Family and Personal Life
Fernandes met Leila Kabir, the daughter of educationist and former Union minister Humayun Kabir on a flight back to Delhi from Calcutta. Fernandes, then the general secretary of the Samyukta Socialist Party, was returning from Bangladesh while Kabir was on her way back from the battlefront where she had gone as an assistant director of the Red Cross. They began dating and were married on 21 July 1971. They have a son, Sean Fernandes, who is an investment banker based in New York. Fernandes and Kabir separated in the mid-1980s. Jaya Jaitly has been Fernandes' companion since 1984.
Fernandes speaks ten languages—Konkani, English, Hindi, Tulu, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam, and Latin. Konkani is his mother tongue. He learnt Marathi and Urdu in jail, and Latin while he was in the seminary in his early youth. He is extremely fluent in Hindi and English.
Fernandes is suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and in January 2010 was undergoing treatment at Baba Ramdev's ashram at Haridwarfor the diseases at the request of Leila Kabir, who had recently returned to his life. In February 2010, Fernandes' brothers were reported to have been considering a court order for medical treatment and visitation; Kabir and Sean Fernandes are alleged to have forcibly removed Fernandes to an undisclosed location. In July 2010, the Dehli High Court ruled that Fernandes would stay with Kabir and that Fernandes' brothers would be able to visit.
Read more about this topic: George Fernandes
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