Many would not have heard the story of the Raja and Rani and their beloved Rajkumar. Rajkumar would clap his hands when Rani sung him a lullaby. He kept looking at her new clothes with a smile and eyes wide open. Whenever Rajkumar cried. Rani gave him a toy, but Rajkumar would not be content with just a toy.
He was generally a silent child. But very observant. He would become quiet when his father's radio played Hindi film songs. Hold his mother's pallu when she left him in the room alone. Lying on his mother's bed and looking at the ceiling fan, Rajkumar would seek attention from everyone who went to that room by making some sounds. Like any other child to any other mother, he was the most beautiful child for his mother. Yet, so different from every one else when he grew up. Because, when he grew up, it was his heart that was most beautiful and full of compassion. The family lived in a three-room flat on the third floor of Mangalwadi building in Mumbai's Girgaum. On the 1st of March, 1946, this Rajkumar was born to Rani, wife of Rajaram Dwarkadass Chhabria. They named their Rajkumar as Manohar, as both the parents fell in love with him the moment they set their eyes on him. True to the meaning of his name, Manohar would sway and win over every one with his lovely expressive eyes. Dosibai Hospital at Charni Road, where he was born, was not far away from the flat. He would hear the other children there crying all the time. And he did not want to be known as a crying baby.
There was nothing extraordinary in his childhood. Many boys his age were naughty but as during his infancy, he was an observant and quiet child. He remembered everything that happened in the school. His classmates hardly remember him for speaking out aloud except when there was any injustice done to anyone which he always fought. He would make his stand clear.
He liked to play cricket. But for hours drowned himself in the radio and the parts that enabled him to listen to his favourite Hindi songs. While listening to those songs his face would flush with dreams. His dreamy eyes would become dreamier and he would become more silent than his usual self. When it came to eating bhel-puri at Chowpatty, he would be the first one to pick up his plate and often ask for more. His parents would laugh at seeing his taste for bhel pun. Sometimes his friends would tease him, "you are not a girl that you should eat chaat"
Undeterred by these comments, he continued to be a silent boy with his passion for electronic items, love for bhel puri and dreams to excel. Sometimes, at Gateway of India, he would spend his evenings just looking at the ships on the horizon. Little did anyone know that this innocuous boy of St. Sebastian School will make it so big that people would dream to work in the institution set up by him.
Passing out SSC was a joyous moment. Recalls Ramesh Bajaj, his childhood friend: Manohar's father was sitting with me when the SSC result came. Everybody was very happy as clearing SSC in the Sindhi community those days used to be a big thing. He then joined Siddharth College, but wasn't keen on continuing with his studies and wanted to join his father's radio part shop at Lamington Road. Later on, as his business flourished, he realized that higher education had its own merits in running a successful business and completed a Harvard business course.
At the Lamington Road shop, he started seeing big dreams. The Chhabria and Bajaj families would go out for vacations to Matheran or Mahabaleshwar. He would be lost in the heights of the pine trees there and waves of the Arabian Sea in Mumbai. His eyes would see beyond the streamers that sailed on the rough waters. He was planning something big. He could not be bound within the confines of the Raja Radios at Lamington Road.
Nepoli and Volga restaurants were his favorite joints. Like any other family, both Chhabria and Bajaj families would go out to watch the illumination on the Republic Day. Manu would laugh like a baby at a good joke but was not mischievous at all. He was fond of good clothes, a fancy which only grew with the passing of time.
When Manohar decided to move to Dubai, he was already married to Vidya and was the proud father of two daughters. With a small amount of money, he set up his Jumbo Company to fulfill his Jumbo Dreams. Those were the days when Jumbo jets had just been introduced. He too had a Jumbo vision.
Family values were ingrained in him. Born in brought up in Mumbai. He had retained is family values even while in Dubai. He respected people, something he learned as a child. Sentimental and sensitive as he was, he would get worried when his dog was unwell. Care for his butler and his driver and secretary. Care for his old friends from the school days. He would find answer for all kind of situations. Though he stayed of fights in his childhood, he was a fighter; a quality withstood him in steed while creating and expanding his business empire.
Growing up in a joint family with lots of uncles, aunts and cousins had taught him making the best of a situation in getting the best results. He would know how a person could reach in a particular situation. He idolized his father, was close to his mother. He had a rare quality the quality to forgive.
Manohar would cry while watching a movie, launch with a friend and miss his wife and kids when away on business. He was not just a man of steel, a He had a soft heart, a heart that stopped beating on 6th April 2002.
Rajkumar, who was born to Rajaram and Rani Chhabria and whose name was Manu - Manohar. Not many would know the story of his life.
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