The First Trillionaire

Untitled Part 15

The move to India was an eye-opener for Olivia who had listened to the stories of her grandfather in India, and she readily took in the Indian way of living and studying. She did not hear much from her father who did not write any personal letter to her. He would only send cheques and gifts to her on her birthday, but without any news of his own. The only news she got about him was in 1939, and it was about his death – Joseph D. Freeland, the first person in the history of USA to reach US 1 billion of personal wealth, was dead! His will left all his wealth to his only daughter, Olivia D. Freeland. The news of inheritance was left out by her mother who felt that young Olivia should concentrate on her studies first, before thinking of her massive inheritance, and she still had six months before she turned 18 and could legally inherit.

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Olivia had her hands full of activities and eyes full of dreams at school. She loved the horses at her mother's school, and a young rider had caught her eye. He was Siddhartha Singh Rathore, the young equestrian champion of the school. She met him first when she had gone for a visit to the Lucknow Golf Club where one of her classmate's father occasionally played golf. She was feeling bored of watching the sport when she saw Sid, the champion walking towards her. She had only seen him from afar and never had the chance or reason to talk with, so when he came and called her 'Olive' as her friends and her mother used to call her, she was surprised. She just managed a feeble hi'.

That first meeting was still fresh in Olivia's mind, as if it had happened only yesterday. She could remember the handsome face of Sid as he looked then, partly covered with his white cap and his unruly thick dark hair peeking out from underneath it.

"Hey Olive! Do you come here often?" he asked, with a little smile playing in the corner of his lips.

"Hi," Olivia replied, not sure what to say and wishing suddenly she had come with a nice bow clipped on her hair instead of making a plain braid of her long light-brown hair.

"So, you like golf?"

"No, I don't think so. And I think I still need to see more of the sport to like it," Olivia replied in her usual straight and honest way. That turned out to be one of the many reasons for Sid to get attracted to her, as he told her some years later.

After the first meeting, Olivia did not meet Sid for a long time. In fact, for some years she was packed off by her mother, for further study to Calcutta at the renowned Calcutta University. She reached Calcutta with her mother in 1940 armed with books and clothes in a trunk for her B.A program when the University was still resounding with the university song composed by the great poet Rabindranath Tagore.

She did not meet or see Sid until 1941, when she went to a polo match in Calcutta. There he was, riding a brown horse and the only difference she found in him since the first meeting was that he looked a bit taller and more handsome now. They met many times later at the Golf Club and Olivia came to know more about Sid as they kept meeting until she got her graduated from the University. Sid was the prince of Purnea and he came from an illustrious family. Olivia was surprised to know that his father, Kishore Chandra Lal, had founded the East India Bank in 1916, and Sid's equestrian pursuits could be attributed to his father who was a famous golfer as well. He had even participated in the Satyagraha in 1920, as he was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi. By 1941, Siddhartha was overlooking the operations of the lone branch at Purnea and the other branch at Calcutta as his father wanted to devote himself to the freedom movement of the country alongside Gandhiji.

Siddhartha and Olivia continued to meet until her graduation from the University, and they decided to marry in 1943 with the consent of their parents. Olivia was offered the post of a manager at the branch office at Calcutta after her marriage in 1944. She was an efficient worker and a fast learner to the surprise of many people who did not take to her entry in the office kindly. Her sound decision and innate business talents worked well for her in the banking world, in an otherwise unstable political conditions and general turmoil in India at that time. She worked hard with Sid to expand the bank to other cities, and she was the General Manager of the bank for the entire Eastern Region in 1953 when she took a sabbatical after years of working. Her first child, a beautiful daughter whom they named Magnolia, was born in April 1953. Olivia stayed home for only four months before she started going to work again when her mother Edith came to stay with them in Calcutta. In the next six years, Olivia and Sid saw their bank reach different parts of the young independent India with branches in Bombay, Madras, Allahabad, Delhi and Hyderabad. The husband-wife duo was immensely capable and they managed their banking empire efficiently while the young Magnolia was looked after by her grandmother at home. The family was passionate about golf and horses, managing their time between bank and polo matches. They had a son Peter, named after Olivia's grandfather, in 1955 whose arrival completed their family picture. Peter and Magnolia were sent together to a school in Calcutta until Peter was admitted to Nature's Heart School in 1967 while Magnolia continued her schooling in the old school.

Olivia had no reason to think twice about sending Peter to the boarding school, started by none other than Sid's friend at La Martinere, Sir Charles Napier. It was a very big school constructed on an area of about 6000 acres of land, situated on a plateau at a height of 4000 feet and about 150km from Ranchi.

Peter was a clever kid and good in sports as well as in studies, which only helped to put Olivia at ease about sending her young child to stay at hostel. Peter was supposed to complete his studies there but things took a different turn, which changed the course of their family history.