Kumarbhai: The Elder Son of Vasavad's Last Ruler
Sv. Shri Hemendrakumar Indrashankar Desai — known to all in the family and community simply as Kumarbhai — was the elder son and eldest child of Sv. Mu. Va. Shri Indrashankar Prabhashankar Desai (Lalbhai), the last constitutionally recognized ruler of Vasavad, and Sou. Pushpavatiben (Pushkalben). Born in Rajkot, he grew up in the fold of a family where duty, learning, and spiritual discipline were not abstract ideals but the fabric of daily life.
Kumarbhai was highly learned from a young age and acquired the wisdom and sensibility of the family early in life. He inherited from his father not only a name and a lineage but a temperament — the same intellectual curiosity, the same appetite for self-improvement, and the same deep reverence for the Bhagavad Gita that had defined Shri Lalbhai's entire existence.
Education: From Rajkot to America
In 1954, Kumarbhai completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Physics from the University of Gujarat. He then did what no one in the Desai family had done before him — he went overseas for higher education. He was the first member of the family to travel abroad, journeying to the United States of America to study Chemical Engineering. In January 1960, he graduated from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma with a degree in Chemical Engineering.
The journey itself was an odyssey. In an era before commercial air travel had become routine, Kumarbhai sailed to America by steamer — a voyage that took approximately one month each way across the open ocean. The stories of that journey — the vast expanse of sea, the unfamiliar food, the camaraderie of fellow travellers, the first sight of a foreign shore — became legendary within the family. Kumarbhai was a passionate and vivid narrator, and every time he recounted the steamer journey and his life experiences in America to his children and grandchildren, the tales were “nothing less than thrilling and exciting to hear,” no matter how many times they had been told before.
In those days, travelling to America meant boarding a steamer for a month-long voyage across the ocean. There were no quick flights, no video calls home. A young man from Rajkot, son of a Talukdar, stepping onto a ship bound for a country he had only read about — this was an act of considerable courage and ambition.
In the United States, Kumarbhai worked at a chemical company in Chicago, gaining hands-on industrial experience that would shape the trajectory of his professional career. The combination of academic training in Chemical Engineering and practical experience in American industry gave him a distinctive edge — a blend of Western technical expertise and the grounded values of a Saurashtra upbringing.
Career: From GSFC to Essar
Upon returning to India, Kumarbhai joined Gujarat State Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd (GSFC) in Vadodara (Baroda) — one of Gujarat's most important public sector enterprises. GSFC, established in 1962, was at the forefront of India's Green Revolution, manufacturing the fertilizers that would transform Indian agriculture. It was precisely the kind of institution where a chemical engineer with American industrial experience could make a significant contribution.
At GSFC, Kumarbhai rose steadily through the ranks, eventually reaching the position of Executive Director — a testament to his technical competence, leadership ability, and the trust reposed in him by the organisation. His career at GSFC spanned the critical decades of India's industrial growth, and he played a significant role in building the chemical and fertilizer infrastructure of Gujarat.
After his tenure at GSFC, Kumarbhai served as a consultant on projects for the Essar Group, bringing his decades of experience in chemical engineering and industrial management to bear on some of Gujarat's largest private sector ventures.
A Life of International Exposure
Kumarbhai's professional career took him around the world. His extensive international travel — for work, conferences, and consultancy — gave him a breadth of perspective that was unusual for his generation. Yet for all his worldliness, he remained deeply rooted in the values of his upbringing. The man who had worked in Chicago and consulted on Essar projects was the same man who would sit for hours with the Bhagavad Gita, seeking in its verses the same truths his father Shri Lalbhai had found.
Marriage and Family
In 1963, Kumarbhai married Sou. Neelaben (née Ch. Kokila Mehta) in Bhavnagar. Together they raised three children: Manish, Deval, and Minal. The family settled in Vadodara, where Kumarbhai's career at GSFC was based, at their residence at 1/305, Punitnagar, New Sama Road, Vadodara — 390008.
As documented in the Smarananjali's Kutumb Vruksh (family tree), Kumarbhai and Sou. Neelaben's branch forms one of the two main lines of descent from Shri Lalbhai and Pushkalben — the other being that of Shri Vyomesh Indrashankar Desai, Kumarbhai's younger brother.
The Spiritual Path: Like Father, Like Son
Reading and contemplating the Bhagavad Gita was Kumarbhai's step towards spirituality — a path he walked in conscious emulation of his father. Where Shri Lalbhai had studied the Gita every morning without fail, Kumarbhai undertook something even more ambitious: he didn't just read the Gita — he wrote his own interpretation of it.
The result was Bhagavad Gitanu Swarup Chintan (ભગવદ્ ગીતાનું સ્વરૂપ ચિંતન) — “Contemplation on the True Nature of the Bhagavad Gita” — a substantial 93-page work completed on 17 November 2014 in Vadodara. The book is dedicated to his parents with the words:
“અર્પણ — દિવ્યતાનો પંથ બતાવનાર અમારાં માતા-પિતાને”
The work is divided into three parts: an outline of the Gita's teachings, a chapter-by-chapter commentary on all 18 chapters of the Gitopanishad, and an overview of the Vedas and Upanishads. It represents not merely an intellectual exercise but a lifetime's accumulation of spiritual inquiry — the fruit of decades spent living with the same text that had governed his father's life.
Includes a detailed overview of the book, its structure, and a flip viewer of the original scanned work
Legacy
Kumarbhai's life traced a remarkable arc — from the son of Vasavad's last ruler, to a pioneer who sailed to America by steamer, to the head of one of Gujarat's most important industrial enterprises, to the author of a work of spiritual contemplation that consciously continues his father's devotion to the Bhagavad Gita.
He carried the Desai family's tradition of combining worldly competence with spiritual depth into a new era. Where his grandfather Shri Prabhashankar (Nanubhai) had governed a principality and his father Shri Lalbhai had navigated the transition from princely India to democratic republic, Kumarbhai built a career in the industrial India that emerged after independence — without ever losing the anchor of the family's spiritual and cultural heritage.
Back cover of Bhagavad Gitanu Swarup Chintan — biographical note on Kumarbhai