Deceased businessman Rajiv Ruparelia, the only son of Ugandan property mogul Sudhir Ruparelia, died aged 35 on May 3, 2025. PHOTO/HANDOUT
It is lazy and even a bit reductionist to—as many have—come to the conclusion that Rajiv Ruparelia lived the vast bulk of his 35 years of life in the fast lane. The last of property magnate Sudhir Ruparelia’s three children, Rajiv died on May 3 in a car crash at the Busabala flyover on the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway (KEE). By press time, the cause of the car crash still rested on the cornerstone of conjecture, with police investigations in their infancy.
Many, however, found it impossible to resist the temptation to consider the dimensions of two things at an elemental level. Firstly, that the inadequate signage and poor lighting of the stretch of the KEE in question has contrived to turn it into a black spot. And, secondly, that the top speed (north of 300 km/h) of the car—a Nissan GT-R—Rajiv was driving under a pitch dark sky shortly before 2am is so frightening that automobile buffs have christened the machine Godzilla.
Images of the Nissan GT-R burnt to a cinder were as shocking as anything anyone could ever encounter.
The wreckage of the car in which late Rajiv Ruparelia died on May 3, 2025. PHOTO/COMBO/COURTESY
The fatal crash on the KEE came exactly 16 years after Riyaz Kurji passed away in a horrific high-speed car crash during the Pearl of Africa Rally. Riyaz died instantly on May 2, 2009 after losing control of his Subaru N8 before crashing into a tree. Such was the shock and vulnerability that the high-speed crash delivered that Sayed Kadri, Riyaz’s co-driver who remarkably walked out of the car wreckage unscathed, was scarred for life.
Read about: Key dates in Rajiv Ruparelia's life
Kadri experienced a panic attack when he stepped back into the cockpit of a Mitsubishi Evo9 to navigate Kuku Ranjit during a super special stage in 2015. He died in his sleep last March aged just 58.
Looking up to Riyaz
Rajiv, who was born on January 2, 1990, idolised Riyaz while growing up. While relations between the Ruparelias and the Kurjis soured to the point that the former acquired Dolphin Suites—a 27-roomed boutique hotel—from the latter after a loan went unpaid, Riyaz’s influence on Rajiv was unmistakable. But after that 2009 fatal rally accident in Mityana, Sudhir and his wife Jyotsna were not so keen on their then 19-year-old son’s rallying ambitions. Even when they relented, a decade later, it was not until Rajiv checked into a rally school—the Rallystar Motorsport Academy in South Africa—that the Ruparelias were at peace with the decision.
The late Rajiv Ruparelia (R) and his tycoon father Sudhir Ruparelia (L). PHOTO/FILE/COURTESY
Matching the oftentimes dizzying speeds Riyaz effortlessly hit in local rallying events is no mean feat. Rajiv gave it his best shot, excelling at times, and if other moments fell short, it was not for want of trying. Much loved on the local motorsport scene, he was the patron of the Central Motorsport Club (CMC) at the time of his death. Rajiv had also last taken part in a competitive racing event in 2022 after a VW Polo Proto he unveiled to much fanfare three years earlier carried him to some famous victories.
The man who was unabashed by his love to get his adrenaline going by racing fast cars had since 2017 settled into the role of managing director of the Ruparelia Group. The group is undoubtedly a behemoth that makes the most of the scope and reach of Sudhir’s business contacts as well as his net worth estimated to eclipse the $1 billion mark. On Rajiv’s watch, the Ruparelia Group’s real estate portfolio enjoyed enormous growth. The addition of properties like Kampala Boulevard, Kingdom Mall and Speke Apartments proved that it was, perhaps, not a bad idea to stake so much on high-risk enterprises.
Experimentation
Rajiv, who received an education at both Dean Close School Cheltenham and Regents College London, has in death been celebrated for making a stimulating contribution to Uganda’s education sector. The sector’s problems are obvious and, predictably, so are the solutions. The latter was not lost upon Rajiv. Adopting a tone that was certain and, at times, prescriptive, it felt as if he brought a playfully experimental sensibility to undertakings at academic institutions like Victoria University and Kampala Parents’ School.
“How terrible, the news of the passing of Rajiv Ruparelia in a nasty traffic accident this morning. He was very kind to my children, when I was struggling to pay school fees at Kampala Parents School. I was allowed to pay slowly in installments until I fully paid up,” Stella Nyanzi, a Ugandan academic based in Germany, wrote on Facebook.
The late Rajiv Ruparelia and his father Sudhir Ruparelia. PHOTO/FILE
If it feels as if Rajiv had been on the Kampala scene for a long period, it was, perhaps, because he was. Aged just 17, he announced himself to the city’s nightlife when he opened Club Sway in the heart of the capital.
The nightclub, which was situated where Kampala Boulevard currently squats, captured the imagination of revellers with themed nights like Doctors and Nurses. While such themes came with a lot of conceptual baggage, they showed a readiness of Rajiv to experiment.
The experimentation would become a commercial juggernaut and cultural touchstone for nightclubbing in Kampala. It also alerted the patriarch of the Ruparelia family to the unique ability of his son to think outside of the box and challenge age-old conventions.
Whereas Rajiv’s at once belligerent and carefree attitude back then, embodying the recklessness of youth, could have been responsible for Club Sway rapidly running out of shelf life, the entrepreneurial spirit he displayed could not be contested. So could the fact that several years later, in 2017, he had matured when he took Naiya Khagram’s hand in marriage. The putative maturity he was starting to display cast him as, in many respects, an heir apparent.
Rajiv is survived by his wife, Naiya; daughter, Inara; parents, Sudhir and Jyotsna; as well as sisters, Meera and Sheena.
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