Where he doesn’t need to watch his back

Abdullah was born in Rochford, Essex, UK. He can’t speak Kashmiri, but he claims to be a proud son of the soil whose ‘‘past, present and future is wedded to Kashmir and its people’’. He believes that ‘‘my ability or inability to speak Kashmiri will not determine my credentials as a Kashmiri’’.

His entire adult life has been spent outside Kashmir and only a very small period of his childhood was spent in the Valley. Omar’s only memories of Kashmir relate to the essential morning cycle rides with the family servant. ‘‘I vividly remember it. I would sit on the front bar and he would take me to school,’’ he says.

He left Kashmir in 1981, when he was half way through his fifth standard at Burnhall School, for Lawrence School, Sanawar, where he was part of the Vindhya Boys till he passed out in 1989. Most of his friends hail back to the Sanawar days. They remember him as a serious boy who loved motorbikes and acting on stage. ‘‘Yes, I would take part in plays almost twice a year,’’ Omar says. Training for the future?

Omar graduated in Commerce from Sydenham College, Mumbai, and then went to England for his masters in management. ‘‘I was doing an MBA through British Council’s Distance learning programme, too, which I had to abandon half way after joining active politics,’’ he says.

He met his wife Payal Abdullah while working at The Oberoi in Delhi, Payal was a marketing executive while he was a trainee. ‘‘It was 1992,’’ he recalls. And within an year they were married. What about the Sanawar sweetheart? ‘‘Somethings should be buried. You will never be able to find out about that,’’ Omar smiles. ‘‘I don’t want myself or anybody else to be in trouble.

If he found his life-partner in Delhi, it is also in the capital that Omar came into his own as a card-dropping politico, a mantle taken over from Arun Jaitley when he began clocking in more than the latter’s average of Page Three appearances, social dos and ribbon-cuttings, in between ministerial assignments, file-pushing and some frenetic travelling.

Monday: Ribbon-cutting for a National Institute of Design workshop; Tuesday: TKs. Squirt the sauce and turn chef for family, friends and that photo op, of course. Wednesday: Escort dad to a grand wazwan at another five-star hotel, ‘‘we’re promoting Kashmir’’, after all. Thursday: Kashmir is still on the agenda, albeit at a book launch for The Srinagar Conspiracy. Friday: Take wife out to a special screening of the latest flick in town. Saturday: The Delhi Gymkhana, where he is a member. Sunday: Polo. Sure, dad’s fond of golf but Abdullah junior would rather root for Sanawar in the Lawrence School-Mayo College tie.

(Wife Payal’s loyalties are different — ‘‘She’s from Welhams, while everyone else in our family is from Sanawar. So whenever we have dining table discussions, she loses’’, Omar admits — but that doesn’t deter him, sons in tow, from enjoying the game.)

Behind the image of the Page Three party boy, a distinct persona emerges. ‘‘He’s warmer and more courteous than most other politicians’’, is a common consensus. ‘‘He is not full of himself like the others, but has just as much attitude as is necessary’’, the observers add. Still others are impressed with the solicitous husband he unfailingly is to Payal at all gatherings: ‘‘He comes across as very concerned. There are little things, like offering her a glass of water, that one can notice’’, sources say.

No wonder then, that Payal Abdullah forms an integral part of the minister’s social image: Always by her husband’s side, no matter what the occasion, and always as correct as him. This sober image makes for quite a contrast to that of Omar’s parents. While mother Mollie prefers Essex to Srinagar, Farooq Abdullah is known for his more colourful ways — the man who regales gatherings with ghazals and couplets and an occasional dance with a drink on his head. None of that for the teetotaller Omar. Yes, he parties but unlike daddy, there seems to have been a careful nurturing of his public image. As sources say: ‘‘Given the history of his family, Omar has gone out of his way to prove that he is different”.