Ten city personalities pick a hero each and explain the deep influence on them

Maneck Taraporevala, the year he passed, in the T-shirt Sooni got him from her college. Pic/Sooni Taraporevala

Sometimes you don’t recognise a mentor right by your side every day, says one. Another has never met his mentor, but is proud to craft work using his mentor’s tools. Yet another feels his guiding presence around her as she writes. They all agree with feminist writer CS Lakshmi: “A mentor isn’t necessarily someone who moulds you, rather a person who trusts whatever you do.” Meet the original influencers.

Sooni Taraporevala

Maneck Kaka was my grandfather’s younger unmarried brother. Extremely well read thanks to his brothers’ libraries, he lived a spartan life with their unmarried sister in a flat by the Grant Road railway tracks. Since I was a baby, he’d walk from his house to ours at Gowalia Tank. He came at 5pm and left at 8pm. You could set your clock by his arrivals and departures. When I was little, a perennial game used to be me trying to make him stay past 8.

After tea with my grandparents, we’d all sit out on our balcony, and he and I would discuss literature, history, politics. He taught me about the world. We’d joke, tease each other, he knew me inside out. He passed in 1982, leaving me devastated. Since then, I’ve written all my scripts in his room to the sounds of the passing trains. His spirit hovers over me. Sometimes we even talk.

Munawar and Parvana Noorani with young Ehsaan

My mentor would definitely be my late uncle Munawar Noorani. I was already playing in a band in college, totally and passionately into music. Everyone goes through some confusion when it comes to choosing the path of education which will become one’s profession. I changed my mind many times, wanting to study graphic art, total design, architecture and of course business management. Munawar sat me down one day and said, “Let’s talk about your future. I think you should study music.” I asked, “Will there be security in that?” His answer was, “There’s no security in anything you do, you cannot predict what will work for you or not. This is your passion. Follow it and make it work for you.”

Ehsaan Noorani

That’s all I needed to hear. Two years later (I had to complete my BCom because Munawar said, “Once you start something, complete it”), I went to the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California. The rest is history. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1999 and never saw my success. But it’s all thanks to him.

Shanta Gandhi

In the 1930s a young Gujarati girl resisted an early marriage, had her father disown her so that she could study medicine in London, got involved in politics, dance and theatre there, returned during the Independence struggle and continued to fight for a better India all her life.........

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