She is the better half of a person who floated perhaps the first successful travel trade company, which changed the way people travelled to India. She has mothered a son who in his rightful capacity has given the travel fraternity an iconic inbound travel company; Delhi its classiest mall and introduced the “all-inclusive” hotel concept in India. Extending support, knowledge, values and an eco system, all from afar, never bringing the limelight on herself, Mrs. Aruna Sharma, wife of late Mr. Inder Sharma and mother of Neeraj Ghei and Arjun Sharma, is a rare gem, not just in today’s time but also in the era where she grew and fought narrow mindsets and traditional ideologies to become a doctor and marry the love of her life! Yes, they don’t make women like her anymore and it was an absolute honour interviewing her for our BOTT Mother’s Day Special series.
Priyanka Saxena Ray
I have been conducting interviews of people in the travel fraternity for close to two decades now and there are few who can unnerve me, not with what they have to say, but by their stature. She has seldom been in the limelight and I was apprehensive regarding her response to my personal questions, since this was to be a personalised interview for mother’s day. But when I walked into the plush chambers of Arjun Sharma’s office, Mrs. Aruna Sharma’s warm smile won my heart over even before we had exchanged greetings.
Born in Lahore, the young Aruna moved to Delhi with her family when she was just 14 years old. Daughter of an eye surgeon father and a highly-educated mother, she was born in a household where imparting education to the girls was of utmost importance – so much so that it was her grandmother who would take the girls to school, ensuring regular attendance. She took admission in pre-medical in Hindu College with the focus of following her father’s footsteps when life, it seemed, had other plans for her. Aruna met Mr. Inder Sharma at a Bus Stop and it was definitely love at first sight for both of them!
“He would buy my bus-ticket and I started enjoying my life with Inder. He was a good debater and part of the Student’s Congress. Spending time with him was the highlight of my day and he became the centre of my life,” Mrs. Sharma reminisces with a blush in her cheeks – a testimonial of her innocent love in times when it was so rare.
In true filmy style, her father got to know about the relationship and took the young Aruna with him to Dibrugarh and got her admission in Assam Medical College. The love though, continued to blossom through love letters sent back and forth. To complete her MBBS, she came back to Lady Harding Medical College Delhi and her relationship, which many had thought would die due to distance, strengthened further. “I stopped eating, fell sick, my younger brother went to threaten him, but nothing could keep us away from each other. Finally Inder got a job and started earning and my father conceded to our marriage,” she shares.
She was in her final year when her first child was born – Neeraj Sharma, a beautiful daughter who wasn’t too naught and allowed her mother to pursue her internship at Irwin Hospital. “I would take permissions from my seniors at the hospital to come home and feed the baby as we had duties during the night. My mother-in-law was a lady with not much progressive thinking and found it discomforting to see me out on night duties. She wanted me to be a housewife but Inder supported me always and told everyone in the family that I would work. However, I soon cleared UPSC, got a job at CGHS and Arjun came into our lives then,” she says, smiling at her son, sitting across the table, affection clearly written all over her face.
Education has always been an important aspect of Mrs. Sharma’s life – a value that was instilled in her early by her own parents and grandparents and so she passed on the same to her children as well by getting them admitted in one of the best schools in Delhi at that time – Modern Barakhamba Road. “I would take Arjun with me to Dispensary to ensure that he completed his homework. He was a very naughty child – always up to some mischief. My daughter was the more studious one,” Mrs. Sharma remembers.
With the business growing and getting strong with time, one would expect that the kids grew up in lavish lifestyle – only to be corrected on the subject. The family outings were never to any fancy five-star hotels but to quintessential classic joints of Delhi such as Moti Mahal Daryaganj, Kwality and Gaylord restaurants in Connaught Place. The holidays too would not be to an exotic international destination but usually restricted to Shimla and Kashmir. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was indeed the tough upbringing by the senior Sharma couple that laid the foundation of the successful life that their offsprings are currently leading. Not to forget the genes of their mother – a fiercely independent lady who lived her life on her own terms.
“I learned driving after marriage and had a fiat car, which I would drive to work every day. My salary was my saving, which only I could spend on things I deemed fit. After retirement, I joined the Rotary Eye Clinic and was associated with them for 2 years. Post that, I got associated with at their charitable clinic in Zamrudpur and continue to go there three times a week even today,” she says, leaving me in complete awe and respect as I looked upon an 86 year old lady who despite having all luxuries in life, believes in treating the needy for free.
Her granddaughters – Shreya (25) and Amaraah (10) are the apple of her eyes and spending time with both of them is something that she eagerly looks forward to. As a young granny, she has literally brought up Shreya till she was 9 and had some fond memories to share of their time spent together in Children’s Park and accompanying her to her golf lessons.
I can write another 1000 words on this extremely marvellous, awe inspiring and exemplary lady and still have more to say, but whatever I write, is limited compared to the journey that she has undertaken. As we sat and chatted about her life, a look of contentment on her face, she could not help but gush about her faith in Guruji, which she believes changed her life for forever. Been following him for over 16 years now, she feels she has met the Lord on earth and there is nowhere else she’d rather be than at his Ashram.
