Dad, "Papa," Kumarsaab - Shri Surendra Kumar - was one of the gentlest and humblest persons who ever existed.
A schoolteacher of mine, from our neighborhood in Durgapur, said to me on several occasions, "Kumarsaab hamesha jhuk kar chalte hain (Mr. Kumar always walks with humility)."
Born in 1935 in Najibabad in the Bijnor district of western UP, he received his education in Bijnor, Agra and Kanpur (Chemical Engineering). He held his first job as a trainee at Modi Sugar Mills and then moved from there to the Fertilizer Plant in Sindri (Bihar), finally ending up at the Durgapur Steel Plant in West Bengal, from where he retired.
