WHEN IN NAVY, KULBHUSHAN WAS DETERMINED TO START OWN BUSINESS

While his childhood friends wanted him to progress ahead in Indian Navy, Kulbhushan Jadhav was keen on taking early retirement from the services and starting his own business. “We used to tell him to hang on and become an Admiral one day. But he would say that it was much better to start a business when young as he could work hard on it.’ He had not decided what business he wanted to do. But he was sure he would take early retirement and become a businessman,” Tulsidas Pawar, Kulbhushan’s childhood friend told The Sunday Guardian, while remembering some of the last conversations the close friends had between 1997 and 2000.

Kulbhushan Jadhav took an early retirement from the Navy in 2002.

His childhood friends now intend to petition the Prime Minister and the Governor of Maharashtra, seeking the Centre’s active intervention in saving Jadhav.

Friends remembered Jadhav’s wedding, which was attended by film star Raj Kumar. “Kulbhushan’s father, who retired as an ACP in the police, had an impressive personality. We remember how everyone on this street had come down to witness Kulbhushan’s wedding procession, as Raj Kumar had graced the occasion,” Tulsidas Pawar said. Pawar and Jadhav’s other childhood friends continue to stay in Pruthvivandan society, opposite Jadhav’s old house.

Kulbhushan Jadhav was born and brought up in the small bylanes of the Marathi-