Class Act

Meet the Thackers, a family whose rise dates back to the Swadeshi movement, and whose lows matched the moody stock market. But through it all, they have consistently given back to society by building some of the country’s foremost educational institutions.

- Sheree Gomes Gupta

When I first met bonsai artist and author Urvashi Thacker over a decade ago at a friend’s home in Mumbai, there was an instant connect despite our 20-year age gap. It was, of course, her warmth and hospitality that drew me in. In the years that followed, I would learn more about her family’s past and current accomplishments, and why the Thackers are so well respected in the field of education. And what upholding a family legacy truly means. >

SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

If you drive around suburban Mumbai, you’ll find several educational institutions, and even a road, named after Narsee Monjee Thacker, Urvashi’s late grandfather-in-law. Ironically, the autodidact never received a formal education. Instead, he spent hours under streetlights perfecting his mother tongue, Gujarati, and learning English, Hindi and Marathi while prudently mastering accountancy even as he made ends meet as a street hawker selling hats. “He was one of the leading stockbrokers in the city, and even after suffering a severe financial setback he didn’t concede defeat,” recalls Urvashi during one of our thali lunches at her palatial bungalow, Nirant, in Vile Parle, Mumbai, where the family has been living since 1929. She tells me how the family patriarch went on to join Mahatma Gandhi’s Swadeshi movement and subsequently set up successful companies that would take on the British Raj as well as further his philanthropic efforts in the field of education and other humanitarian causes, making him a hero for many.