Mrs. Laghari took the next line.

Call for the captain ashore

Let me go home . . .

The rest of us began to mumble along.

Let me go home,

I want to go home,

Well, I feel so broke up, I want to go home

“It’s break up,” Nevin interrupted. “Not broke up.”

“It’s broke up,” Yannis said.

“Not in the original lyrics.”

“How do you feel so ‘break up’?” Lambert said.

“Broke!” Mrs. Laghari declared. “Now do it again.”

And we did. Three or four times.

Let me go home, let me go home,

I want to go home, yeah, yeah . . .

Even the Lord joined in, although he didn’t seem to know the words. Little Alice watched as if she’d never seen such a thing before. Our voices dissipated into the empty ocean night, and at that moment it was possible to believe we were the only people left on Earth.

News

ANCHOR: As stunned families around the globe hold memorial services for their loved ones, we begin a series of tributes to those who were lost in the sinking of the Galaxy yacht last month. Tonight, Tyler Brewer profiles a remarkable woman who rose from abject poverty to one of the most powerful positions in her industry.

REPORTER: Thank you, Jim. Latha Laghari was born in the Basanti slums of Calcutta, India. She lived her early years in a cramped shack made of wood and tin. There was no electricity and no running water. She ate once a day.

When her parents died in a cyclone, Latha was taken in by a relative who sent her to boarding school. She excelled at chemistry and upon graduation was hoping to study medicine, but no scholarships were available to a woman of her background. Instead, she worked for two years at a meat-packing factory to save enough money to travel to Australia, where she found a job in cosmetics production.

Latha’s chemistry background and tireless work ethic saw her rise from a product tester to chief development officer at Tovlor, Australia’s largest cosmetics company. In 1989, she left to start her own business back in India, which grew into one of the top twenty cosmetics firms in the world, and which now makes the popular Smackers lipstick line.

Interestingly, Latha Laghari wore very little makeup herself. Known as an elegant, no-nonsense businesswoman, she raised two sons with her husband, Dev Bhatt, who made his fortune in the cell phone communications field.

DEV BHATT: “Latha was the rock of our family. As firm as she could be in business, she was gentle and loving to our children. She always made time for them, and for me. She said our family was the gift she was given for the family she lost as a child.”