My brother Rajeve Mahandru, who has died aged 49, was a mental health worker for more than 10 years in London. He took his own life having experienced depression and mental health issues himself for more than five years. He found it difficult to take the help that was offered to him.
Rajeve was born in Birmingham, to immigrant parents from the Chandigarh region of northern India, Raj ( nee Kohlei ), a former teacher, and Mohan Mahandru, a shopkeeper. Bobby was his nickname in Birmingham and for the last 20 years, living in Little Dunmow, Essex, he was known as Raj.
My brother would light up the room as soon as he entered. Smiling and laughing, he was always the joker. He was educated at City Road school and George Dixon school in Birmingham. He had a happy childhood – our family worked together to run the convenience food store. It was a community shop, where we would work, eat and talk as if it was our living room.
After leaving school Rajeve spent a few months on summer camps in the US, and spent time road building in the US. He recalled that time to us as one of the best of his life. I remember the time he ran out of money and rang Mum to send him some money so he could come back home – he had no worries in the world.
After the US trip he moved to London to do a mental health nursing course. He fell in love with Fiona, from Co Sligo in north-west Ireland, while they were both studying at South Bank University and they married in 2001. They had two children, Rian and Ava. Rajeve worked as a community mental health nurse in Walthamstow, east London, travelling in from their home in Essex.
Tragedy struck our family when our mum and dad both died in a car accident while coming back from a funeral in 2004 in Chandigarh, where they were living in semi-retirement. When his father-in-law died of a heart attack five years ago, Rajeve went further into himself with depression and mental health problems, and retired from his job. He and Fiona separated.
He is survived by Fiona, Rian and Ava, and by our younger sister, Manjo, and me.
