Industrialist Rahul Bajaj had a confession to make. Self admittedly, he’s made thousands to date but this one was quite close home.
At the unveiling of the English translation of his grandmother, Jankidevi Bajaj’s autobiography, he revealed that to date he’s read only few chapters of the book, originally written in Hindi. But, never the entire book. Jankidevi Bajaj Referring to his sister-in-law Kiran’s (wife of Shekhar Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Electrical) translation of the original, he said, “Kiran felt that the younger generation should read Jankideviji’s book. (And that the) children of the Bajaj family should learn something about Jamnalalji, Jankideviji, Bappu etc. And I don’t want to say it but they would find it easier to read it in English. Why should that be the case? We should speak in our mother tongue, be able read it. But kya kare, zamana aisa hai,” Bajaj said.
As an addendum to his original confession, the family patriarch also shared that he’s managed to read more chapters of the translation than the Hindi version. Even though he knows his Hindi “slightly better than the children”.
