In 1973, Sunanda and I took Rahul, then nine, and Manali, then seven, on a vacation to Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. It was a relaxed, easy holiday for our family of four. At the end of it, Rahul had to return to Delhi to take his school examinations while Sunanda, Manali and I were to carry on to Mumbai via Ahmedabad by train. We left Rahul behind in Jodhpur with Colonel Sudarshan Gupta, a family friend, who was to drop him off at the airport where he would catch the connecting flight that came in from Mumbai and went to Delhi via halts in Jodhpur and Jaipur. When the plane landed at Jodhpur, it was full and Rahul had to return to Colonel Gupta’s house. The next day, the same thing happened; no seats were available. Rahul grew concerned but he was nothing if not resourceful.
The pilot of the plane had disembarked for a short time to stretch his legs. As soon as Rahul spotted him at the airport terminal building, he went up to him.
‘Sir, he said, ‘I missed my flight yesterday. If I miss it today as well, I won’t be able to take my examinations.’
The pilot saw reason and promised, ‘Alright, I will take you to Delhi.’
But to take him to Delhi, the pilot had to offload one of the members of his extra cabin crew. I had not seen such magnanimity and concern for a young boy earlier.
When Rahul told us the story on the telephone, we asked him if he knew the name of the pilot.
‘A Captain Rajiv Gandhi,’ he replied.
In 1968, we decided to move to Delhi. Balasaheb Gokhale, Sunanda’s father, had resigned as a permanent judge of the Bombay High Court. Since he felt he should not practise in the same court where he had been a judge, he moved to Delhi to set up a practice in the Supreme Court. Within a few months, Sunanda and I joined him.
Our children were admitted to the Modern School in Delhi. Rahul took up riding, swimming, polo and other sports. Dharminder Singh Anand, one of his earliest friends who remains close to the family was an excellent rider. His son, Vir is an impressive golfer who completed his undergraduate degree at the historic St. Andrews University. Rahul also plays golf extremely well. He has a natural tendency to fly the ball high and long. Not only on the golf course but later in life, he did actually fly high in all walks of life.
While he was still a schoolboy, Rahul had a problem with
his femur, the long bone along the thigh which was fusing improperly into the pelvic bone. This forced him to lie in bed in pain for long stretches. We were advised surgery and went to Mumbai where Dr. K.V. Chaubal operated on him successfully enabling Rahul to lead a normal life.
Rahul is not only cool but extremely polite and patient. He was a smiling baby and that smile has stayed with him. During his surgery, I was deeply anxious but did not want him to see the tears in my eyes. But he would only look up at me with his beautiful eyes and smile, which made me forget that he was in such pain.
After completing his schooling, Rahul studied at Sydenham College of Commerce in Mumbai, staying at the hostel. One day, without any warning, when we were on vacation in Srinagar, he called to inform us that his maternal uncle, Rajiv Gokhale who was an entrepreneur, was sending him to San Francisco on business. Sunanda and I did not take the news well. We were worried that Rahul was leaving his studies midway and would not complete his degree. In the end, we were proven wrong. Rahul spent six months in San Francisco and returned to India to complete his graduation.
The experience of being thrown literally into the deep end of the pool would prove to be an invaluable lesson to him when he set up his own business.
In 1991, Rahul met a journalist, Namita Khanna who had recently returned after her Masters’ degree from Stanford University and was working in Bombay.
They met at the Café Mondegar on Colaba Causeway, just a stone’s throw away from Leopold Café, which would years later become the site of a deadly and tragic terrorist strike on Mumbai on 26 November 2008. Namita had gone to Café Mondegar with some friends after work, and Rahul was visiting from Delhi. There, they met and were introduced to each other by a common friend, Sharmila Joshi. Soon they fell in love with each other. At Chiplun in the Konkan district where they had gone in her second-hand Fiat car, they decided to get married. Rahul called his mother from Chiplun and gave her the news. We were elated of course.
On the day they were to arrive in Delhi, Sunanda rushed straight after court to Bengali Market to buy some mithai. Over there, she noticed another lady – also buying mithai. It was Namita’s mother, Aruna. They had a good laugh when they met for the second time in the evening at our home.
This excerpt from The Arc of Memory: My Life and Times by Murlidhar C Bhandare has been published with permission from Roli Books