28th May 2021.
At about 7.00pm I received an Invite forwarded by my friend & IIT Batch mate Prabhakar to join a Zoom meeting at 8.30pm (my Sydney Time) organised by "The S Factor", with Journalist Neena Gopal and my IITM 1970 Batchmate Sri Kumar, IPS as Guest Speakers
I was all excited as I was going to hear first hand, from Journalist Neena Gopal who accompanied PM Rajiv Gandhi in the same car but seated at the Back and also from SriKumar whom we affectionately Call Super Cop who tracked down the killers and apprehended them all in Bangalore
Sri Kumar was DG Police of Karnataka State and later on as Vigilance Commissioner of India is Credited with Capturing the Sri Lankan LTTE team of assassins who fled Sri Perumbathur in Tamil Nadu after the assassination and were hiding in Bangalore. Sri also solved the famous Telgi Fake Stamp Case of India
I released my very first Publication "Reflections by IITians" at at 2008 PanIIT meet held at IITM Campus.
This Publication Contains articles penned by 35 IITians from all IITs and a range of age groups. The Topic given to all was "Yesterday, Today Tomorrow" to chart the authors education and career path.
The very Last Article (arranged in order of Receipt of Final edition) was "From a Techie to a Top Cop" by A. SriKumar
Being a Conversation with two Hosts and two Guest speakers all of us were requested to Mute out Microphones and we listened with sorrow and grief how a Nice Man & Good Soul met with such a horrific end in a suicide Bomb blast, virtually unheard of in South India and how the Police swung into actions and how quickly a team was put together and how they cracked the case and apprehended all or most of the culprits in a few days.
As I listened to each and every word that was spoken my eyes welled with tears, remembering my few minutes with the Prime Minister of India, when he visited Sydney as PM of India.
PM Rajiv Gandhi accepted an Invitation from Australian PM Bob Hawke to Visit Australia from 14th to 16th Oct 1986 (I think).
On the final leg of his trip after his stint at Canberra he came to Sydney. He had instructed the then High Commissioner of India based in Sydney, to invite "50 Professional Couples from the Indian Community".
As one would understand every Indian in Sydney was keen on meeting the PM of India and there was a clamour for invites. My wife Mithu and I were fortunate to be invited along with some of our close friends. (One Chap offered to pay me Aud $ 1000 for the two tickets too)
The venue was the InterContinental Hotel in Sydney and ten tables were arranged in the main Hall with 5 couples to each Table. From memory about 70% of invitees were Medical doctors. ( As an aside, I was very proud as I had designed manufactured and supplied the Noise Control Equipment in the form of Silencers for the Intercontinental Hotel to the Air Conditioning Contractors Mathew Hall)
Rajiv was born in 1942, two years older than me and when I saw him in person I was reminded of my fav Bollywood actor Sanjeev Kumar
