I named my son after him, says IIT-Bombay guard at condolence meet

MUMBAI: “He’s still looking at me, he’s still with me,” said Budram Barai, a retired security guard at Manohar Parrikar’s alma mater, IIT-Bombay, who knew the former chief minister since he was a student there.
Barai recalled the time he spent with Parrikar — how they would eat together between Parrikar’s classes to how Parrikar came to visit him at his home in 2017.
“I used to call him ‘Mannu’. I named my son after him. I always knew he would become someone great; he was a very good student,” Barai said.
On Monday evening, a day after the former chief minister’s demise, IIT-Bombay held a condolence event in his honour. The acting director, Professor AK Suresh, described the loss as not only a “void in the political arena, but also one in humanity”.
“People like him are one in a million, and the values that IIT aims to instill within its students are those that he imbibed within himself, and in doing so he has made IIT proud,” said Suresh.
“He was a jewel,” said Professor SP Sukhatme, IIT-Bombay’s former director.