Kamla Hingorani
December 1, 2022
Kamla R. Hingorani (nee Karnani) passed away peacefully on December 1, 2022, with her three children at her bedside, in the home she shared with her youngest daughter in New York City. She was 85 years old. Kamla was known for her fearlessness, her love of family, her passion for life, and her entrepreneurial skills and instincts.
Kamla was born in Sukkar, India, in 1937 into a prominent Indian family, ten years prior to the partition of the country at its independence. Partition resulted in the forced relocation of the family to a tent village on the outskirts of New Delhi and the loss of their livelihood and possessions. She learned an abiding lesson about the transitory and sometimes arbitrary nature of one’s standing from that experience and it informed much of her later endeavors. After completing a bachelor’s degree in History and Economics at Delhi University, where she was also a table tennis champion, she agreed to an arranged meeting with Ram H. Hingorani. They were married two weeks later and immigrated to the U.S. four weeks after that. In her new country, she would endlessly challenge and reinvent herself. She staffed the Indian Pavilion at the World’s Fair in New York in 1964; was a beloved teacher at Apple Tree Nursery School in Norwalk, CT; taught a series of live cooking classes in the early days of cable TV; founded and ran a real estate brokerage company for 22 years; and served as Chief Operating Officer of A&H Engineers, Inc. in Manhattan, to name just a few of the positions she held.
Kamla was an indomitable force and always her authentic self. Her presence filled a room with love, with laughter, with life. Her expectations of others inspired them to strive to be better and her belief in them made it possible. Her kitchen was a safe haven, welcoming to all and filled with the aromas of gourmet cooking that she somehow made seem effortless. And she loved her children fiercely and they wore that love like armor when out facing the world.
Kamla was the youngest of six children and her playful and mischievous nature was encouraged by a father who loved her irrepressible spirit. She decided to become a real estate agent after she and her husband were steered away from being shown homes in some of the more affluent parts of Fairfield County because of their ethnicity. She would go on to found Quality Homes, a real estate brokerage, and would show homes always elegantly dressed in a silk sari. She developed an incredibly loyal client base, particularly among those in minority communities whom she showed properties wherever they desired and helped secure mortgages from sometimes reluctant loan officers. She could see right through people and won them over by getting them to laugh at themselves as well. Her ability to read people and forge friendships made her the most trusted confidante of her husband as he launched his civil and structural engineering company (A&H).
Her fearlessness was matched by an exuberance for life and an infectious laugh. She traveled throughout the world with her family, wanting to experience new places and new cultures. She loved to dance, listen to great music, cook an unlimited range of international cuisines, play competitive bridge, and spoil her grandchildren. Among her many legacies, Kamla has instilled in all of her children and grandchildren a measure of her fearlessness and an abiding desire to try to always do right and to stand up for those who’ve been wronged. Her boundless energy, passion, and pioneering spirit will be very dearly missed. She leaves behind two daughters, Seema Hingorani of New York City, and Sangeeta Hingorani of Seattle, WA, and a son, Sunil Hingorani of Omaha, NE; a son-in law, Charles Birnbach of Seattle; three grandchildren, Zamir, Nayan and Zubin; and a last remaining sister, Kishni Bhambhani of New Jersey.