| Conversations With Dad - Summer 1999 HOME | ||
| TAPE 1 Beginning Family Business New Dhirke School Story Lahore Exhibition Story 1P Prize story 1st day at school Typical day in Village Father's business Evening's Activities Tape 1 Side 2 Family Caste Guru Gobind Story Where were you at 50 Puppy in the well Lahore
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N=Niranjan (That is my
father) A=Arvinder (That's me) M=Mohinder (Mom) Tape1, Side 1 N. Let me tell you something about our old old place. Our ancestors came from an old village called Dhirke, District Gujarat, which is now in Pakistan. I haven't seen my Grand Father, Grand Mother or the maternal Grand parents or Grand Uncles. I never saw them, they died before I was born. I haven't seen the original Dhirke either. Around about 1910 my father shifted to District Sargodha. Half of the village, consisting of the agriculture people, shifted to the new village, they were invited by the British Govt. and each family given fifty acres of land, and my father was influenced by those people, they were friends, those were all Muslims. They told him to come along and set up his shop in the new village. They respected him. My Grand father's name was Ganda Singh. Ganda means 'onion' in Punjabi. They were also Bhatias. So my father went to the new village and set up his shop there.A. Do you remember GrandMa's name. N. No I don't remember her name. A. So the only history known is that they were from this village (called Dhirke) N. [Yes], and my GrandFather had four sons. The eldest was your Mom's Nana Ji, Grand father on maternal side. And the youngest one was my father. So we are related also. A. Just like Pammi and Chanda N. More or less. I am the first cousin of her [Mom's] mother, and an uncle to her. So my Father set up a shop there [In the new village] A. Are there any stories known about your GrandFather or the family from before? N. There are so many small-small stories but I don't think they are worth mentioning here. A. I would like to remember everything that you may be able to recall. Typically like your GrandFather's profession. N. My GrandFather also had a shop. But I think they all shifted from that village around 1910. A. What kind of shop are we talking about N. This would be provisions and necessities of life as required by those people, the villagers. And her [Mom's] GrandFather, went to some nearby district or town, which was near the village. M. They had some land also. N. I don't know about that A. And your [to Mom] GrandFather's name? M. Sardar Bhagat Singh. N. He was the eldest son, then there were two more, and we don't know what happened to them. They died before. M. Other son was Sardar Arjan Singh, and then Mr Sant Singh and then came my GrandFather. N. My Dad's name was Sardar Sohan Singh. So he was quite prosperous in the new village. And they called the new village also Dhirke. They came from Dhirke and called the new village Dhirke. It's real name was Chak No. 71. In that area the British Govt. named the villages Chak No, or Village No, Chak means Village. Ours was 71, about 100 families, and as I said about 50 of the families were given 50 acres of land each. M. Because those families were farmers.We had land also. N. I was born there A. So Dhirke, Gujarat District, any towns near by? N. In the previous one? Between Gujarat and Sargodha, there are one or two small towns but not any District Town. Gujarat is a district and town, and was very near the first village. M. We were brought up there I was brought up there. N. So I was born in the new Dhirke, and I studied there right up to 4th standard. We had a primary school in the village. It went up to 6th standard. A. I should remember but your Dad's name was? [Sardar Sohan Singh]. Yes I remember him. M. You have seen your Grand Father and Grand Mother in Gorakhpur. N. So I studied there [Dhirke] and after 4th standard my brother took me to Lahore. For further studies, and I am very grateful to him for this. A. How many brothers and sisters were you? N. We were two brothers and three sisters. Your Tayaji Sardar Tralok Singh, he was in railways, in Lahore, he took me to Lahore for further studies and I am what I am today is all due to him, and I am very much obliged to him. I was brilliant at school, in the village also. M. He was brought to Lahore because he was very brilliant. They said he is wasting time in the village. N. In the village also, when I was taken to Lahore the headmaster of the school did not like it. He said I wont allow you to go there. There are some stories there also. For fourth standard there is a board examination, for scholarship. There was an Inspector, a sikh man also called Gandha Singh. When he visited my school he said, don't send this boy to the examination, which was to be in Sargodha. He told the headmaster not to send me for the scholarship exam. I was told I couldn't do it, and I told my brother, who wanted to take the matter to the court, but we did not take any action. Later on I learnt from the headmaster that inspector had a son, who was also going for the scholarship. There may have been only one or two scholarships, and they were on caste basis and sikh boys would get few, and muslim agriculturists would get more. So anyway that is one of the stories. A. The other story is the one about the railway station where someone was giving away prizes for answering a question. N. Railway Station? No that was an Exhibition in Lahore, where we saw robots answering our questions. Then I was in 5th or 6th standard. [around 1937]. I was very good in studies in Lahore also, I got scholarships, fees excused, and I got good help from schools. A. You needed it, because our family probably couldn't afford to pay for schools. N. No, they could afford the high schools but maybe not the college fees. So the story you are asking about is that we went to see the exhibition in Lahore. There was a shop there, a stationary shop, and we went there and the man said that he would ask a question and if one of us could answer then he would give us a prize. The prize was probably a pen, pencil or exercise book. The boys told me to answer. No one knew us, but the boys knew that I would be able to answer. The question was 'A pen and pencil together cost 4 annas, the pen costs one anna more than the pencil, so what is the cost of the pen and the pencil'. [It's raining curtains with thunder at this moment in Epsom!] Without hesitation I said 'two and half, one and a half'. Everyone clapped and he gave me a lot of presents. Pencils and rubbers etc. A. So what is the other story? N. The other story is in the village, I must have been in the 4th standard. A person came to the village with his son. He was very proud of his son who was very intelligent. My headmaster told him that he also had a student who was good. So the visitor suggested a competition. Everyone agreed. They gave us a few maths problems which we both did, and we both did all correctly. Then they gave us some dictation, in Urdu, and a word came up that I was not sure about. The word was 'khjoor' (palm date), and I wrote it and deleted it several times. But at the end my 'khjoor' was right while his was wrong. I had won. Do you know the prize? It was one paisa (1/5000 of a pound in 1999 currencies). That money was given to me by the other boy's father. Some boys from the school ran to our house and told my sisters that I had won a competition. 'Niranjan has won a prize'. When I went home my sisters started kissing me. I remember all these small stories. The funny thing is when I started school my sister came with me. It was a small school and my sister must have been 15 or 16, and unmarried at the time. We had to take our own sack (Bori) with us to sit on. On the first day I was very reluctant (to go to school) and my sister called some of the other boys to get me to go. I must have been 5 years old. I was crying and shouting, and one boy took me by the hands and another boy took hold of my legs and they carried me into school. With the sack and all the other things I had to take. I remember all those little incidents. Well that was our village life, but I loved our village. M. The training he got from his teachers is still helping him even now. N. You know, when it would get to sundown, then we would start repeating the multiplication tables. One boy would recite and all the class would repeat after him. It would be dark by the time we got home. They worked so much with us, those teachers. M. My mother also did the same with me A. Mom used to the same with me and we did the same with manjeet, but there were some tables that were hard to recite. Marisol. I used to do the tables with Manjeet and then I would ask him separately, for example 2 times 4. Manjeet used to wait, but Anil 3 years younger and only 3 years old would come out with the answer. Manjeet would scream at him to shut up. N. The village was so much in the interior that the nearest Railway station was 5 miles away. And the town of Sargodha, was 16 miles by road. People used to walk or go on horse to the station. When I was 9 I went to Lahore with my brother, to continue the studies all the way to BSc. He was in the railways, married and brought me up as his own child. There was a big difference in age. M. My mother in law used to say to me that Ajit, (My nephew), was my brother in law because there was only 2 years difference between them (between Dad and Ajit) N. Yes, My brother's eldest son (Ajit) and myself were almost the same age. Sol. So are you the youngest in your family N. No I had two younger sisters. My Brother and one of the sisters were elder. One of them has died already. A. When you were in the village what would be a typical day of your life. N. You see, there was a canal that went through the village, it was part of a big canal system that was in the area. That canal we used to go to it for swimming. The water would come up to our waists. There is a funny incident that happened at my brother's marriage. I must have been about 6 or 7. One of the guests, our cousin, took us about 4 or 5 kids to that canal. We used to go every day for swimming. One day he told us to remove everything, we were stark naked in the canal. What he then did was that he took our clothes and ran back to the house! The canal was about half a kilometer from the house. He was running towards the house and we all 4/5 kids running after him. Stark naked through the village. A. And what is that story that you once told me about Surinder Uncle who lives in front of our house in Kalka Ji. N. His GrandFather and our GrandFather were cousins. So they lived in the same village. Now they live in front of us in Delhi. He is younger to me by 4 years. M. His father is my Mother's Uncle, and she was very attached to him. We lived in the same house for a couple of years, cooking and eating together. N. His Father and her (Mom's) father were both in the railways and almost like brothers. M. They used to call him Lakhan's Uncle .Lakhan was my mother's pet name. N. So a typical day would be that at 8 or 9 I would go to school. I would be the whole day at the school, and my sister would bring lunch there. Typical breakfast would be paratha with butter (home made). Our house was a big one, they were all mud houses. The compound would have four or five rooms for ourselves, and 2 or 3 rooms for the cattle. Each house would have a brick room, which in our house was the gurdwara (temple) for the entire village. The house was so big that there were 4/5 Babul trees. Babul is a desert tree, Acacia in English. There are 2 or three types, but these ones were desert types that do not give fruit, and lot of thorns, but we used to get good shade and all that. M. When I was married they also had five buffaloes at home. N. Yes in our house we did not have cows, just buffaloes M. There was a lot of milk, lassi, butter N. So much that when my mother used to churn the milk, she would often call my father to help with the quantity of butter. Probably used to send the butter to other people in the family, to Lahore and to make butter fat, and maybe sell it in their shop also, but I don't know if they did that. The story is that my Father opened the shop and his brother in law joined him by mutual agreement. He came from another village with his family and joined my father in his business. He was very clever and intelligent and business oriented person. His son Dharam Singh now lives in Gorakhpur. He was about the same age as my father and dealt better with the people in the village. My father would deal with the outside suppliers and my uncle would remain in the shop. We used to buy standing crops, wheat or cotton, when they were ready we would buy the entire field. We would get it cut and supply to the District town or sell in our shop. The profits were shared between my uncle and father. My uncle was a shrewd man but he was also an angry man, or should I say difficult to get on with. With the villagers also, he could be abusive and would get angry quickly and would not tolerate any nonsense, My father was a very mild man, and happy go lucky. My mother and father were very respected perhaps because they belonged to the same old village. So my uncle's behavior was very good for the business and it was quite successful. Otherwise left to my father, it would have lost everything. He died from TB, maybe because of the tensions etc. My mother used to tell him that it was not good for him to be so worked up. And I remember that my mother & uncle used to argue a lot. When he died my father could not control the business ant more. The children were then in Lahore and he did not have the energy, and slowly the business came to nothing. Luckily as the business faltered the partition happened, and it was easier for him to shift to India. He may not have come out if this had not been the case. However everything that they had was left there. He was alone at the precise moment of leaving and he probably did not even know where their jewelry etc was hidden. A. We will talk about the partition later on. You should continue with your early years. What would be a typical lunch when you were in the village. N. Lunch would be chapattis with one vegetable or a dal, but not both, with yoghurt, butter and lassi and milk. My father used to drink milk from a 'channa' a type of flat dish, maybe one kilo at a time! The food and climate was very good, but simple. Alternatively lunch maybe Sarson (Mustard leaves) Sag and Makki (Corn) Roti. This is a typical Indian dish popular everywhere. I love the Corn Roti with Gur (raw sugar). A. The Corn Roti absorbs so much oil M. No, we make this roti without much oil, the one that absorbs oil is bajra (millet). When you eat then you can put as much butter as you like, but then it is up to you. N. The staple food is wheat but this corn bread is a special thing. A. You would not normally eat meat at home? N. Even now in Delhi we don't eat meat every day, we may eat chicken once or twice a week, because I am not allowed red meat. Mutton we have stopped, fish we don't get, so chicken we eat once or twice a week, even eggs I don't normally eat. A. OK, lets go back to the village, and what did you normally do in the evening. N. In the evening we would play hockey in the fields sometime upto 2AM. We would make sticks out of branches from bushes. We would select a suitable branch that might have a tapered bit on one end, cut it and make a hockey. Then our mothers and sisters would make a ball with thread. And you wouldn't believe it but we would play hockey in the moonlight. The village had four open grounds. The village had been designed like that, each corner of the village had a water pool, where the earth had been dug to make the houses, and alongside each pool there was a ground, where the children could play. A. And what could you use for goalposts? N. We would use a couple of shrubs for the goals. A. And your mom did not require you to be home by a certain hour? N. No, my mom never bothered with time. She would say 'let him play if he wants to' A. Manjeet and Anil should not listen to this. Marisol fixes the return times. M. I was also quite strict my kids but my mother always told me to not be after them all the time. N. We had school all week even on Sunday, there was no holiday so we had to play after school. A. How far was the village from the seaside? N. The sea was hundreds of miles away. Probably similar to Delhi. It was a desert area, called 'thal'. The place was ruled by the British, and they gave free land for people to go and live there.The canals were made to take the water from the big rivers and bring to these desert areas. The area was very sandy but slowly it improved, and flourished, and it became a center for production of wheat for the whole of India. A. Your Dad did not have any land for agriculture? N. No we did not have any land, just the plot where the house was.In that village only muslim families had land. Then there would be sikh villages where the situation would be the other way round. But we lived in a Muslim village, there were about 30 non-agriculture families. There might be a butcher, a barber, carpenters and smiths etc.etc.
N. The Non Agricultural families may have been given 1 or 2 acres each and they would have built their own houses on the land, in the new village. But there must have been about 50 farmers families that would have been given 50 acres each. The village was well laid, there were two crossing roads in the middle with a ‘chowk’ or plaza in the middle. Each corner was made into a couple of shops, there were 8 or ten shops and these were given to the shopkeepers. My dad had one entire corner. A.Was there any political activity, power struggle etc. N.No not power struggle but there were groups, there was a gurdwara and a mosque and we mixed quite a bit, so much so that at my marriage there were three or four muslim families present. M. When I arrived at the village the muslim families also gave us their blessings. To my mom also they gave their blessings and adopted her, because my father in law was their friend. A. What would have been the caste mixture in the village. N. Well, the village was mostly muslim so there was no caste, but there was the Muslim league, these people were very friendly to us at the beginning, but after a few had been at university, before the partition they began to bring political ideas to the village. A. How about our family is there something known about the caste that we would have been? N. We were born in sikh families and there is no caste, among the sikhs there was only ‘jat’ or landowner and non-jat. The Hindus have the castes. Those are Brahmins, Khatris, Kaits (shopkeepers) and Shudras or Harijans or Dalits. M. I tell you that Dalits will rule India now that a lot of political power is in their hands. N. Among the sikhs there is a mix of people from all castes, and all are allowed to come to the gurdwara, and that distinction has been lost. Perhaps some of the professions such as barbers and butchers may be from the low castes. M. I don’t think there are any barbers in the Sikhs N. There are Sikh barbers etc. in the Sikh villages and they shave the non-sikhs! A. I remember the story (or maybe it was a joke) about the Guru Nanak Hair Cutting Saloon. Is there any link of our family going back to the times of the start of Sikhi, to Guru Ji’s times? N. I don’t know of any links, they say that Bhatias came from Rajasthan, and were Rajputs. There are many hindu Bhatias, and the sikh Bhatias may have come from Rajasthan and moved to Gujarat and those areas. M. There are many Muslim & Hindu Bhatias, Gandhi & even Jinnah were Bhatias. Nowadays the Bhatias are very successful in high positions etc. A. What were your first memories that you remember from childhood? N.There are so many memories from childhood but they are not worth mentioning. I tell you my father was a very simple and straight man. He used to rise early maybe 4 or 5AM. He used to sleep outside the house on the verandah, in the summer just outside and winter in the verandah, which was just in front of our shop. He used to tell us that every morning just before he got up maybe 3 or 3.30 he would hear horse footsteps. And he said that it was Guru Gobind Singh Ji (Our Tenth Guru) who would come to his bedside and tell him to rise, that it was time to get up. M. After my marriage also, I remember one day when he got up he called his elder son, ‘Tralok Singh, get up – We have to hold Akhand Path in this room. Guru Gobind Singh Ji has been here, and has told me to hold the Path here.’ That room was full of Boxes and Trunks and quilts. However they had to obey and they somehow cleared the room and held the path there. He was very religious and I believe that he had Darshan. He would say that Guru Ji had come on his horse and come to the window, and called him to get up. N. My mother was not at all religious. She learnt Japji Sahib, only through my father because he used to teach her. I think the incident of the GuruJi’s appearance was in his mind and not a real occurrence. Once when they at Patna Sahib, he started crying one night that ‘look at my shawl, it has SatNam Waheguru written all over it.’ M. When they came back I think it was Mohinder (our cousin) who recounted the story to his dad. That a few people from the temple had assembled and how GrandPa had told them ‘Cant you see, its all over my shawl, Guru Gobind Singh Ji is going back. You all are blind, you cant see him. He came and bowed in front of Granth Sahib, and now he is gone.’ After that event he never wore that shawl but kept it under the Granth Sahib. N. Both my Mother and father died peacefully in their sleep. When my Mother died I was there. A. I was there (in Gorakhpur) when Grandpa died. I remember he had only one tooth. He had all his teeth missing except one. M. I think he suffered from Asthma, but did not suffer anything at his death. And his wife had all the teeth but her eyes were bad. I believe that the night before her death she was even eating radish (mooly). N. No I never heard that dad had asthma. A. Well, here we are today is 1st June, and tomorrow is your 75th Birthday. {Dad thinks that that is either diamond or platinum) And I am almost 50 years, so where were you when you were 50? N I was in Ghana, no 50 would be1974, I was on my way to Zambia. And at 25 I was in Gorakhpur. We were talking about the life in the village, it was a wonderful life, No roads, cars, television or electricity. No water, except from the canal, and we used clean it by adding some alum. There would be people we called ‘mehra’ that would bring the water in earthen pitchers, a couple for each house every day. The alum would settle all the particles, and canal water is very sweet water, fit for drinking. The source of the water would have been the Jhelum river and then diverted by canal systems to our area. The fifty farmers also were allocated 24 hour turns at using the canal water for irrigation. There was a rotation system so that the next farmer had to go at midnight to divert the water from the previous farmer to his farm, and so on. They also wells and ponds which they presumably used to store the water till their next turn. Did I tell you the story of your Mamaji, who once threw a small puppy dog into the well which was located in the centre of the village. It was not used for drinking but its water was used for bathing etc. After a couple of days the well started smelling, it was quite deep, and people became alarmed. They had to empty the well and the dog carcass had to be removed, then refill the well. A. What about the toilets N.There were no facilities, we went out into the fields. There were also some handpumps which we could go and bring water from, but they were a couple of miles from the village, and we used on bikes to fill up pitchers and bring them. In the house we would have had Chairs, tables and beds, like the ones you have seen, and also ‘palangs’ which are good beds. And plenty of bedding, ‘rajais’ (quilts) etc. M. I think my mother-in-law had upwards of about 100 bedding sets, and probably she could have ;looked after an entire ‘barat’ if that was required. N.They used make the bedcovers at home with the thread etc. and also ‘khes’ which are thick sheets, and we had simple charpais which could be placed outside in the yard and you would put the bedding on those to sleep in the summer. Sometimes we would even sleep on the roof. The construction of the house was strong enough, The roof would have been placed on walls made from mud bricks (unburnt) supplied by some local builder. The roof would be wooden beams, purlins with straw over them. Then on top there would be waterproof plaster. It was a hard life but you get used to it. M. Everybody except me. I couldn’t get used to no fans, bathrooms etc. N. We also had cattle and there would be cattle dung that would have to be cleared. This we used for fuel and for manure. Also all the farmers they loved to have that material for their land. They would come with their carts and load this and take it to their farms. We used have a ‘jamadarni’ (cleaner) who used to come and make round dung pieces and dry them on the walls. We also used to get cart loads of cotton plant sticks, after the cotton had been picked. That is very good fuel for cooking and tandoors etc, and they never cut the trees for fuel. M.There used to be the jungle, and all those bushes with ‘ber’ N.There was’nt any jungle just thick bushes, about 5 feet high. ‘ber’ are berries A. I have never seen ber or jamnu outside India. There was also a yellow berries that used to be either neem or similar tree. N.Only in the rainy season, and I don’t know about the yellow berries. We talked about the ponds where they washed cattle, and the canals {sua} which the ladies used to wash clothes. And the playing fields full of bushes etc with the berries, and we would play hockey (5 or 6 a side). Another popular game was volleyball. ‘Guli Danda’ was also very common, and was good at this. Kabbadi and wrestling was also popular. All villages had their kabaddi teams, and the whole village would go and watch. M. I have seen your grandfather (this to me) doing wrestling. A. I used to play kabaddi with all these kids on the beach. And they used to show matches from India on TV. I think now we can move the story to Lahore. N.Well upto 4th class I was in the village, we studied Urdu, mathematics and civics etc. Fom the 5th standard I moved to Lahore and there I started to learn English. Most of our relatives were in the railways. Even your {Mom’s) father was a senior accountant in the railways. Do you know that my Father studied in Gujarat (where Mom’s family were) and even your Tayaji studied with his Uncles with several of your (Mom’s) Mamajis and other people from that side of the family, such as Uncle Sangam Lal. A. So there was quite a mix of Hindu and Sikh parts of the family N. My Maternal Uncles were two of them Hindus and two of them Sikhs. It was quite common for hindu families to have some sikh kids and that was the case with my mother side of the family. M. On my family’s side also there were some uncles who were Hindus. My Dadaji (paternal Grandfather) was a Sikh and politically active. A. So you were about 10 years old when you arrived in Lahore? N. About nine. You enter school at five years. I started the school at Lahore at nine and finished in 1939. A. Did you lose any years when you moved to Lahore? I lost a year when I moved back to Delhi from Gorakhpur. N.No I did not I was very good at all subjects except English. They made some special arrangements for me to study English and before long I was good at that also. When I finished my Metric (end of High School in those times) I was’nt yet 15. M. Your Mamaji also was’nt 15 when he finished Metric and Guddi also was one year ahead when she finished her High School. A. When you came to Lahore you stayed with Tayaji (elder brother). N. Yes right upto my MSc and marriage. There was a big building owned by Surinder’s father. We were tenants in that building. We were paying only a small rent, something like 8Rs (per month). My Uncle was happy that the rooms were rented to family. M. Sardar Natha Singh also stayed there & we used to stay there. N. Natha Singh and Iqbal Singh were nephews of My Uncle (Surinder’s father). Surinder’s father and my father were first cousins. Her (Mom’s) Mother’s Grandfathers were also my Grandfathers. So I am her (Mom’s) mamaji….. So my education in Lahore I was having good grades and I was in demand for all the schools. These were all community private schools, eg Khalsa school, Sanatan Dharam and Muslim schools, and they all had scholarships for exceptional candidates. The schools were supervised and controlled by the Government but financed by the students fees and community. These schools were very good and I started in the Sanatan Dharam school at 5th standard, and this school was very near where we lived. A. Did you know Mom at this time? N. Yes we knew them but we were in Lahore and they were in Gujarat. I only met them at marriages etc. I remember that they came to our village and these two or three girls used to tease me. I remember I went to my mother and told them that these Mems (English ladies) from Gujarat are teasing me. They were all very beautiful girls they were all pulling our legs. M. We came from Gujarat and we had city clothes and these village people were fascinated. A. Were the schools in Lahore within walking distance? N. No though you could walk. I did not have a bicycle, and I would typically jump on a tanga (horse drawn carriage) which would be full of school kids. I would jump off before they arrived at the chowk near our house or the school, without paying anything. Sometimes I night pay 2 paise or 1 anna. At other times I would walk with two or three other people, it was almost three miles and could have taken us an hour to walk. I had a wonderful time in that school, and they gave me a lot of incentives to study at that school. |