At a certain point Mr. Bissell’s mother intervened. “I want to know your feelings toward my son,” she told Bim. “He is in love with you.”
“He is in love with India,” Bim replied.
“I know my son,” Ms. Bissell said, “and it’s time to fish or cut bait.”
They married in 1963 at Mr. Bowles’s house.
With his wife’s help and connections, Mr. Bissell founded a company, Fabindia, to sell products — home furnishings, clothing and jewelry — made by Indian artisans using traditional techniques. At first it operated out of a room in his rented apartment. Over the decades it grew into a household name in India, with a thriving export business as well as hundreds of retail stores across the country.
After Mr. Bowles’s appointment ended in 1969, Ms. Bissell served his successors, Ambassadors Kenneth B. Keating and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose term ended in 1975.
She then joined the World Bank as its external affairs officer in India, essentially working as a cultural ambassador for the bank and as an all-around fixer, helping the bank’s expatriate officials find housing and schools for their children, shopping with their wives, even setting up their telephone lines. She worked with scores of nongovernmental organizations — and founded one, Udyogini, with a mission to empower Indian women entrepreneurs.
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