The Raja of Rotary hearts As past RI President Raja Saboo completes 90 years, Rotary News takes a look at his contribution in spearheading mega service projects, mentoring Rotarians and creating leaders.
Anybody travelling to Chandigarh for a Rotary-associated visit is bound to hear about Rajendra Saboo’s contributions to Rotary, not only as RI President, RI director, district governor or club president… but right from his early years.
And if you are there for any project or event associated with the iconic Rotary Club of Chandigarh, then you will definitely meet the man, who recently completed 90, with no visible signs of any dilution in his zeal, passion and love for all things associated with Rotary, and the myriad ways in which Rotary has touched and continues to touch so many lives in the Tricity of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula. You will also witness first-hand the genuine affection and respect that his club members have for him, and the eagerness with which they look up to him for support, approval and encouragement.
Over the last decade I’ve heard a lot about how Saboo has cast a magical spell over Rotarians in Chandigarh, particularly his club, by conceptualising, supporting and spearheading community service projects related especially to education and healthcare in the Tricity. And, that even at 90, he doesn’t miss a single club meet, if he is in town. To find out more, I land in Chandigarh on a hot and sultry August afternoon, as questions brim in my head, with, I must admit, a tinge of scepticism which becomes a constant companion of journalists after long years in the profession, to try and get a glimpse of the Saboo magic, see some iconic projects and meet his club members.
Over a hectic two days, and a round of a few projects RC Chandigarh, RID 3080, has done and with which the former RI President is still actively associated, that leaves me gasping for breath, Saboo marches along briskly and merrily with the little group taking me around. He shows no sign of any fatigue while we walk through the long, shining and spanking clean corridors of the third school of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, built under his leadership as the chair, or negotiate the tricky, uneven and crowded paths, nooks and corners of the huge and sprawling Dr B R Ambedkar State Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital in Mohali. At this hospital, thanks to Saboo’s encouragement and support, RC Chandigarh president-elect Abha Sharma’s dream conceived a few years ago as club secretary, was executed last year by the club’s IPP Anil Chadda. The result is a state-of-the art human milk bank, where even more precious than the latest equipment and the spanking new facilities, is the passion and commitment of hospital director Dr Bhavneet Bharti, who was encouraged by Abha to join her club so that together they could give a concrete shape to their dream human milk bank. (Read details about this project in a subsequent issue.) “But we couldn’t have done it without PRIP Saboo and PDG Madhukar Malhotra’s support,” says Abha.
With excitement, enthusiasm and energy of a strapping young lad, firmly refusing any hand extended to support him while he climbs up or alights stairs, Saboo shows me around the Bhavan, with which he has been associated right from 1978, and headed as its chairman from 1996. Later we drive to the plush third Vidyalaya of the Bhavan in New Chandigarh, a dream of Saboo that PDG Malhotra, as the organisation’s secretary, worked so hard to execute. The result is a fantastic school located on a beautifully landscaped five-acre campus that can compete with the best not only in India but across the world with the most modern facilities and equipment, and where a swimming pool is now going to come up.
But it is while Saboo is interacting with the special children — there are 60 of them at the Bhavan — and children in classrooms at the Vidyalaya that you see the sparkle in his eye and the special smile on his face to which the children respond with immediate spontaneity. It is the same connect that Rotarians who have worked with him on medical missions in Africa and India or other service projects have seen for themselves over the years.
When I comment on these magical vibes with children, Vineeta Arora, senior principal of all the three Bhavan schools, nods enthusiastically and says, “Yes, children have this unique gift of recognising genuine affection from people.” Asked how she would sum up Saboo’s contribution to the Bhavan and its schools, she says simply, “Well, the Bhavan has been an inseparable part of Mr Saboo’s journey in both Rotary and life.”
On my way from the airport to the hotel, we make a stop at the colony for leprosy patients that is one of the iconic projects that Saboo had initiated and nurtured in the early years. But as in most service projects he initiated, it was his wife Usha, who had first planted the seed of this project in his mind. (see Box on Usha’s contribution).
But the one mega project which is synonymous with Rajendra Saboo is the 30-odd Rotary medical missions done in Africa and India. Here too, Usha “sowed the seed of an idea” as she puts it, to fill a void in his Rotary life after the hectic two years spent in Evanston as incoming and then serving RI President, and then TRF chair and trustee.
After his return to India, PDG Dr Madhav Borate had invited Saboo for a conference in Pune where a team of doctors from the US had come to conduct a polio camp. “As his term as TRF chair was ending, I asked him ab kya karongey, and he said “sochengey” (I will think about it). When he told me about the American doctors who come to Pune annually to do polio camps, I said we also have no shortage of doctors. At that time Africa was in the news for hunger, polio and HIV/AIDS, so why can’t we help there,” recalls Usha. A member of the American team of doctors was of Indian origin — Nandalal — who had some connection with Uganda. He said he could organise a medical mission for Indian Rotary doctors there. “Just see how an idea was born from the Pune conference and how everything came together to execute it,” she smiles.
But, “even though all these service projects, be it the leprosy colony, medical missions, the blood resource centre, the PGI Serai, Heartline, Peace Monument, Diwali sweets for jawans etc are like his babies and our entire family is so proud of his work in Rotary, if the club members hadn’t supported the projects wholeheartedly, nothing could have been done. We have a very good club, they take up seriously every idea you give. Now we have an ongoing project to give 125 food packets to TB patients every month; I have personally gone there a couple of times. It’s not only our club, every Rotary club in India is doing community service because the need is there. If you keep your eyes, ears, mind and heart open, you have opportunities to do seva (service) everywhere.”
When I exclaim that though she always says “our club”, she herself is not a Rotarian and yet has made such a huge contribution to Rotary, Usha laughs and says, “I never felt the need to join Rotary, because I am a Rotarian at heart and in mind. Honestly, whatever project our club wants to do… from collecting money to giving time, to hosting anybody… earlier GSE teams used to come… I am always there for Rotary.”
Usha thinks Saboo’s strongest qualities include “giving hundred per cent to whatever he does, total integrity and fairness. He has taken to heart the core values of Rotary such as fairness and integrity, right from the time he became a Rotarian (1966).” In those days, as even now, India was famous for election issues. “When contesting for governorship he told our club members that you can visit clubs but if I hear anything about bribing or offering free rooms during district conference or any wrong doing, I will withdraw my candidature. He was very strict on integrity and this was observed also for director and president’s positions.”
She adds, “Taking the side of right and not bothering about what will be the result, has been his principle always, in life, business, family and Rotary.”
Club presidents admire Saboo’s junoon for service
I meet RC Chandigarh past presidents at the Rotary House, where a Hall of Fame has been created with the memorabilia from Saboo’s Rotary journey, specially as RI President. PDG Madhukar Malhotra, who has worked closely with Saboo over long years, be it in the planning and execution of the medical missions or as secretary — Saboo is the chairman — of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, finds him “an amazing person. It is his passion to do good which has impressed me so much, whether it is his theme as RI President — Look beyond yourself — or the Rotary motto ‘Service Above Self’, he has walked the talk. It’s not that I’ve always been a yes person… I’ve also had differences with him, but I guess he must have decided ki banda tau kaam karney wala hei, isko laga do, yeh bhi fans jayega (This guy is a doer; let me give him work, he will get engrossed in it)!”
He makes it clear that even though “it’s such a pleasure working with him, he is a hard taskmaster. During the medical missions, he’d get up at 5am and say come for a walk… his energy levels were immense, and it was difficult to keep pace with him.”
On his involvement with the Bhavan schools, where Malhotra is the secretary, the PDG says that initially Saboo tried to get him interested in trying for an RI director’s position. “But when I said that I am not interested, he said get involved in the Bhavan schools where you’ll have to go twice a week for 1–2 hours… and now it has become a full-time assignment! This is my 13th year.”
IPP Anil Chadda says Saboo has the rare combination of being “a visionary, totally supportive and an uncanny ability to find solutions to any problem you bring to him. How he does it, I don’t know, but he has both the experience and vision to convert any idea into reality.” Giving the example of the milk bank project which was on the anvil for two years, and was executed last year under Chadda’s leadership, he says, “he just said Anil, yeh kaam karna hei, and we did it. That is his leadership.”
Another past president who has worked with Saboo earlier in his business and watched him from close quarters is Charanjit Singh. “He walks the talk; he brings out the best in people, and does so by discussing things threadbare and helps you find a solution. Being a visionary, he can imagine people’s needs. In his earlier years he was temperamental, and would lose temper at times, but that was because he expected nothing less than excellence from those who worked with him.”
Singh recalls that on his journey to becoming RI President, when Saboo faced some challenges, “one day I walked into his room and found a slip of paper with his handwriting. I thought it was a prayer but it was a quote from Swami Vivekananda which said: ‘Give me power equal to my task’. I think this very inspiring quote is also the key to his success in both life and Rotary.
PDG Praveen Goyal admires Saboo’s “sincerity, commitment and his being a hard taskmaster. I have learnt from him that when we promise somebody something, then it has to be done.”
President of the club Jatinder Kapur says he met Saboo as a Rotaractor in 1978, and even then as club secretary and president, “when I wrote to him — there was no email in those days — I always got a reply. He is a beacon of light for our club; if we are commanding so much respect and are doing such great projects, it is all thanks to him. And he is so humble; he always says you are my president, attends every club meeting and if he wants to leave early, he always seeks permission.”
Past president Jaspal Singh Siddhu has learnt humility from him, and Youth Services director Tina Virk finds him “a role model who has proved by his continuous presence and dedication that service is possible always, despite age or ill health. If our club does a langar in a slum area, he is there to serve! I am inspired by his energy and enthusiasm.”
President-elect Abha Sharma says Saboo has created so many leaders and marvels at how active Saboo was during the Covid pandemic. “I was then club secretary and every morning at 7 he would call us up and ask what have you planned, where are you reaching relief today. And he would follow up through the day… he is meticulous, looks at all the details, and yet always sees the big picture. That is the beauty of his personality. But above all it is his passion… a kind of junoon for service that makes him so unique.”
Pictures by Rasheeda Bhagat and Rajendra Saboo’s library
The many seeds Usha Saboo sowed
In a freewheeling chat with Usha at their beautiful home in Chandigarh, where, as past RI President K R Ravindran says, the couple have entertained with such love, care and fine hospitality, not only national leaders and international Rotary seniors, but hundreds of ordinary Rotarians, I ask her about the role she has played in Rajendra Saboo’s Rotary journey. She smiles and says, “So many lovely things begin with just a small seed or an idea.” She relates the story of how on a dark evening, while stepping out from her car, she heard a shriek. “It was a man with leprosy, dressed in rags and bleeding from wounds, and all I could see were his two eyes.” Totally shaken, she discussed this with everyone she could — the Red Cross and Inner Wheel with whom she was associated, and top officials of Chandigarh.
She had learnt that evening from that man that there were about 80 or 90 people like him, living in dilapidated thatch huts near the river, and begged to eke out a living. “There were men, women and children. Absolutely shocked, I told Raja that Rotary should do something.”
The result from that little seed sown in 1971 is a beautiful colony which now houses 172 people; those afflicted with the disease have long been cured with adequate medical care. They have been given goats for livelihood by RC Chandigarh. The inmates of the colony have built a temple; I came away with images of smiling children and healthy adults living in clean, pucca homes.
Similarly, adds Usha, so many other Rotary projects were born from small ideas. “That is the power of a seed. Long ago, when we visited the PGIMER in Chandigarh, we found patient’s relatives lying in the corridors or under the trees. You and I can go to a private ward, where our relatives can stay. But the relatives of low-income patients had no place to stay. So I told Raja that if your club is looking for a project, there is one right here. That is how the PGI Serai came up in 1986 for the patients’ relatives.”
Having worked with the Red Cross and being a member of Inner Wheel, Usha had also seen people dying for want of blood at a time when there was no voluntary blood donation. “People were so scared to give blood; so in 1973 when Chandigarh hosted the first district conference, we set up a van to collect blood from willing delegates. Now of course the Rotary Blood Bank Resource Centre is a project RC Chandigarh members are so proud about.”
On his own, Raja could have done nothing, but thanks to support from RC Chandigarh members, all these seeds have blossomed into good projects.
Another major club project — Gift of life: Rotary Heartline — came about from another “small seed”. Usha recalls that once a domestic helper told her about his little daughter who lived in Delhi, getting breathless. “I said why don’t you bring her to Chandigarh. We got her checked at the PGI and found she had a hole in the heart. The surgery cost around ₹40,000 or so, which was a lot of money then, but I paid for it.”
After two years he returned and said his little son also had the same problem. Once he was also helped, the news spread “that we were organising free surgeries and people with sick children started lining up at our door. I told Raja: ‘There must be a purpose, why is god sending these people to us?” She also took up the matter with Inner Wheel and they did organise an odd operation here and there, “but we didn’t have that kind of money and other projects started suffering. Finally Rotary took it up and the Rotary Heartline project was born. And then we started going to Africa where this problem is huge. So African children started coming and we also did heart operations on Pakistani children.”
She adds ruefully, “PDG Madhukar has just returned from a medical mission; we couldn’t go because the children don’t allow us anymore.”
Cheering up, she smiles… “just see how the seeds of kindness, giving, and support from others grow into plants and trees. If you have a strong desire, sincerity, and if your mind and heart are big enough, there is no lack of support. On his own, Raja could have done nothing, but thanks to support from his club members, all these seeds have blossomed into good projects.”
PRIPs Banerjee and Ravindran on Saboo
While most Rotarians focus on past RI President Rajendra Saboo’s contributions to Rotary after serving in senior positions, past RI President Kalyan Banerjee thinks that “Raja’s greatest contribution has been that in the early years, 1965–85, and even a decade later, he helped hold India as one cohesive unit of all Rotarians. There were both colleagues and competitors those days. Raja’s gift was to keep them all together in a loose assemblage. This even when he had not yet been chosen as president. But he stood out as Rotary’s icon even when others were around.”
He also highlights Saboo’s ability to choose the right people. “Raja knew the people and the people knew him. He rightly helped in the choice of (PRIP) K R Ravindran to become a TRF trustee when even all of Sri Lanka hardly knew Ravi. And when he or others faced legal or other challenges, Raja knew which Rotarian, who, where, and how, could help Rotary achieve peace and carry on.”
Ravindran says the phrase ‘larger than life’ is most fitting for Saboo. “Raja is a visionary, dreamer, a builder; a man of enlightenment. His charisma, wholehearted generosity and profound leadership are evident through his journey. He has shown through example that one can thrive in life, business and Rotary without compromising integrity, always keeping promises, dealing fairly and displaying decency and empathy.”
Banerjee adds that Rotary’s Peace Programme, “perhaps Rotary’s most significant contribution to world peace today, was a brainchild emanating from Raja. Over the last quarter of a century, I think it’s been Rotary’s most lasting contribution to bring people together.”
Ravindran says, “Raja captivates you with his extravagant charm, intense generosity, and a whole-souled view of friendship.” Calling him “a legend without the myth,” he says often legends “intertwine fact and myth to beguile, impress and inspire. Raja, however, is a leader whose story is grounded in reality. His ability to inspire unyielding loyalty, as he did with me and others, is a testament to this exceptional leadership qualities.”
Yet again, the last word has to go to spouse Usha; commenting on the “pivotal role played by his lovely, gentle spouse Usha”, Ravindran says in “many ways she is the ‘force’ behind Raja’s accomplishments. Her disarming ways, a look from her, or a mere nod, was enough to guide Raja’s decision.”
