by blogadmin | May 11, 2016 | Blog Post, India, Year 2016
Time. It is so elusive. Whenever I go back to meet it, NO, it is not there. There is a story sitting there in its place.
I must have been five then. May be six. Two students of the Thapar engineering college rented a room in our family home. 1976, I guess it was, when India was under Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s emergency.
We interacted a lot. I asked them about their books. About magical number crunching things they used called calculators. They asked me about the girls in the neighborhood. About my teachers in the school. But not about all of them. About madams only. Many times they would drop me or pick me up from school to “look” at “your” madams.
Over time I became closer to one of them. We played cricket. Listened to songs. When he got a reward for the third position in his third year electrical engineering, he took me along. We used to talk a lot of stuff that was very interesting to me. History. Politics. Films. Sports. These were among the topics.
He graduated and went back to his hometown in Himachal in 1978. Phones were really rare then. For that year the number of families in Patiala owning a phone line may not not have been in three digits.
In the years and decades that followed, I often wondered where he is and what and how is he doing.
My search for him finally bore fruit yesterday night. Thanks to Google uncle!
I spoke to him over the phone. After 38 years. A brief conversation.
“Looks like you are living some of your childhood dreams!” he said before we agreed to stay in touch over email also.
It would have been such a cheer to share this with my mother!
“Every plant and every petal my condition knows
Only the flower knows not, the entire garden knows”
by blogadmin | Apr 8, 2016 | India, Punjabi Story, Year 2016
The joy and experience of writing a short story in your native language is indeed rewarding — especially when one of the leading language magazines (ਮਹਿਰਮ; circulation 80,347) goes ahead and publishes it. April 2016 edition of the Mehram carries my short story Thanedar Sahib (ਠਾਣੇਦਾਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ). Coming after a poem publication in East Jasmine Review last month…looks like I may finally be learning to hold the “pen.”
by blogadmin | Jun 19, 2015 | India, Nabha, Year 2015
Things divine are not only powerful and mysterious, they are moving and stupendous as well. One of the most respected teachers I have come across in my life, Things divine are not only powerful and mysterious, they are moving and stupendous as well. One of the most respected teachers I have come across in my life, Mr K P Menon, Economics teacher and Ex-Beas house housemaster sahib in PPS, Nabha, passed away yesterday afternoon (June 18, 2015) in Kormangla, Bangalore, in his younger daughter’s house. A thorough gentleman who truly commanded respect without ever demanding it. The sadness it will evoke amid his community of reverent pupils, no doubt, will cut across all geographical state and national borders… will end up drowning both genders equally in sorrow, and the numerals like the house numbers and the batch years will sigh together, and in equal depth and thickness, at the irreparable loss. Now, the marvellous part is that Deepak Singh (R-576), Naveel Singla (R-547) and I went to meet him a day before yesterday. Though he was unwell, we three felt so blessed to be close to him and exchanged some precious words with him. He commanded his daughter to take pictures with us — imagine our kismet. Before 24 hours were over, he left the world. When I learnt it, I was shocked, found it difficult to believe, gaping in disbelief. Then, some time later, I smiled, mesmerized at the miraculous manifestations of the divinity. Menon Sir, we loved you, love you, and will always love you. Dear Sir, It was our privilege to be in the classroom and company of a great man like you. Thanks a ton Sirjee for waiting to bless us and sorry we were late to be of any service to you. and Ex-Beas house housemaster sahib in PPS, Nabha, passed away yesterday afternoon (June 18, 2015) in Kormangla, Bangalore, in his younger daughter’s house. A thorough gentleman who truly commanded respect without ever demanding it. The sadness it will evoke amid his community of reverent pupils, no doubt, will cut across all geographical state and national borders… will end up drowning both genders equally in sorrow, and the numerals like the house numbers and the batch years will sigh together, and in equal depth and thickness, at the irreparable loss. Now, the marvelous part is that Deepak Singh (R-576), Naveel Singla (R-547) and I went to meet him a day before yesterday. Though he was unwell, we three felt so blessed to be close to him and exchanged some precious words with him. He commanded his daughter to take pictures with us — imagine our kismet. Before 24 hours were over, he left the world. When I learnt it, I was shocked, found it difficult to believe, gaping in disbelief. Then, some time later, I smiled, mesmerised at the miraculous manifestations of the divinity. Menon Sir, we loved you, love you, and will always love you. Dear Sir, It was our privilege to be in the classroom and company of a great man like you. Thanks a ton Sirjee for waiting to bless us and sorry we were late to be of any service to you.
– – – – – – – –
Deepak, Naveel and I in the aura of Mr K M P Menon’s blessing; in Bangalore, a day before he replaced the North Star in the sky. A man, I have been told, is measured by his deeds. And this one — even though looking frail and fatigued lying on the bed — was yet powerful enough to negotiate with Godjee Himself a day’s extension so that he could offer us not only his much-cherished darshan, but also shower us with his blessings as well. “We,” mind you, here doesn’t only imply three visible student faces…but mere PPS di sari fraternity that the legends like him nurtured with their qualities of mind and heart. Now, who wants to argue with me that only bad people have addictions…
by blogadmin | Dec 15, 2012 | India, Published Books, Year 2012
Launch of Anna’s canteen as seen in Tribune News Service!
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