Brothers Pendse

Four of the seven Pendse brothers stand together on Dattatraya's balcony. This is an upper class Indian home. Datta occupied the whole floor of a condo in Pune where we arrived yesterday - about 3 hour's drive Southeast of Mumbai. It's further into the hills here and less humid so it feels a bit cooler. Datta built and ran the largest manufacturing operation supplying air brake cylinders for the Tata truck manufacturing operation. If you haven't heard of Tata, then you don't know India. Everyone in India starts their day with the yogic Salute-to-the-Sun but it could actually be called a salute to Tata because Tata made their air conditioner, alarm clock, coffee maker, egg fryer, refrigerator, car, gas, road tarmac (you get the idea).
Pictured are

• Madhu, age 78 used to run a large-scale hen-and-egg operation raising 1 Lak of eggs per day (100,000 eggs)
• Raghu - age 82 was an architect
• Datta - age 85 runs a brake manufacturing company
• Prabhakar - age 75 is an American pediatric surgeon

This group was calling Prabhakar the baby but Kamalakar is really the youngest. Right now he lives in New Jersey. We also visited with the eldest - Bhau - age 92 in Mumbai. He was an artistic craftsman. One more brother lives in California.

It seems to me from several examples that Indian families cling together almost like a Japanese Keiretsu. They decide each others' fate, marriage, business and reputation together. That structure is rapidly breaking down in Indian society. But where it has held together it is a formidable business organization.