Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

Page 47

From this flat on ground floor, I moved on the second floor when the landlords (my wife's cousins - 3 brothers) built three duplex flats in the building around 1965.
THE JOURNEY 41
My younger brother Mahesh was our parents' last child. He was born in 1938, just a year before my marriage. He was handsome looking among us siblings and a brilliant student. Bapaji sent him to a boarding school - the Scindia School - at Gwalior, which was ranked the third best school after Doon School (Dehra Dun) and Mayo College (Ajmer). He studied there for five years before returning to Mumbai. I got him admission to the prestigious Cathedral School in Mumbai. He fared extremely well there, and then went to Dulwich College in London for his A Levels. Those days Dulwich was considered almost on par with Harrow and Eton. I had accompanied him to the UK by ship in 1954 as Bapaji was still against us flying. Ba travelled with us along with my sister Jailina, who was joining a medical college for her MRCP. We also took our cook Roopchand with us. En route we disembarked at Port Suez, visited Cairo and saw the Pyramids before getting back on the ship at Port Said.
We hired a house in London at Notting Hill gate for Ba. She visited Dulwich a few times to make sure that Mahesh was comfortably settled. Over the weekends, Mahesh and Jailina would visit her in London. By October 1954, when the weather in England began getting colder, Ba decided to return to India. She was by then convinced that Bapaji's decision to send Mahesh to London was the right one. Our cook was allowed to cook on the steamer by special permission.
Later on Mahesh joined Cambridge University. His college - St. Johns - was in the lovely river town of Cambridge. It was also famous for boat racing. After obtaining his BA and MA degrees with distinction, Mahesh went to MIT on a Sloane Scholarship. While he was at Cambridge, he would visit India every two years. Whenever I was abroad I would meet him and take him around on holidays in Europe along with my sisters and daughters.
Leadership is action, not position - Donald H. McGannon