Having been brought up in an army family with my late father Lt General FN Bilimoria, who was posted every two or three years throughout his career, I was brought up in Hyderabad, I went to 7 different schools, and ended up at boarding school in Ooty in the Nilgiri Hills of South India
From the age of 14, I have lived away from my parents, visiting them on my school and university holidays, and later when I came to study in England at the age of 19, coming to visit them on annual trips to India, come what may.
I have always been extremely close to my parents and to my younger brother Nadir, and my own grandparents in Sikandrabad and Hyderabad.
As I built a business from scratch with all the ups and downs, building Cobra into a household name in the UK, I have realised that the most important part of life is family.
I remember I met my South African wife Heather in London, a year after I started Cobra Beer. When we were thinking of getting married, I thought it was very important for her to meet my family in India and for me to visit South Africa to meet her family. My parents and family in India could not have been more welcoming to Heather. Although no one in my family in the generations above had married outside the Parsi community, in my parents view, it did not matter — what mattered was the individual and they took an instant liking to Heather and welcomed her into the family.
When we married in December of 1993, we had a Parsi religious ceremony in London, a civil ceremony in the Chelsea Town Hall, an Anglican Christian Church wedding (Heather is Anglican), a civil Indian wedding at the Indian High Commission, followed by a wedding on the farm in South Africa, conducted by a Belgian Catholic priest, followed by a Zoroastrian Parsi blessing in Hyderabad, India, all within the space of one month. I have been married six times to the same person!
From the time our four children were born, we have taken them to India every year, as well as of course to South Africa.
They have felt absolutely at home in all three countries. As my father said to me when I went to study abroad to the UK as a 19 year old from India, “wherever you live in the world, integrate into the community you are living in, to the best of your ability, but never forget your roots”. I have tried to live that advice, through both myself and my family.
The children have all had their Navjote ceremony, initiating them into the Zoroastrian religion, in Hyderabad, India and they have also been baptised at birth, therefore being able to practice as Christians and Zoroastrians. When our older son Kai joined Eton College, we were not present when he signed the school register where he had to declare his religion, and he unprompted and instinctively entered “Zoroastrian”.
The children have been very close to their grandparents, to my father when he sadly passed away 20 years ago, and of course to my mother Yasmin, who they call Yasima, who lives in Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas. They have a wonderful relationship with her, wherein for example our older son Kai, from the time he was in boarding school, would regularly call her to give her news, get her advice…
My parents would visit the UK regularly and it was a joy for them to be with their grandparents here. There is a note written to Kai by his grandfather, Lt Gen F N Bilimoria, dated June 2001, addressed to Field Marshall Kai Bilimoria, which we keep and treasure; Kai did not end up joining the army but was selected on the Fast Stream of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and is now a diplomat, about to embark on his second foreign posting.
When I was appointed Chancellor of the University of Birmingham in 2014, as the first Indian born Chancellor of a University in Great Britain, my mother flew across for my installation. Of all the appointments I have been fortunate and privileged to have held, this one meant more to her than anything as she is a proud alumna of the University of Birmingham, having graduated in English Language and Literature in the 1950s. She loved her time at university and used to attend classes in her sari every day. She was President of University House.
Her father, J D Italia, graduated in Commerce from the University of Birmingham in 1930, and her brother Fareed completed his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering there in the 1960s.
My mother has recently written her autobiography, titled “All My Days” and it is clear how she has been such an amazing bridge between the UK and India all her life, which I have continued, and now my children do.
We are all, including my wife Heather, are proud overseas Citizens of India and Heather has even made the effort to learn some Hindi over the years.
I was privileged to learn so much about leadership from my father, who was a distinguished and respected leader as Commander in Chief of the Central Indian Army, and had over 350,000 troops under his command. He was also President of the Gurkha Brigade in India, the bravest of the brave troops, who he had the honour to command in war. However, it is my mother who has taught me all my values, and to this day at the age of 89, will guide me and give me, and her grandchildren, the wisest and most sensible advice — always embedded with the utmost integrity, and always insisting that we do the right thing, and she is always right to this day!
It is thanks to my parents that I have always felt equally at home in the UK and India, and I have always wanted to put the two countries together, which I have fortunate to be able to do with Cobra Beer, an Indo-British brand, with being the Founding Chair of the UK-India Business Council, by being a member of the UK-India Roundtable for many years, and by today being the Co-Chair of the India All Party Parliamentary Group.
It is thanks to my parents that I feel very clear that I am proud to be British, a British-Asian, a Zoroastrian Parsi, and Indian.
