Madhulika’s bro goes down memory lane

New Delhi: As the nation bid the final farewell to armed forces power couple -- Gen Bipin Rawat and Madhulika Rawat -- her brother on Friday emotionally recalled the events that led to their matrimonial alliance 35 years ago.

Yash Vardhan Singh, brother-in-law of Gen Rawat, said fate had brought them together and fate took them away both at the same time. “It was actually his father (Laxman Singh Rawat), who was also an army officer, who had sought the hand of my sister for his son (Bipin Rawat). He wrote to my father late Mrigendra Singh and that’s how the marriage talks began,” he said. Yash Vardhan Singh’s ancestral family hails from Sohagpur in Shahdol district in Madhya Pradesh.

“Our ‘nanaji’ lived in Lucknow and that is where my sister was born in 1969. Incidentally, address of her place of birth was ‘25, Ashoka Marg’ and she got married in Delhi at ‘25 Ashoka Road’. Isn’t it a pleasant coincidence,” he said. Singh, born in 1966, along with her daughter, Bandhvi Singh, a national-level shooting player, were present at the funeral in Delhi.

Madhulika Rawat’s younger brother recalled the marriage that had taken place 35 years ago.

“The year was 1986. And, Gen Rawat then held the rank of a Captain, and was posted in Dehradun. Such fond memories, and now cruel fate has snatched my sister, and my brother-in-law from us,” Yash Vardhan Singh said. —(PTI)