Vishwas Thakurdas

Vishwas Thakurdas, 1974 Civil, H3 – 1950-2008

Written by Narayan Kulkarni, Chem H4

Vishwas Thakurdas was a beloved friend whom we lost in 2008. Here is a brief sketch of how I saw Thakur (as we used to call him).

Thakur was from Solapur. Our other friends – Dilip Shete (Mech Engg, H4) and Uday Karogal (Chem Engg, H3) were also from Solapur, so Thakur became a natural part of our friend circle almost immediately. During the first week at IIT, popular movie ‘Mary Poppins’ was shown at the convo hall. Most of us from Marathi medium failed to understand the movie, but there is a scene somewhere in the movie where a horse bursts out singing. Thakur liked that scene so much that he kept repeating it again and again, until the nickname ‘Ghoda’ stuck with him for the rest of his life.

After completing his B.Tech., Thakur worked for various organizations including BMC, Indian Airlines, and Unity Construction. He worked on important government projects, working closely with Manohar Parrikar, a fellow IITian and Chief Minister of Goa, as well as Chief Ministers of Maharashtra & other states. Thakur worked on the construction of Pise Dam (on Bhatsa river), one of the main sources for municipal water for Mumbai. He managed the renovation of the domestic airport at Mumbai (T1). He was responsible for building various buildings at Lokhandwala Complex, and APMC markets at Vashi and Kalyan. Toward the end of his career, Thakur was managing major reconstruction at Tata Cancer Hospital in Mumbai. It was difficult for him to see the way the construction industry treated the construction workers who faced hardships and had no rights. One afternoon in 2008 as he was returning from his job, he suffered a massive heart attack and died in the car.

One less known fact about Thakur was that he was married when he entered IIT. He and Karogal had to struggle hard to keep this news from spreading, otherwise you can imagine the scale his ragging would have taken. He did not make the news known almost until the end of our stay at IIT. Not sure if and when you residents of H3 came to know about this interesting tidbit.

Thakur was a family friend. He had three sons – Santosh, Satish, and Mahesh – who are accomplished in their own fields and settled in Mumbai or nearby areas. One interesting memory – Thakur’s three sons were older than our older daughter, Swati. During one of our family trips to India, we visited Thakur’s house in Titwala. His three sons and their pet cats had a gala time with this crazy 10-year-old girl who did not know much of Marathi and spoke English with a funny accent! Thakur, we love you. You will be missed as long as we live, especially when we friends get together and reminisce good ole’ times.