One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

On 14 February, the venerable Bhaichand Patel did not host his annual Valentine’s Day party. In fact, he hasn’t hosted it for three years in a row. This has been a profound setback for the capital’s fashionable set. After all, for over two decades, Bhaichand’s Valentine’s Day party was a fixture on Delhi’s social calendar. The last one, in 2023, convinced him he would never host it again.

This afternoon, seated with a glass of white wine in the back garden of his apartment in central Delhi’s Sujan Singh Park—where the mildly warm March air is alive with the chirping of sparrows—he explains why. Many familiar faces were missing at that final party. “My longtime friends were no longer there—Satish (Gujral), Sadia (Dehlvi), Vinod (Mehta)… all gone. Covid and old age took away many others. It shook me to realise I no longer had a friend older than me.”

Though born and raised in Fiji, and later a UN diplomat posted across the world, Bhaichand studied in Delhi and eventually returned here after retirement. Retirement proved to be a misnomer, for he built a reputation as one of the capital’s most committed socialites. Hardly a day passes without him re-surfacing on Page 3—one evening at a book launch, the next at an art opening.

Yet, for all his sociability, this genial man values solitude. He doesn’t hesitate to dine alone at restaurants, he says. For the past 26 years, he has lived alone in his Sujan Singh Park apartment. His wife, who passed away two years ago, had been living in New York; his children are settled abroad. His house, nevertheless, remains crowded with vintage cinema posters and original artworks (including a Satish Gujral and a Manu Parekh in the bedroom). The residence is cared for by his longtime attendant, Gopal Nadar, while Bhaichand spends his most productive hours in the “TV Room,” which actually is filled with hundreds of books. There, he has authored half a dozen of his own. Wishing to donate his collection to public libraries and interested individuals, he tells The Delhi Walla to take away any three books from the shelves.

Though his Valentine’s Day parties are over, Bhaichand continues to host smaller gatherings. His most recent was held two weeks ago in memory of recently departed friends Mark Tully, Aruna Vasudev, and Josefina Young. “I thought I’d raise a toast to them with people who knew them.” At least one more gathering is in the offing, planned for October 21. “I have 20 tables—they’ll be laid out in the garden…” he says, going on to detail the logistics. It promises to be a party to remember. That day Bhaichand will turn 90.

PS: Photo shows Bhaichand Patel with Gopal Nadar in the “TV room”

[This is the 625th portrait of Mission Delhi project]