For Kapil Dev, his mother Raj Kumari Nikhanj was the biggest inspiration of his life. Even though he became a famous cricketer internationally, he was always 'Kuckoo' for her and her death would be one of the biggest losses in the former Indian captain's life.

In fact, Kapil had come to visit and check on her health last week too but never realised the end was so near. In his autobiography, 'Straight from the Heart', Kapil has spoken quite a number of how his mother moulded him and shaped his career in his formative years when he lived with his family in Chandigarh. The book clearly says that two women -- his mother and his wife - were the pillars of strength in his life.

Kapil was in his teens when he lost his father and it was his mother who brought him up, along with other six children.

Old timers still recall that June 25 '83 summer night at their Sector 16 residence when India won the World Cup under Kapil at the Lord's. His mother prayed through the final and when his son lifted the World Cup, she distributed laddoos to friends and well wishers.

"Kapil was the apple of his mother's eyes. I remember she would insist Kapil to have butter milk during his early days in cricket. Likewise, Kapil was a dotting son, quite close to her," Kapil's coach, Dronacharya Desh Prem Azad, who has been quite close to the family recalled, adding: "She had been unwell for some time now and when Kapil was here last week, he spent most of the time with his mother."

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