness created by our dear Mrs Rawat.

What I really admired about her was that she never complained about my unavailability in the morning. Usually, all senior ladies preferred to finish their charter of duties such as ladies’ meetings, social events, gatherings