This story is from May 27, 2010

Putting 26/11 behind, Kang finds love again

Eighteen months after tragically losing his wife and two sons in the 26/11 siege, he marries college mate in a hush-hush ceremony
Putting 26/11 behind, Kang finds love again
Eighteen months after tragically losing his wife and two sons in the 26/11 siege, he marries college mate in a hush-hush ceremony
His expressionless eyes looking on stoically as he supervised the evacuation of trapped guests remains one of the most enduring images of 26/11. While he helped save many lives during this heroic operation, general manager of Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, Karambir Singh Kang, lost his wife Neeti and two sons, Uday (12) and Samar (5).
They were found asphyxiated in the bathroom of the hotel’s sixth floor suite which served as their residence.
But eighteen months after he lost his family, Kang is resurrecting his personal life. On May 16, the 42-year-old married old college mate and Pune-based hospitality professional Priya Nagrani in a low-key ceremony attended by only a handful of friends and family members. The couple is at present out of the country, on honeymoon.
Priya Nagrani is a former director (sales and marketing) with Oakwood Premier and Oakwood Residence in Pune, and had studied with Kang at Fergusson College, according to his father, Major General (retd) Jagtar Singh Kang. The two lost touch after college and reconnected only four months ago, during a college reunion.
Karambir’s father, who is in Shimla, where he is on a holiday, told us from there, “A management institute in Pune was honouring Karambir and while he was there, he also went to attend an alumni meet at Fergusson. That’s where he met Priya. When Karambir told us about her, we were very keen that he starts a new life and so we arranged his wedding.”
But that, Major General Kang says, was easier said than done. Though Karambir told his parents that he liked Priya, he wasn’t sure about marriage as he was yet to get over the grief of losing his family.

“It was obviously not easy to convince Karambir, but the entire family got together to make him understand that we wanted him to move on. Even till a few days before the wedding, we were talking to him to mentally prepare him for it. We are very happy that at last he is thinking about his personal life again,” said Jagtar Kang.
“In Priya, we also saw a perfect bride for him... She understands his loss and grief and Karambir too has adjusted well with her,” says his mother Kanwaljit. “We are so thankful to the girl who has so brilliantly pulled my son out of the depths of his grief. She is the nicest girl we could have ever found for him.”
The marriage was solemnised at a Gurudwara in Pune with about a dozen people in attendance from both families. “It was not a time to celebrate, we were just trying to resurrect Karambir’s life,” recalls Jagtar. According to hotel sources, Kang is scheduled to join work on June 7.
Friends had been particularly worried for Kang who had gone into a shell after 26/11 and turned all his energies into his work. They were apprehensive about his future as the renovation of the hotel neared, but Karambir, almost as if he knew what lay ahead, often assured them, “One step at a time.”
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