‘We don’t live off our grandfather’s legacy’

The third-generation Shastris live up to their title. MBAs, lawyers, hotel management graduates and a politician —it is a learned brethren which beholds the Lal Bahadur Shastri dynasty.
‘‘Life is not a lark for the third generation,’’ says Diwakar Shastri, the younger son of the late Harikrishna Shastri, MP, ‘‘It is very easy for a third generation to be wiped out.There is the advantage of a known ancestry, but you have to reinvent yourself.’’
As the sole distributor for Italian Murano lights in India and having recently started Senso, a fine dining restaurant, in partnership with childhood buddy Ajay Jadeja, Diwakar is not living off his grandfather’s brand equity. ‘‘He was low profile and this attribute has passed on like a family heirloom. We don’t live off his deeds — yet, we get his due. The kind of respect we get, despite being the third generation, is something which even current politicians only aspire for. I am proud to be from his family.’’
A family which Shastriji left suddenly, was then raised by Diwakar’s father. Diwakar’s cousin, Rajya Sabha MP Sunil Shastri’s son Vaibhav, who works with Reliance, chips in, ‘‘We are a close-knit family. All of us grew up in Dadaji’s home, at Janpath. It was only in 2000, when the house was converted into a museum, that we moved out.’’
Vaibhav and Diwakar share a political upbringing — with Sunil Shastri at the state level and Harikrishna Shastri at the Centre, there was no conflict of interests. ‘‘We are all professionally-qualified grandsons and, of the grand-daughters, one is a lawyer and the other is pursuing hotel management,’’ says Vaibhav with pride. But awe is reserved for grandfather alone. Says Diwakar, ‘‘My father did not achieve 20 per cent of what my grandfather did. But that is a rule of nature.’’ But he has a vantage point —his striking resemblance to Lal Bahadur. ‘‘That is all I have. Not even one per cent of his deeds has passed on to me!’’ Lal Bahadur Shastri is no more. But the legacy of his modesty still lives on.