As deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha for 17 years, she managed to master the art of staying genial and good-tempered while delivering the slaps on the wrist that she frequently had to.
But if you riled her too much you would have seen a furious virago, as indeed one of the more boisterous MPs (who shall remain nameless) in the House discovered.
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Heptulla got so mad at him for repeatedly violating the order of the House that she sliced the din in the Rajya Sabha with a quiet, curt "sit down" delivered with such venom, that everyone fell silent, taken aback. Then she left the House.
If the work of a deputy chairman is hard, that of the chairman is equally so. Try controlling 240-odd MPs, all trying to speak at once.
As the Upper House comprises senior, mostly well-read members, most of them are better acquainted with the rule book than the chair.
So unless you have your wits about you, they can run rings around the chair. As deputy chairman, Heptulla once said: "Not only do you have to have rotating eyes, but they have to rotate behind your head as well." This is absolutely true.
Seven years ago, Heptulla fought the election for the vice-presidentship of India against Hamid Ansari. She knew she could not win: she needed 400 votes out of 798 in an electoral college comprising MPs from both Houses of Parliament for a significant win. The Third Front had put up a candidate against her, so Ansari was bound to win, as he did. But before that, the Congress, the party to which she once belonged, raked up her tenure as chairman of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) for every misdemeanour they could find: they discovered nothing, but the director general of the ICCR did lose his job on charges of corruption. Heptulla had done her job with customary efficiency.
She was one of 13 vice-presidents of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during Rajnath Singh's previous tenure as president. It was not a spectacular spell but Heptulla, who is known for not letting the grass grow under her feet, utilised that time in getting to know her new party thoroughly. Truth be told, she was feeling a bit isolated. She had left the Congress to join the BJP when, capping a string of humiliations, she was denied another term in the Rajya Sabha and as its presiding officer by the Congress. But the BJP was less than welcoming initially and she didn't have much to do. She shines when the spotlight is on her. It wasn't for a long time. Running for vice-president offered the option of winning to lose.
It also put her on a different trajectory. Her time is now.
Make no mistake. Heptulla does not pretend to be a conservative Muslim: which is why Muslims of Malegaon burnt her effigy when she became the minority affairs minister. She married into the Dawoodi Bohra sect - which is atypically Muslim, given that literacy is 98 per cent and their per capita income is several hundred times higher than the average Indian Muslim. So she has a different perspective on her community. It comes from a world view that is informed by education (she herself has a PhD in Cardiac Anatomy and all her three daughters are highly-educated).
What she wants to do as minority affairs minister is, therefore, no secret. Learning, education and skill development are part of her prescription to liberate minorities in India.
When Heptulla was asked what she thought of the Sachar Committee, her answer was: "What is in the committee report is true. But you should ask those who are promoting it today in the name of Muslim empowerment what they did for the community all these years."
Behind her comment was the background of her bitter struggle to get a place in the sun in Maharashtra Congress politics dominated by the likes of A R Antulay.
As a Muslim in the BJP, her position is different. But she will be the first to acknowledge that she is in a position to make a difference.