New Delhi: Jehangir Pandole, Director, Global Strategy Group at KPMG’s London office, who was seated in the back with Cyrus Mistry, also died in the Palghar car crash on Sunday morning that claimed Mistry’s life. They were returning from the original Parsi fire temple in Udvadia, Gujarat.
Jehangir, apart from being a reputed management consultant who went to London Business School, Mistry’s alma mater as well, was a squash player representing the third generation of his family’s association with the sport. He even donned Indian colours at the 1991 Asian Junior Squash Championships.
His elder brother, Darius, Mistry’s childhood friend and Managing Director and CEO of the private equite firm, JM Financial, who was in the front seat along with his wife Anahita, a leading Mumbai gynaecologist, was a junior national champion and represented India at international squash tournaments as well. Darius and Anahita Pandole are in hospital.
The Pandole family’s association with sports started with Dinshawji Cooverji Pandole, a school teacher whose first love was cricket.
He led the ground-breaking Parsi cricket team that toured England in 1888. According to contemporary newspaper reports, he took a total of 86 wickets in the tour, using a ball produced by Duke & Sons in Britain.
Upon his return to Bombay, Dinshawji decided to launch a lemonade bottling unit from a she in Byculla in 1889. Since the Duke’s brand of cricket balls had proved so lucky for him, he decided that the name would be an auspicious one for his own soft drink company as well.
That explained the name Duke’s which, especially the raspberry soda, became the most preferred accompaniment to a Parsi meal.
Dinshawji’s son, Feroze, went a step ahead and launched the mango-flavoured Mangola, which proved to be a runaway hit, but that was not his only claim to fame. Feroze was a former national boxing champion and he was in his late 30s when he took up squash to remain fit, but he went on to become the national veteran champion.
His sons Naval and Dinshaw chose to follow in his footsteps. Naval bagged the national veterans title in 1996 and Dinshaw, who later esold Duke’s to Pepsi in 1994, represented India in the World Championships in 1965. Jehangir and Darius are Dinshaw’s sons.
Naval’s son Rishad was three-time national junior champion and captained the Indian team at the World Junior Championships in 1992. Rishad’s nephew Yohan, too, is a squash player and was the under-11 national champion.
(IANS)
