It was a remote part of the world, smaller than the
small, and still smaller. Geographical distance lost its meaning, as in this
small world, yards stretched to meters and meters to kilometres. A dilution of
specifics—a smallness. Alongside, the big got sucked into smallness as well;
kilometres coagulated into little points of human destiny. The vision in crow-flight
spanned one hundred kilometres from the nearest influential big city, dusty zigzagging
tracks made it two hundred kilometres, and the distance acquired almost
unfathomable proportions in the mind.
The smallest store, in the rudimentary form of the
shops of today, was twenty kilometres away, at a bigger village, the lazily
bustling Bhiwani of today. In hundred years, this small hamlet itself would
become bigger than the district headquarters of those days. Well, that’s
change. Small worlds become bigger ones over a period of time.
The wedding party had travelled for a day and half,
starting yesterday morning and reaching here in the afternoon, pulled by carts
on dusty, rutted paths, skirting the semi-arid sandy loams, acacia trees and
tufts of dry bunchgrass. At night the jackals howled and the spotted owlets
hooted and ominously shrieked. The groom’s marriage party had stopped in the
wee hours to give rest and fodder to the oxen. They started again, taking
creaking slow steps to culminate a little girl’s childhood journey, the
childhood that suddenly meets womanhood.
The twentieth century was just a decade old, so was
Nannu, fondly called so because she was brought up at her nanaji’s place. That’s how people got their names during those
days. As the cartloads of peasants, clad in cotton homespuns, dhoti, kurta and headgears, moved towards the ceremony that would make her
Nannu Devi, with her childhood suddenly gone, they were more interested in
country-made liqueur, laddoos, jalebis, puris, saag and lots of
wedding fun. To these country-folks, to whom even plain sugar was a rare
delicacy, these items defined what the brief glimpses of heaven can mean.
So Nannu became Nannu Devi and would continue to grow.
The woman in her will continue to grow when her marriage would be consummated
three years later, when she would become the mother of a girl child an year
later, when she would become a widow at 15, would be remarried to her husband’s
elder brother, would give birth to three more daughters before hitting the
jackpot, a boy, and thus meeting the fulfilment of her purpose on earth, at the
age of 23. A lifetime of experience, while all this time she was merely
changing from a child to girl and then a young woman.
Her husband had a big acreage in his share, coming to
roughly 200 acres of almost semi-arid land, most of it full of thorny thickets
and bunchgrass. Agriculture was defined by the weather elements. There were no
irrigation channels, and with just two bulls how much of land you will manage
to till. So in effect it was just a dozen acres of arable land, on which the
joint family, their total acreage going to 600 acres, toiled to get survival
crumbs for them and their cattle.
During those days, simple diarrhoea was worse than
cancer of today. Her husband passed away, his mortality claimed by the common
disease of present times. The titular head of the land, in patriarchy, if she
happened to be a widow with a daughter, was as good as non-existing. The
younger brother-in-law was a land hawk. He wanted to add more and more land to
his share just like he was eager to have more children.
He started bullying her into marriage and that too
with the condition that his sons from the other wife will have equal portion
from the chunk of land from her share as well apart from their already existing
share. During those days, a widow was usually married to her husband’s younger
brother even if he was married, a sort of convenient polygamy. But a tall and
gaunt Nannu Devi, who was just Nannu till five years back, had grown in guts beyond
his guesswork.
‘I have to retain all of my land for my own son that I
will surely bear one day,’ was all Nannu Devi could think of. At that young age
she needed a dream, a goal. She decided to go for it. Here daughters were
excluded from the bargain, as neither law nor convention left them with any
option in that regard. The success and meaning of her life was just about
having a male heir one day and hand over all the land to him.
During those days murders for land were commoner than
marriages. Her younger brother-in-law tried his best set of intimidatory
tactics. As she was busy in her fields, and uneasy desultoriness sighed over many
miles around, he beat her mercilessly. She fought back, gave him a bloodied
tooth at the cost of bruises on her entire body. He tried to scare her by
putting the deadly spikes of the hayrack on her throat. She but spat on his
face, thundering that she would get married to a bhangi, the so called utmost disgrace in her community, rather than
be his wife.
Her diseased husband’s elder brother was a better
human being and could feel the fire in her to stick to her land. He had his own
brood of sons. ‘I will allow your sons to have possession of all of your land,’
he promised. Holding onto her dreams to see her own would-be sons tilling all
the land she had inherited, Nannu Devi became the second wife of her elder
brother-in-law.
Almost 200 acres of land and no male heir! That was
the most tragic thing to imagine as per the social norms of those days in the
peasant society. It just didn’t make any sense during those days. Her eldest
born from her first marriage was as good as not there in the first place because
it was a girl. The mission now was to have a son. That would complete the
journey of her life. Nothing will make it a successful life till then.
One after the other she gave birth to three daughters,
making it four from both marriages. But all this was meaningless. The land
waited for the male heir. A house was almost without light in the absence of a
son. It was all darkness. The daughters, though they worked to the capacity of
their little bones, were just there as an appendage to be cast off very soon.
The casting off time was just a decade during those times.
And finally her miles-long prayers and efforts bore
fruit and a boy was born. Not that it was smooth with the villain uncle all
through these years. She had learnt how to defend herself. She wielded a
well-oiled stick with more ferocity than any man around. The iron prongs of her
hay-mover were sharp enough to deter any adventure on her rival’s part. So more
than anything else that stalled her murder by her younger brother-in-law, it
was the plain fear of getting himself murdered by her.
She could always smell that smouldering fire of hunger
for land coming from her newborn son’s younger uncle. Jorawar Singh’s life was
at risk, every day, every night. As she worked in her fields, the son tied to
her back, her lethal hay-fork always lying at a hand’s distance, she had four
eyes dedicated to the task of scanning all the sixteen directions.
A child needs space as it grows up. Agile as a willow
switch and outgoing like a free cloud, Nannu Devi soon realised he was no
longer the little child she could tie at her back and continue working. Tiny Jorawar
Singh, named after an adjective something to do with valour and bravery, was
trying to claim his territory to wallow in childhood revelry. Little did he
realise that his life was always at risk. He carried the ownership of a big
chunk of land, which, even though was nothing more than a vast stretch of
fallow land, was a literal crown of gold in the countryside where people hadn’t
anything but the bare minimum. The land, after all, held the possibilities for the
future. The poor people either live in the past or the future. The land means
future.
His eldest real sister, Falguni Devi was married at
the age of twelve. So to keep him away from the vultures eying his land,
six-year-old Jorawar Singh was sent to the village of his sister’s in-laws, a place
near Delhi, where the modern day Palam airport stands. During those days it was
a forest, interspersed with the outcrops of the ridge, the tail end of the
relict Aravalis.
His sister, though just six or seven year elder to him
was almost a mother to her little brother. In addition, she was a wife as well.
Like the brides of those days she too would continue to grow, carrying multiple
responsibilities on her frail shoulders, as she changed to a woman from a girl,
became a real biological mother on the way, apart from being a mother figure to
her younger brother.
Even at such a long distance from his native village,
they just couldn’t let him out freely like other children because there had
been scary incidents like some stranger staring at the boy, or the sight of some
unknown figure, or some unfamiliar face seen in the neighbourhood. So even here
he was kept under the strictest guard. He was a little prince and he had a tiny
kingdom to inherit. His life was precious to the women around him.
There at his native hamlet, Nannu Devi’s defiance and
gutsy march continued. She came to earn a reputation where even the basest males
would think twice before taking a panga
with her. She knew that the uncultivated fallow land means ownership in letter
and name only. She wanted it in spirit. Day in and day out she worked in the
semi-arid lifeless soil, trying to put the vestiges of agriculture, even if for
one season, some sign that the land had been ploughed, to show to the world
that there are owners and they are ready to tame the wild land. It was a sort
of message boldly declaring: ‘Private property, stay away!’
Quite surprisingly, even as a tiny child, Jorawar Sing
retained the purity of his mature, big name. His name was never twisted to some
affable, convenient, mollycoddling pet name. Though very big and serious for
the name of a small child, it remained so. But the boy did full justice to his
name, grew strong, reddish and square shouldered. As an adolescent he appeared
to do full justice to the mighty name he carried.
His sister, with whom he stayed, very soon forgot when
she was a child herself. Within a decade and half even the mother in her
started to grow old. During those days, girls stared getting old the moment
they stopped to grow. She had four children. Her husband, a mighty, majestic,
reddish, fine-featured giant standing couple of inches above six feet, having a
bright future serving as Naib Tehsildar,
suddenly collapsed like a mighty fort caving in suddenly. Even here there were
eyes trying to grab the land of the young widow with four children. So again
Nannu Devi arrived at the scene with her well-oiled stick and sharp hay-fork,
working with her daughter, stamping their ownership like a lion marks its
territory with its urine in the woods. Even at a distance of two hundred kilometres,
stretched over dusty rutted cart-tracks, she worked as an effective deterrent.
In any case, the daughter-mother widowed duo held
their ramparts. They just stayed there and hid their sons more preciously than the
gold in their possession. The land had meaning as long as there was a son.
Without a son the land became meaningless. Also the life of a woman was
meaningless without a son. A woman could survive without her husband, but life
without a son was impossible, the brutal most punishment.
Jorawar Singh grew lanky and strong. Broad-shouldered,
he had keen starry eyes which appeared to look beyond the evident meaning on
the surface. His eyebrows were bushy and his lips were finely cut. The upper
lip reservedly shut over the lower one. His squarish jaw evinced his
masculinity to a decent degree. On top of that he stood well over six
feet.
Not so much for the safety of British India, as for
his own protection from his hawkish uncle, Nannu Devi was relieved to a huge
degree when the long-limbed lad joined army. Now he became a part of mighty sarkar. He will be having his own
weapon. All this vouchsafed his safety. Jorawar Singh stood out as a dashing
recruit.
No sooner he completed his training than he was
married. Nannu Devi had diligently secured the legacy for one generation. Now
it was her duty to prepare the bed for the next generation. Even if a woman
lived for thousand years, during those days, the dream of seeing one more son
in the next generation would still continue.
A family that hadn’t a son almost ceased to exist.
Daughters existed in proxy as somebody’s wife from the day of their birth.
As Nannu Devi blearily peered into the son-full of a
future, a culmination of her life-long struggle to get a foothold in the
chronically patriarchal society, the Second World War was sucking people’s
lives into its muddy, bloody deluge. The star of her eyes had hardly any time
to sow the seeds of Nannu Devi’s dream. He was sent to the eastern front where
war intrigues were opening up in South East Asia between belligerent, resurgent
Japanese and recalcitrant allied forces.
News travelled very slowly during those days. As Jorawar
Singh’s fate was lost in the gloomy, smoked South East Asia, Nannu Devi,
oblivious to the risks to her son’s life, not knowing to what extent the wars
put up threats to millions, her definition of danger being limited to life
threat to her son from his land-hungry uncle, put her ears to the womb of her
daughter-in-law, a mere girl of fourteen, to get some hope, to get some initial
hints of germination.
As the war sucked her son into its bloody guts, she
lay sulking that the first and the only cohabitation of the young couple had
been fruitless. She wasn’t bothered about larger issues any more. To beat her
disappointment, she worked more tirelessly in the fields to bring more and more
chunks of lands under cultivation from the vast tracts of the semi-arid barren
land of which her soldier son was the titular head, thus adding to the land
under their real possession.
She never lost hope about his return to sire many sons
who in turn will have their sons to rule over the land they would inherit some
day in future.
It was the balmy air of winters in South East Asia,
but it couldn’t have been worse for those who happened to be a part of the war.
The 19-year-old Jorawar Singh was stuck up as part of the struggling British
Army in Burma. The British forces were already weak after the Battle of Bilin River.
Theirs was the 17th Division, a new formation yet to taste the real blood. Well,
it tasted a lot between 14 to 18 February, 1942. Two days of jungle combat at
close quarters had left many dead, still more injured and the rest in still
more dead-cast and broken spirits. The Japanese soldiers were crazy in their
excitement for the war. The Indian soldiers fighting for their British rulers could
never make out how can someone fight so crazily and willingly to die. The
Japanese soldiers owed their souls to the King. The Indian soldiers owed just
their professional duty to the Britishers in lieu of the salaries they received.
Well, it doesn’t mean the latter didn’t give their best in the battles. They
did, but it still fell short of the crazy zeal to die for the Emperor of the
land of the rising sun.
Deep into the grey of his old decades, Jorawar Singh
would always remember the Battle of Sittang Bridge (February 19-23, 1942) as
vividly as one remembers just a day old happenings. They were pounded really
hard. The Japanese pushed for a decisive victory. The British Indian Army (BIA)
suffered heavy losses.
Brigadier JG Smyth commanded the BIA at Sittang. The few
hundred yards long Sittang iron railway bridge was near south Burma’s coastline.
The 17th Indian Infantry Division was in disarray and retreat. On the night of
19 February, they disengaged and retreated under the cover of night to fall
back to Sittang bank about 50 kilometres westwards. The Japanese regiment
advanced to cut the retreat off and outflank them. On 21 February, Japanese
aircrafts bombed the retreating units. The British Indian soldiers were forced
to abandon their vehicles and equipment.
Jorawar Singh, bearing many scars and bruises of war,
along with many injured soldiers escaped into Bogyagi Rubber Estate. Their
ammunition was spent. The rifles were no more than sticks to fight with. And it
was not a war of sticks anymore.
Meanwhile, a dispirited detachment from disarrayed
units fought to secure the bridge. A major part of the BIA Division was cut off
to the east and still in retreat. There were Japanese paratroop landings but a
unit of Gurkhas bravely combated to
secure the bridge-ends so that the remaining BIA division could cross the river.
Jungle fighting at close quarters ensued throughout
the day. The BIA still held the bridge till the evening of 22 February. But as
darkness progressed the futility of defending the bridge loomed large. More
than half of the British Division was still stranded on the eastern side. But
the bridge had to be destroyed to stall the Japanese march to Rangoon. The
setting sun saw an explosion as Smyth’s sappers blew the bridge.
The Japanese would have easily wiped out those
stranded on the eastern side, but they were more interested in taking Rangoon.
So they stopped short of mopping out the 17th Division. The Japanese disengaged
to cross the river at some point further north.
The survivors of the 17th Division crawled out of the
forest intending to swim to safety and slip away to the north on the opposite
bank. Only a handful of their rifles, Bren guns, Tommy guns, anti-aircraft
Lewis guns and FWW vintage 18-pounders remained in their possession. Their
uniforms and boots were torn and so were the sagging spirits.
The river was in spate and appeared beyond the energy
left in the defeated soldiers. But even a river in spate is relatively calmer
in the early morning around four or so. There is peace and harmony at that time
when the day is conceived in a marvellous equanimity of elements in nature. Somehow
Jorawar Singh knew this fact. He suggested this to his fellow soldiers. They
had a bunch of papers to salvage to the other end. Being relatively gutsy and
in better health, the onus fell on Jorawar Singh.
The enterprising soldier got an earthen pitcher, put
the important papers in it, secured the opening with a canvas piece, tied the
pitcher to his chest and jumped into the river at a time when he supposed it to
be relatively calmer. Using the buoyancy of the pitcher he swam to reach the
opposite bank. Putting the papers in safety, he made a few rounds both ways,
still keeping the pitcher tied to his chest, and drew a double rope line across
the river to enable the rest of his colleagues to cross over.
From there they crawled forward to merge with the BIA
units to the north. Somehow the 17th Division with its paltry remnants was replenished
and they continued in skirmishes till July 1944 when they were taken out of the
frontline before the Battle of Imphal.
Jorawar Singh was away from home for almost three
years, any news about him as hazy as you see the faintest vestiges of horizon
on a burning hot day. Thinking him to be dead but assuring each other of his being
alive through solacing words, the womenfolk would now and then, when the pain
inside burst the dam, would start with sighing whimpers before letting loose a
full-scaled spell of howls, making it virtually a mourning for the missing
soldier. But then they would realise it, would wipe away Nannu Devi’s tears,
put up smiles through their wet eyes to assure her that her son will definitely
return.
Destiny sometimes plays a too dramatic a cameo. It was
one such spell of howls, the womenfolk totally surrendered to the agony of
losing a young son of the clan, who left without leaving behind a male heir,
thus rendering the existence of land and women all meaningless, that a
battle-broken, haggard Jorawar Sing materialised at his native village. The
mourners could hardly believe. More than anything they tried their best to hide
their embarrassment.
But the war for Jorawar Singh was far from over. Nannu
Devi had to have her grandson. At any cost. ‘These goddamned angrezs go to hell!’ she declared.
During those days, the best chance for a soldier to
become a father was during once-in-a-year vacations, when he returned home,
when his half-widow became a full bride. Each had to give their best to be a
father and a mother.
As India burst out in joy over independence, Nannu
Devi was sulking. Her soldier son’s annual homecomings hadn’t availed any
fruit. She even prayed for a girl to set the ball rolling at least. To make it
worse, he found himself posted in the volatile parts of Kashmir as the Pakistanis
attacked in 1948. ‘As if they can never fight a war without my son!’ Nannu Devi
muttered angrily.
That year his annual leave was cancelled. Being robbed
of another season of a child’s prospects, Nannu Devi cursed the new masters in
India. ‘With the angrezs gone, now
they will fight all the time!’ she just felt flabbergasted. In desperation both
the mother and the daughter-in-law worked tirelessly in the fields. They put
more and more of their fallow land under cultivation. Not that they could
maintain a big acreage under regular cultivation. They had hardly any means for
that. But as long as you sow some furrows in the fallow patch, even four or five
years after the last cultivation you had this satisfaction that the land was
once tilled and will be done in future as well.
Nannu Devi was so happy that the fifties chugged ahead
without any war and her son could come annually to get a son. And regularly he
came, once a year, for a vacation of around two months, to try his luck across
two or three cycles of procreation. He but went luckless.
During those days, childless first wives happily gave
consent to their husband’s remarriage, accepting their status as that of a
first wife, a kind of titular head, and pampering the second wife, keeping her
happy so that the new wife won’t throw her out after bearing children. So in
the warless decade, Jorawar Singh was happily remarried and straightway started
his innings as a father. Even a girl child was welcomed because she carried the
prospects of a son down the line.
Some soldiers are lucky as well as unlucky to be there
in multiple wars. Subedar Jorawar Singh, father of a girl, and another child growing
in his wife’s womb, was there in the western sector along Aksai Chin during the
war of 1962 with China. It was a humiliating defeat. It highlighted the lack of
political foresight apart from the shortcomings of military leaders. Carrying a
splinter injury in his leg, he was taken as a prisoner of war by the Chinese.
Missing for many months he limped home at a sultry dusk. Couple of days after
his arrival, his second daughter was born. Nannu Devi didn’t mind it this time.
At least her son had returned from the war. And there was another time.
It won’t be before 1967, with a third girl child on
the way, and the war with Pakistan coming in 1965, where Jorawar Singh as the
lucky soldier again went and survived with his luck, that fifty years of Nannu
Devi’s struggle bore a fruit finally.
A son was born. All the cruelties of life were
forgotten and forgiven. Nannu Devi could hardly believe that she could be so
lucky. Now she could send her son to wars with less fear. The light had been
transferred. The land had its master. To rub red chilli down the old arse of
her foe, she made grand celebrations.
As they said during those days, ‘One son is like the
sole eye of a one-eyed man. It gone, the light goes out.’
So when Captain Jorawar Singh missed his annual leave
due to the war of 1971 in Bangladesh, another baby was growing up in his wife’s
womb. As the war thundered in the east, Nannu Devi prayed with the fervid power
of her soul for another grandson. ‘After this I will never ever ask you for
anything more in life,’ she promised to God.
Disapprovingly it will be a girl.
And there at a railway check-post, Jorawar Singh would
get sentimental as a trainload of war prisoners halted at the check-post under
his command. The Pakistani war prisoners were being hauled inland to be kept in
detention, before being set free within two years as per the terms of Shimla
Agreement.
Jorawar Singh entered the crammed, stinking
compartment. The Pakistani soldiers gave wounded looks, barely able to hide the
rage born of defeat and surrender. Like helpless, injured little animals they
looked straight in the eye. But there in the corner there was a handsome
figure, the majestic trappings of his high-rank uniform dusted and dishevelled.
He was sitting resignedly with his head turned sideways. It struck Jorawar
Singh that he was avoiding his look.
The Indian Captain reached the Pakistani officer. He
was a Brigadier he could make out from his epaulettes. The war prisoner turned
his head. Their eyes met. And the bloody history and separation of three
decades melted. Brigadier Khan had fought with Jorawar Sing as a sepoy of the British Indian Army in
Burma. They had fought as Indians. After the partition he had gone to Pakistan
to rise high in the ranks as a soldier. Now the differences critically mattered.
Both recognised each other immediately. There are certain personalities that
somehow stand out and can be spotted even across decades. Both of them were
like that.
Forgetting the war between India and Pakistan, and
animosity between a Hindu and a Muslim, the Indian Captain asked what he could
do for him. The Pakistani officer, both of them sharing traces of moisture in
their cold, battle-hardened eyes, mumbled with a smile, ‘You are doing your
duty. I don’t require any special facility. Just allow me to stay with my
soldiers.’ Jorawar Singh nodded, stopped himself from saluting, waved his hand
at the enemy official before jumping out of the compartment.
Later, Nannu Devi died not so happily over missing a
second grandson. The land was too big for just one son, she calculated.
After retirement, Captain Sahab shifted to Bhiwani, the district centre, which was struggling
to beat the bucolic bearings of a big village to have some urban swag.
Nothing is a bigger teacher in life than the battle
between life and death, when you hold your life in your fist, out of which the
sand-grains slip out. The soldiers, who have seen death from the closest
quarters, either go impassive, a sort of weird ennui, later in life, or become
so calculating as to take each step, every breath with so much caution like
it’s a matter of utmost urgency to ward off grave risks all along.
Captain Jorawar Singh, lucky to see the normal light
of a familiar sun, after spending decades in the army, lucky to have escaped by
the blessing hand of providence, and unlucky to be a soldier during the most
turbulent phase in the Indian military history, took slow, measured steps for
the life beyond the barracks. But it was very difficult to shake off the
shackles of war from the after-war life. It was always war in some form or the
other, soft war though, fought across numerous fronts in mundane life. It was
about winning over tiny obstacles with calm, composed deliberation. Of course the
people whose skins got bruised because of his extra caution would take harmless
revenge by calling him a ‘miser’.
With no fault of his, he had become extra cautious on
account of his realisation that the things which come naturally to us carry
mammoth value on a different plane.
Emerging from the turbulent dust of military days,
wearing the boots of domestic life, he maintained the tempo, countering each
step with measured calm, making every movement with perfect discipline.
Counting his pennies, and bringing more and more of
the fallow land under cultivation, he appeared an old titular head busy in
kingdom making. Based at the quaint town of Bhiwani, he pushed his daughters
and the son towards the best manageable education in the circumstances.
The girls, as was the custom, were married early, but
not before they had enrolled for graduation courses.
Some stories simply straighten out of confusion like a
jumbled mass of rope, losing the tangled knots, leaving the rope unspooling
with effortless ease.
All his daughters would go into happy domestic life,
three of them in fact married to military officers, of whom two would retire as
colonels and one still higher as a brigadier.
The older he became, the tighter he held the reins of
the cart of his affairs, bearing the practicalities of carrying domestic load
with silvery, age-old charisma. The progress was measureable through the
increasing acreage of the cultivable land from the fallow land he inherited.
Dozens of acres of his land was acquired by the
government to develop a thermal power plant at his native village. Though
heartbroken over the fact, like a typical Haryanvi landowner who esteems
landholding dearer than life, he invested the compensation money in purchasing
plots of land in the neighbouring villages.
‘Land’s money must be invested in land only. Otherwise
it’s as good as total waste,’ was his principle.
His son Suresh was selected as a commissioned officer
in the army. They but decided to keep him away from the risks carried by a
military life.
Taking one fistful at a time, using the each and every
hour of the peaceful post-retirement time, Jorawar Sing built up a little
fortune. It was completely unwise to leave it unattended by the heir apparent.
We have our little kingdoms, more in mind than actually in the real world
around, to hand over to the next generation. Further, he had given more than
their share for the cause of Mother India. He must have calculated his
contribution to be enough for the next two generations.
The old soldier managed to pull his life’s cart well
into his nineties, till the age of 93 to be precise. His first wife completed
her journey a few years back. She lived a life of dignity and respect because
the second wife treated her like her elder sister. The second wife,
considerably younger to him, is in her seventies now.
It’s the happiest of a family. Touch wood. Happy to
the extent that the moment you inhale the air in the unpretentiously elegant
house imbued in its quaint majesty, you feel it in your heart. They are natural
in their inclination to share their happiness with others. The inherent grace
in the old family matriarch goes polishing with age. Smile comes most naturally
to her. It’s her trademark expression.
Apart from the rent from the agricultural land, Suresh
operates a petrol pump. He has spread his wings to fly in the bonhomie of
peaceful times and stability. He travels with as much enthusiasm as he earns
money. With his group of happy, well-off friends he sets off for forays into the
Himalayas in their SUVs. Of late he surrendered to the Scandinavian charm,
which surpassed the Canadian adventure when he went backpacking across the vast
country with his wife. There are many other mileposts in his footloose journey
driven by independent winds. Of course culturally he liked Rome the best. His
eyes stare at the ceiling as he recalls the Vatican, the Coliseum and the
paintings.
He stays in the same house his father bought four
decades back. At the age of 50 he is as happy as it is possible to hold by his
portly but agile physique. A nice flow of money has seen some regal alterations
to the traditionally built simple house. It carries a touch of the aura of
heritage hotels where the artistic streak gets pleasantly dissolved among the
modern conveniences. A world in which past is safely cradled in the present.
Jorawar Singh’s big framed portrait in military
decorations looks with probing, disciplining eyes from the living room’s walls.
Well, he deserves to keep a watch.
Suresh’s son and daughter have studied at Lawrence
School, Sanawar, the famous institution where royalty was groomed for the
governing responsibilities.
The well-groomed and polished mannered daughter, carrying
all the possible etiquettes with a natural ease, is presently pursuing English
honours at Miranda House in Delhi.
The son, tall and hefty for a 15-year-old, gives you
the attention and care like he has known you since birth.
Suresh talks to his mother like a child with lots of sweet-toothed
exclamations.
Well,
let every story be a happy story!
