I worked for a large European company with offices all over India. My boss, who hated to fly, would often send me in his place to far-off meetings and conferences. I enjoyed the travel, visiting new cities and meeting new people. With so much travel, some of the pilots and flight attendants became my friends.

A youngish pilot I liked on our very first encounter. He was modest and self-effacing. I found him a man of few words, but he was soft-spoken and friendly. I told him that, despite my executive duties, my first love was writing and reading. In response, he said that flying was his first love and he liked the simple life of a pilot. He wanted nothing better than working his allotted hours and then returning to his wife and two small children.

I was taken aback when his co-pilot later confided in me that he was actually the son of Indira Gandhi, the first female Prime Minister of India. There were rumours that his mother wanted him to assist her and begin a career in politics. When I next encountered him at the airport, I alluded to the rumour, saying I would miss seeing him on my flights. He said he would never leave flying. He loved it and he loved the life it allowed him.

“I don’t want to do anything else,” he said. “I just want to fly and watch my children grow up.”

I ran into him another time or two before I moved to Washington, D.C., in the late 1970s. Each time he seemed very content with his work and his current life.

Three years later I read the news of the death in a plane crash of his brother, who was helping their mother in her political work. I had misgivings when I read that people were pressing him now to take the place of his brother and help his beleaguered mother.

I saw his photo again on the front page of newspapers in 1984 after his mother was assassinated. He was persuaded to succeed her as the new prime minister. I could not help thinking of the young man who had so loved flying and did not seem to care for politics.

Would he be able to retain the simple life with his family he loved so much, I wondered.

Just seven years later his face flashed on my television screen in Washington. A woman had sought an audience with the young Prime Minister and, coming close to greet him, detonated a hidden and powerful explosive belt.

The writer is a Washington-based international development advisor and had worked with the World Bank. He can be reached at mnandy@gmail.com