 Kothari's grandfather, "Hormusji Sohrabji Kothari" (d. 1876), accompanied General Sir Charles James Napier as a commissariat agent during the conquest of Sindh Province in 1842-3 and subsequently emigrated from Surat to Karachi, Gujarat in 1846 where he was eccentrically philanthropic.Kothari was born on 9 November 1857, in Karachi.He was educated at home and in the Karachi High School 

Kothari was a member of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and represented them at the Chicago Exhibition in 1893  on the second of his eleven known voyages around the globe.