He was, as a friend recalls: "Simple,
almost naive, sincere and honest, without any flare or flamboyance." His
mother, a primary teacher at the Poddar School in Santa Cruz, had a great
impact on her son as well as on her numerous students who hold her in great
esteem.
Mhatre himself never smoke
or drank. He was interested in a variety of subjects, from history to art and
the sciences. While posted in Delhi he obtained diplomas in company law and
taxation from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan. As a boy he was so immersed in books
that he was sometime absent-minded about carrying out family chores.
Mhatre brought to his job a
rare personal touch. A sobbing woman mourner at Vikhroli recalled how when she
was feeling homesick and pregnant in strife-torn Teheran, Mhatre tried to cheer
her up by secretly arranging a quiet ceremony to celebrate her seventh month
of pregnancy, a custom among Maharashtrians. He had even written to his wife to send a green sari for the
function.
Another friend remembers
how when he wrote to Mhatre to find out, if possible, about a Dr Tilak from the
National Chemical Laboratory who was ill and in hospital in Teheran, Mhatre
went from hospital to hospital to locate the man and when he found him,
insisted on bringing him to his house.
He continuously showed a rare initiative and concern about Indians
abroad. When he recognised the famous classical singer Prabha Atre in Teheran,
he persuaded her to give a concert as he did with Aran Datte, the Marathi
singer. Hundreds of Indian students are indebted to him for the interest he
took in advising them about universities abroad.
Every city in which he was
posted, Mhatre got to know intimately. Said a friend: "He could always
tell you the restaurant where you got the best kulfi or the shop which had the
right goods from India. I remember when he was posted in Dhaka, he found a
tailor who stitched a suit for Rs 10. He got one made and wore it
proudly."
Ironically, on August 15,
1982, when he was transferred to Birmingham, the family was thrilled because
it represented the first safe post after years in trouble-spots.
- He was in Dhaka
in undivided Pakistan at the time of the Indo-Pakistan war in the mid-'60s
and was, like other Indians, placed under house arrest.
- He was in Iran
during the thick of the riots when the Shah was removed and Ayatullah
Khomeini took over.
As a result he was often
separated from his family, since Mhatre and his wife Shobha were keen that the
education of their only child Asha, now 14, should not suffer. Asha, a bright
student, had earlier stayed on in Bombay with her mother to study at St Columba
School.
In Birmingham, however, the family was finally
together and Asha studied at a local school. Tragically Asha's birthday fell a
day after her father was kidnapped. From phone messages to the family in
Bombay, it seems the teenager is trying bravely to cope with the situation. She
begged her concerned relatives not to phone at odd hours as it disturbed her
mother who was not at all well.
One of Mhatre's leisure
activities was "bhendia" a Marathi game of reciting couplets with the
ending word of a previous poem and very often he composed the poems and sang
them.
A colleague recalls that a
few years back when he visited the Qutub Minar in Delhi, he was so inspired
that in Marathi he composed a couplet remarking that as the "Qutub soars loftily
into the blue skies, so should a man soar high in his career and
attainments". But before he could
fulfil those ambitions for himself and his family, Mhatre was cruelly struck
down.