She came as she went - suddenly. Sunanda Pushkar was a name we'd never heard of till three years ago, when suddenly she became the toast of the Delhi party circuit. She was seen in social soirees with Shashi Tharoor, and before anyone could ask who she was, the first controversy had erupted when Lalit Modi, the then IPL czar, questioned the ownership pattern of the Kochi IPL team. But by then, she was friends with almost everyone who mattered.
According to the Wikipedia profile, Sunanda Pushkar was born on January 1, 1962 in a Kashmiri family of landlords and Indian Army officers native to Bomai. She was a daughter of Lt Col Pushkar Nath Dass, who retired from the army in 1983. She has two brothers, one of whom works for a bank; the other is in the Army.
The family moved out of Bomai in 1990, after their house was set afire by army as they were allegedly providing refuge to millitants. She graduated from the Government College for Women in Srinagar, where she studied during 1986-88.
While studying at the Government College, she married a fellow Kashmiri Pandit and a hotel management graduate Sanjay Raina. The couple divorced in 1988. Subsequently, Sunanda went to Dubai in 1989 and married Sujith Menon in 1991. Their son Shiv was born in November 1992.
In Dubai, started a profitable event management business called Expressions, and became well-known for her networking with sponsors and artists for fashion shows. The company organized several model shows for product launches.
Sunanda worked with several Indian fashion designers and models, including Hemant Trivedi, Rhea Pillai, Vikram Phadnis and Aishwarya Rai. Later, she joined Bozell Prime Advertising as an accounts executive. She and her husband organized a Mammootty show together, which made a financial loss.
According to one report, the couple had collaborated on the show in an attempt to save their failing marriage. According to Sunanda, Sujith had run into financial trouble as a financial consultant. Sujith died in an accident in Delhi in March 1997.
After Sujith's death, Sunanda started getting threatening calls from his creditors. For a few months, she left her four-year old son with her sister-in-law, and later with her parents. By the time she brought him to Dubai, he had developed a communication disorder, and had stopped talking. She left Bozell Prime to spend time with her son, and later joined Ravissant.
Struggling as a small-time event manager in Dubai, Sunanda moved in as a paying guest at her friend's apartment in Al Satwa. She spelt her name as "Sue P. Menon" on her business cards, and later, she started using her father's name "Pushkar" as her last name.
According to her, she faced financial troubles, as she had to repay Sujith's debts, support her parents and her brother through the engineering college.
Impressed by the Canadian healthcare system, she emigrated to Canada in the 1990s, as her son needed speech therapy. According to one account, she lived with a banker companion in Toronto.
According to Sunanda, she became a partner in an IT firm called "Valley Resources" through sweat equity, after a San Francisco-based friend introduced her to the founders. Subsequently, she became wealthy during the dot-com bubble, managing to buy her own house and a BMW car.
The business was impacted by the post-9/11 slowdown and closed in 2001. After four months of unemployment and financial difficulties, Sunanda did a course in emotional intelligence, and joined a company called Noble House International. She organized "Human Potential Reengineering" programmes for several banks in Miami, Amsterdam and Geneva.
Sunanda felt that she was not earning enough at Noble House. In August 2004, she moved to Dubai with a Canadian passport, working as a general manager of Best Homes.
Later, she joined TECOM investments to work on the International Media Production Zone. She was financially successful, buying two 3-bedroom apartments at Palm Jumeirah, an apartment in Jumeirah Beach Residence and two more apartments in the Executive Towers.
In 2010, from ministers to Bollywood stars, everyone knew Sunanda, said to be from Jammu, with an Army background. Many knew her as an entrepreneur. An article by Vrinda Gopinath in Outlook claimed that Sunanda's second husband, Sujith Menon — who was once the best friend of her first husband, Sanjay Raina — committed suicide after they split.
April 2010: At the time of the IPL controversy, Sunanda was the co-owner of Rendezvous Sports World, the consortium that bought the Kochi team, and it was alleged that Shashi Tharoor had used her as a shield for collecting Rs 70 crore and helping the Kochi owners get their IPL team, Kochi Tuskers. Sunanda finally gave up her stake, saying she was shocked that certain parties were questioning her credentials merely because she was a woman. Her statement read, "Given the deeply unpleasant publicity surrounding my involvement, I can no longer find the enthusiasm required to associate myself with any IPL activity in the foreseeable future."
August 2010: Even as the controversy raged on, Sunanda married Shashi. And the duo became a bright spot in Delhi's social circuit. When TOI met her in 2011, she said she was planning to help Tharoor campaign. But even then, when the media asked her for a byte on the IPL, she'd turned back to her friend, "All these people wanting to talk to me; I am so embarrassed, I am nervous about this." Still, the couple was seen at almost every event, chatting and laughing. Their PDA was the talk of town.
October 2012: One day came news from Kerala, specifically from Tharoor's constituency. Sunanda had apparently slapped a man at the Thiruvananthapuram airport because he allegedly misbehaved with her. According to reports, Tharoor and Sunanda had arrived at the airport, and were welcomed by Congress workers. The next thing we saw was TV channels beaming pictures of an angry Sunanda slapping a man in the crowd.
October 2012: Sunanda unwittingly found herself a trending twitter topic once again when Gujarat CM Narendra Modi took potshots at Tharoor's personal life, and said his wife was once his "50-crore-rupee girlfriend". Tharoor gallantly defended Sunanda. He retaliated, again on Twitter, "My wife is worth a lot more than your imaginary 50 crore. She is priceless. But you need2be able2love some1 2understand that."
May 2013: The first rumours of everything not being rosy in their marriage began to surface. Initially Tharoor and Sunanda still attended social events - but separately. And then came the absence - Tharoor still turned up for official events, but Sunanda was off the radar. Those who knew the couple well said they were spending time apart. But when TOI met Sunanda, she laughed it off with, "Oh, I was getting treated, my son was not well, and Shashi's got work to do."
January 2014: The twitter slugfest erupted in all its bitterness, and Sunanda found herself trending again for all the wrong reasons. And then came the reports that she could neither deny nor scoff at - of her being found dead. #Source: ToI
