PREMIUM

MKR arrived dressed immaculately as always in a suit. He looked fragile, but walked in with the perfunctory aid of a walking stick, carrying his hundred years of age lightly. To congratulate him, and recall his great record of service, five persons were approved by him to make short speeches. These were Padma Vibhushan Sonal Mansingh, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Lalit Mansingh (former foreign secretary), Shiv Shankar Menon (also former foreign secretary and national security adviser), and myself.

In one of my earlier columns here, I had written about five men above the age of 90, who were fit and well and leading active and meaningful lives. At the top of that list was MKR, by far the oldest at 98. The other four were Karan Singh, K. Natwar Singh, K.P. Singh (founder and chairperson emeritus of DLF), and Prem Prakash, founder of news agency Asian News International (ANI). MKR had then hosted a lunch for all these five luminaries, along with me and my wife. Of the five grand old men, only one, K. Natwar Singh, passed away recently at the age of 95. It was a great loss, but by the grace of the Almighty, the other four are well.

Among those who spoke yesterday, I was the youngest, and, therefore, knew the least about MKR’s professional life. He joined the IFS in 1949 — four years before I was born— and was foreign secretary from May 1982 to January 1985, when I was just six years old in service. However, I did serve under him at the ministry of external affairs from 1982 to 1985. I was undersecretary on the Soviet Union desk, and he, as foreign secretary, was in charge of this country.