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42 PRATAP BHOGILAL - JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE
The death of Mahesh, my youngest brother and the brightest among us, was another cruel blow...
Daughters Chitra, Dharini, Darshana....son Nirmal
When Chitra, my eldest daughter, was going to London in early 1957 for studies, accompanied by Bhagwati, they had to go via Cape of Good Hope which was a very tedious route, around South Africa as the Suez Canal had been closed the previous year, 1956. Initially, Chitra cried when she was left alone at Cheltenham. A year later, Dharini, my second daughter, joined her there. By then the Suez Canal had opened. The following year Darshana too went to London. My sisters Dinbala, Vimla and brother Mahesh were still in the UK at the time and they all met often in London.
During that stage, whenever I travelled in Europe, I would take my three daughters, my brother Mahesh and my two sisters, who were studying in England, along with me. My sister Vimla was doing her FRCS in London and Dinbala was studying for her Ph.D in Chemistry at the Glasgow University. During a trip in 1958, we hired a Mercedes 300 and all of us drove to Geneva and Vienna before settling down at a small villa we had hired for three weeks in Hofgastein in Austria, 2-3 kilometres from Badgastein, a famous spa. Quite often during our stay there, we would drive to Salzburg to attend concerts during the music festival.
My father's decision to take over Batliboi had a humane angle to it...
Batliboi and Company had been formed by one Jehangirjee Framji Batliboi in 1893 as a proprietary concern. Bapaji took over Batliboi in 1915 (a year before my birth). Vadikaka, who had initiated the process of takeover by bringing in the proposal, became a working partner in Batliboi
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