Two elderly Indians of my acquaintance died last month, one in Mumbai, the other in Bengaluru. Both were in their late nineties. The first grew up in the princely state of Udaipur, the second in the towns of the Madras Presidency. Both came to adulthood in the last years of the raj. Both showed, from early in their youth, a keen interest in science and technology. Both were educated as engineers, first in British India and then in the United Kingdom. Both could have stayed on in the West and made a comfortable living there, yet both came back shortly after 1947 to work in their newly-independent country. On returning home, neither joined one of the multinational companies then operating in India, or even an Indian-owned private engineering firm such as the Tatas or Kirloskars. Both chose to work in the less lucrative (if, in their eyes, more honourable) public sector instead.
These two recently-deceased Indians were entirely unaware of each other’s existence. I had the good fortune to know them both, one well, for he was my father’s younger brother, the other slightly, as the father of a close friend. The strikingly similar lives they led, and the broadly comparable professions…
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