Dear Nandini Mam, Naintara and Naira, please accept my heart felt condolences. very very sad to hear about Sir’s early demise. Im shocked and unable to express how sad I feel that he’s no more. I worked with Sir in 2011-12-13 during the period he was HE PRI to UNESCO, as I worked at the World Heritage and UNESCO Section of the Archaeological Survey of India as consultant. He heard everyones opinion and gave equal opportunity to All concerned and then took up the issues and resolved it. Our delegation spent ten days in Paris during the World Heritage Convention and he treated us so well and we were so comfortable. He was the most ‘non Governmental’ IAS officer I have met and always took and portrayed India as a country to its highest standards. I never had the guts to go up to him as I always thought he’s such a high up officer and why would he listen to me. So I never did approach him except for accidental social gatherings, and everytime he would ask where are you now?
I met him last along with Nandini Mam in Dec 2019 at Uncle Subroto’s house at Maharani Baug and had a long long chat (almost an hour)with them and we remembered so many incidents of the past and he had so many more stories to tell about the World Heritage Convention and the processes at UNESCO including how he had to leave his holiday and rush to Azerbaijan to get Jaipur inscribed on the list because “auntie” asked him to(that was funny). I admitted to him that I was always too scared to approach him and he cleared my doubt and said, “we must meet soon”, and shared his mobile number too, said “just call”. That meant alot to me and i have learnt alot from Sir during those years. May his soul rest in peace.