Only a few months ago Gopi (everyone called him by that endearing verbal shorthand) and I were lunching at the India International Centre. He looked frail, but intellectually he was as sharp as ever. I am deeply distressed at his passing away. Mourning is for his family and closest associates. I prefer remembering him.

He was a remarkable civil servant — endowed with subtlety of intellect and openness of character, an analytical and organised mind. He was a man who measured his words and phrases. He had a vision which few civil servants have. In his younger days he was a Marxist. Later, he became Nehruite — a non-doctrinaire socialist.

We had worked in Rajiv Gandhi’s government. He as a civil servant attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, I as minister of state. He helped me unreservedly in planning Rajiv Gandhi’s China visit in 1988. A strong and influential lobby in government was against the PM’s embarking on his Passage to China.

He was entirely responsible for Rajiv Gandhi sending the late P.N. Haksar on a secret trip to China to have talks with the Chinese prime minister. Haksar on his return told the PM that the Chinese government wished him to pay an official visit to the People’s Republic. Had it not been for Gopi, an entirely unsuitable, light-weight individual would have been sent originally. The visit from Rajiv Gandhi to China that followed was a trail-blazer.

Gopi had a well-defined, rooted point of view on grave matters of politics and diplomacy. He was intellectually far ahead of most of us. He had a sense of humour, but he was never flippant. He had gravitas. He loathed logorrhea, incoherent talkativeness.

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