Page 118 - Leadership in the Indian Army

the prisoners were to do all work on the double. Thorat spoke to the GOC
and got the order rescinded. The next time he visited the camp, the same
brigadier marched up to him, and said: ‘Colonel, allow me to thank you for

what you have done. Neither I nor my country will ever forget it.’ And he
was true to his word. Ten years later, when Thorat went to Korea as
Commander of the Custodian Force, he and his wife visited Tokyo and
stayed at the Imperial Hotel. When he drove out of the hotel in his car, the
entire traffic outside was held up to let his car pass. Thorat was surprised.
On enquiry, he found that the same brigadier had persuaded the Tokyo
police to accord him this courtesy.

While Thorat was busy fighting in Burma, Leela had not been idle.
Though she had a young child to look after, she joined the Indian Medical
Service as a commissioned officer, and did excellent work in the military
hospital at Lahore. After the war, when Thorat came to Delhi, Leela set up a
free clinic in the stable of their house in Dupleix Lane, together with Lady
Monica Smith, the wife of Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Smith, CGS. The

clinic became very popular, and when the number of patients became
unmanageable, several other ladies pitched in to help. Auchinleck gave
them a large stock of captured Japanese medicines and medical equipment.
Leela also began to educate her patients about family planning, for which
she came into conflict with Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the Minister for Health.
Kaur felt that this was the prerogative of her department, and asked Leela to
stop her activities in this area. Leela told her to mind her own business and

carried on. The only person who encouraged her was General Cariappa,
who understood the importance of family planning and stressed the need for
it in all his talks.
The Thorats had three children, two daughters and a son. The eldest
daughter, Kusum, was born on 16 June 1937 at Amritsar. She later married
a Punjabi, C.N. Kapur, who was in the Indian Railways. The second

daughter, Kumud, was born on 30 September 1942, in Delhi. She married a
Bengali, R.K. Bose, who worked with Dunlop. Their son, Yashwant, was
born on 11 November 1947 at Ranchi. He married Usha, a South Indian girl
whose father, M. Ramachandran, was a civil servant. Yashwant, who is
affectionately called ‘Bhaiyya’ (brother), joined the Reserve Bank of India,
and is based in Bombay. Incidentally, he and the author were in school
together at St Francis Convent in Jhansi, where Yashwant was three years

junior. The author vividly remembers a birthday party at the Flag Staff