Few are aware that the holy city of Amritsar is “world famous” for the annual “Langoorwala Mela” at the Hindu shrine Durgiana Temple, architecturally built as the replica of the revered Sikh shrine – the Golden Temple, in Amritsar. Durgiana Temple with a similar, gold-covered dome, the circumambulation around the temple and causeway path to the sanctum sanctorum of the main shrine, sitting in a similar pool of Nectar is exactly like the Sikh Golden Temple and a mere few kilometers apart, located in the ancient walled city of Amritsar.
What Eid is to Kashmir, “Durga Puja” to West Bengal and “Dandiya celebrations” to Gujarat, the langoor-wala Mela or fair is to the Holy City of Amritsar. Every year on the occasion of the onset of winter- on the ‘Navratras’- (9-Holy Days), thousands from across the country and abroad arrive at the ancient “Bara Hanuman Prachin (ancient temple) Mandir” on the premises of Durgiana Temple here, to participate in the internationally famous Mela to make a wish for a child or for thanksgiving.
The unique mela is a rare feast for the eyes, in the Holy city that sees children dressed as ‘Langoors’ – a species of monkeys, dancing to the tune of drums in a procession passing through different parts of the city. This time over 5,000 ‘Langoor’s’ symbolizing the army of Lord Hanuman – the Monkey Lord, are participating as a thanksgiving to Lord.
Lakshmi Kanta Chawla, president Durgiana TempleCommittee, said over 200 volunteers will undertake the management of the mela.
More than 3000 ‘Langoor’ costumes are sold annually while many languor outfits are given for rent. Childless couples, irrespective of ‘religion’ or caste, seek blessings of Lord Hanuman( from epic Ramayan ) for the birth of a child and on wish fulfillment dress their child as ‘Langoor’, in gratitude to the Almighty.
In bright red silver-striped outfits, with silver and golden trimmings, conical-shaped caps, faces, arms, smeared with fuller’s earth, and make-up like ‘‘Langoor’s’ complete with long tails and silver-colored staffs in hand, children dance to drum beats for all nine days. lately, monkey masks too, have also become popular.
Bimal Arora, finance secretary Durgiana Temple committee informs –“The temple boasts of a “rare” idol of Lord Hanuman in sitting position which is only found in two other temples in the world, at Prayagraj and Hanuman Garhi”.
Legend has it that the twin sons of Lord Rama – Luv and Kush of epic Ramayan who were born close to Amritsar in a mud hut of Rishi Valmiki the author of the Ramayan, called the “Ram Tirath” lived in exile with their mother, Sita Mata till their youth. The twins captured the ‘Ashwamedha horse’- or the horse of victory, let loose after “Ashwamedha Yajna” performed by Lord Rama (the twins’ father and King of Ayodhaya) to stake his claim over all land territories where the Royal horse set afoot. —Lord Hanuman, who unknowingly came to defend the captured horse from the two young sons of Lord Ram, was taken prisoner by the twins and tied to a Banyan tree which is believed to be the offshoot of the same tree located on the Temple premises eons past. Later the truth about the children’s parentage was revealed here.s As a ritual, childless couples believing auspicious spirits lovingly tie a red sacred thread or ‘Mauli’ around the majestic bark of this ancient banyan tree seeking a boon of a child.
Interestingly the city of Lahore and Kasur in Pakistan are named after Luv and Kush respectively, and the fact is even mentioned in the official records of Pakistan.
Remarkably, the pledge to make a ‘Langoor’ can carry on for life, and an eighty-year-old ‘Langoor’ and a few months old baby could be dressed as ’Langoors’ to fulfill the vows of parents or grandparents. A strict regime of custom is followed by parents or a guardian of ‘Langoor’ – to sleep on the floor, observe fast, shun footwear, eat vegetarian food uncut with a knife, and recite verses from Ramayana during the entire 9-day period. The ‘Langoors’ on their part remain barefoot all 9-days and sleep on the floor. The mela concludes on Dussehra festival when ‘Langoor’s’ finally take off their ‘Langoor’ outfits near the banyan tree. Childless mothers gifted with a child, untie the thread on the ancient tree on the fulfillment of their wish.
In popular belief, the unique festival has been celebrated for centuries.
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BAJRANGI BAHIJAAN DRESSED LANGOORS AND BLACK FACED LANGOORS
187th newborn baby girl arrives in the Amritsar Cradle
Rashmi Talwar
Amritsar 3rd September 2022—
Amritsar’s cradle Scheme under the Red Cross called ‘Pangoora Scheme’ welcomed its newest member of a newly-born baby girl. The baby was just a few hours old when abandoned by unknown people a few days back.
Randhir Singh official Red Cross informed “Around 10.15 pm on August 25, a newborn baby was found in the cradle at the out-gate cradle or the Pangoora. The little cradle has a bell hanging on top. When the child is placed in the cradle, the bell is rung. The baby was first rushed to nearby Parvati hospital here for medical examination and was found to be underweight and was therefore under care for a few days. Later, she was brought to Pangoora.
Mrs Gurpreet Sudan Chairperson, Red Cross Society, the wife of Deputy Commissioner DC Harpreet Sudan, visited the baby girl, completed the process, and sent her to the Swami Ganga Nand Bhuriwale Foundation and put the baby up for adoption under the LAPA scheme.
‘Pangoora Scheme’ was started in 2008 in Amritsar by its then Deputy Commissioner
KS Pannu. Since then 187 children arrived at Pangoora, out of which 156 were girls and 31 boys. Pangoora, is a rescue-cum-shelter care home for abandoned infants.
90-Year ‘Young’ Reema crosses border to visit Rawalpindi Home in Pakistan
Rashmi Talwar
Wagah Attari Border (AMRITSAR) 16 July 2022– Reena Chhibber Varma’s milestone 90th Birthday year (born in 1932) was a dream come true after 75 years, as she walked today across the Radcliff Line International Border between India-Pakistan, to fulfill her ardent desire to see her birthplace and childhood home in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, again.
Reena expressed herself on this momentous moment in her life -“I urge governments of both countries to ease visa restrictions to restart people-to-people contact between both countries, I ask both countrymen of my mine to “walk the present road to progress from the past of pain hand in hand”.
For Reena, it was her fourth try for a visa, that made this journey a reality. Reena who was in Amritsar for two days earlier, where she had stayed to complete her graduation in Modern College, post-partition, said “Amritsar too, is my home albeit for two years”.
From May to July of 1947, she and her family moved to India, when she was 15 years old. Communal riots started in February-March onwards in 1947. In the last 75 years of separation from her home in Pakistan, Reena says –“I couldn’t erase the memory of my ancestral home, my neighborhood, and my Pindi streets. It remained a constant tug to my heartstrings”.
The 90-year-old turned to social media in covid times and expressed her desire to visit her ancestral home in Pindi, Pakistan, on social networking sites. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar noticed her pleas as friends from networking sites tagged her urging the minister to intervene and grant visa to the nonagenarian. The Pakistan minister lost no time in issuing a 90-day multi-city visa to the former denizen of Rawalpindi.
Today while driving to the International border, a mere 30 minutes drive, Reena, carried mixed feelings, that oscillated every second, bringing sudden spurt of excitement of the present, then deep melancholy with her mind constantly wavering between the past and present in a range of 75 years of geographical birth of two nations India and Pakistan. Reena waxed and waned by turns, reliving the moment when she was 15 years old. She felt saddened to remember her journey to Solan (India) never dreaming that there would be gates that would close behind her or it would take 75 years for her to cross over manmade lines, to go back to their loving home. Her maternal home, made by and named after her father Bhai Prem Chand Chhibber -‘Prem Niwas, 1935’ in the ‘Prem Gali’ a lane named after her father, located on the ‘DAV College Road’ of Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
The former citizen of Rawalpindi reminisced about a composite cultural community thriving in Pindi before the partition. “My father was not only a progressive but a liberal-minded person. Often friends from varied communities, including Muslims visited home, it was the most natural, normal, and joyous occurrence in the home, which was quite frequent,” she said, remembering “Our house-help were also a diverse mix of people”.
She especially remembered her father and mother and said a little prayer for all her lost ancestors who shared every joy and sadness in that Pindi home and faced every challenge post partition together. –“I am lucky; I, represent all of my family today. At least I am that one person from the Chhibber family who could see the Pindi home that my father built with all his toil and life’s savings”. And adds – “My Mother couldn’t come to terms with the fact that we shall never go back to Pindi, she was continuously in a state of denial till her last breath. My father came with nothing to India even his ‘potli’ was stolen or snatched or left somewhere, he doesn’t remember as he crossed over in a daze thankful to be just alive; knowing that all the comforts he made for his family over years of planning were snatched in one moment, and everything changed overnight.”
In a mixed mood throughout the 25 Kms we covered from Amritsar city to the Attari-Wagah border, Reena would take a second to register any questions asked on the way and was at once excited and suddenly sad, remembering having lost all eight members of the family, who passed away, pining for this home in Pindi.
“Yet my father never blamed anyone, not the politicians or the people nor the communities, and remained neutral throughout. I remember my father having a beautiful soul, a true human with humanity as his religion, and I take after my father,” she said.
In a moment of elation, Reena thanked her Facebook friends, especially in Pakistan who brought her dreams to fruition and spread so much love crossing all boundaries; that men unthinkingly and egoistically, draw.
Remembering those times of post-partition – “ It was a very hard struggle again in India, especially for my father who could never build another house for his family again given his meager means, spending the rest of his life staying in rented accommodation. And shifts the topic instantly – “I have no fear, apprehensions whatsoever, I always harbored a feeling of love and positivity, at least now the souls of my ancestors will rest in Peace with my visit to our Pindi home” she adds.
As Reena waved her frail hand — she waved in both directions as if it was goodbye for one and wave-out to her homecoming to the other, in opposite directions. and declared -“I am a ‘young 90-year-old girl’, and today I feel just like my 15 years old self when I first crossed the border to India, never to return to my home!” she raised her hands in a Balle-Balle, Punjabi style born as she is -a Punjabi in West Punjab.
Finally headed home to Rawalpindi, Reena was garlanded and welcomed at the Wagah side of Pakistan by members of the India Pakistan Heritage Club on the Pak side- Imran William and Zahid, and others. She will stay three days in Lahore where as a teenager she used to shop in Anarkali Bazaar as an annual shopping trip in winter, while her summer vacations were spent in Muree –a hill station near Pindi in Pakistan for the first 14 years of her life. She is being hosted by the Government College University, Lahore Pakistan.
On 19th July 2022, Reena will head to her actual home address in Rawalpindi Pakistan.
In Amritsar
Earlier, Reena paid obeisance at the Golden Temple and the Partition Museum Amritsar. She felt overwhelmed and moved to tears, at the museum, looking at articles from homes in Pakistan, donated to the museum by survivors and hearing the oral histories of those affected by the bloody Indo-Pak Partition. Among those who witnessed the partition on the Indian side include former Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh who had also settled in Amritsar post-partition and later rose to head India as its PM for two terms, Deputy PM LK Advani, famous lyricist Gulzar, Hamida Habibullah a former MLA and Rajya Sabha member, famed journalist Kuldip Nayyar, Milkha Singh a celebrated athlete, Satish Gujral eminent painter, sculptor and muralist, ace lawyer Ram Jethmalani among others.
Why couldn’t Indian 90 yr old, Reena travel visa-less to her hometown in Pakistan?
In the year 2013, Delhi and Islamabad announced that senior citizens aged over 65 would be issued visas on arrival at the Attari-Wagah land border crossing from mid-January, 2013 under a landmark liberalized visa agreement signed by the two countries in the year 2012. That same year when this provision became operational, a senior Indian journalist availed visa-less travel for the first time on the invitation of ‘South Asian Free Media Association’ (SAFMA) a SAARC body meeting of journalists from eight countries held in Lahore, Pakistan.
Accordingly, the arrival facility was exclusively for border crossings at the Wagah-Attari border falling in Amritsar and Lahore districts respectively on either side of the Radcliff Border Line between the two countries. Accordingly, senior citizens could visit five places of their choice and were issued a 45-day single entry visa and were exempted from police reporting. This became operational with the new bilateral India Pakistan Visa Agreement 2012, at Wagah Attari Joint Check Post JCP.
Visa issuance was to be done daily from 10 am to 4 pm crossing on foot. In India, the Pak citizens were allowed to visit any place other than Jammu Kashmir, Punjab, Kerala, and some other prohibited areas owing to them being sensitive and declared turmoil areas. The visas were non-extendable and non-convertible with a single route entry and exit. Some Identity cards were required to be presented as proof, at the visa counter along with booking details or place of stay at the rate of Rs 100 INR and correspondingly in Pakistan. Children below 12 accompanying adults were also granted this facility. This agreement took place during the congress regime under Dr. Manmohan Singh in 2012 and was implemented in 2013. Incidentally, the former PM Dr. Singh is a Partition victim and understood the pain of separation. However the visa-less travel agreement petered out under the NDA regime of PM Narendra Modi, therefore Reena too couldn’t avail of the facility.
PAKISTAN’S HASEENA MOIN MATCHLESS LEGACY OF TELEVISION SERIALS
A Tribute
Rashmi Talwar
In mid-1970s a convent educated Sukrita Khanna admonished the darkening silhouette of Dhauladhar snow peaks cautioning -‘No wind maangtaa (want) – for the next hour, Ok!’ She paced the cozy room reciting ‘alif, bey, pe …’ alongside praying the winds wouldn’t alter the angle of the tall antenna. The fireplace was flickering flames, under a dressed mantelpiece, she finally dropped in her favourite sofa chair, pulled over the home-spun crochet shawl; holding pen to paper. From her Japanese Television set Akai –popped PTV’s (Pakistan Television) signature tune and a blackboard appeared. Sukrita’s husband Kirti Chand (KC) Khanna was on rounds of his famed 1939, built colonial-style hotel ‘Aroma N Claire’s’ in Dalhousie, India. Sukrita made notes from the televised Urdu teaching program, revising and drilling the words to her memory.
PTV neatly conquered Indian audiences at the height of 1970-meters in upper hills. And it was Haseena Moin’s TV serials that captured the Indian imagination and mind. The visually delighted, TV-empowered Indian was lucky albeit by a quirk of fate, located in the line of PTV signals, bang on the banks of the international borderline of two nations; or, positioned in the latitude of PTV airwaves, located in the upper reaches of the mountain range.
Though in first line of fire, Indian border residents momentarily forgot three wars, their plight and numerous border conflicts, and instead enjoyed moments of wholesome local and ‘foreign’ fare churned out by PTV. India’s state-run Doordarshan channel arrived late and proved to be insipid and clichéd with movies, Chitrahaars, and a stray agriculture programme. In a way, PTV actually rendered our townships, border villages to become prized summer holiday destinations and the envy of cousins in capital Delhi and the rest of the mainland. They craved trips to Amritsar or Jammu or Dalhousie, precisely to enjoy matchless evenings of TV time.
Though my aunt Sukrita’s delight was in learning a language of poetic fame, her prime triumph laid her ability to read the ‘actual names’ of the title star cast of dramas running on PTV. The names weren’t announced, rather rushed on screen in the ‘incomprehensible’ Urdu script. When visiting our home, her maika, in Amritsar, considered twin city of Pakistan’s Lahore – of pre-partition times, Sukrita, casually names-dropped the real identity of enchanting characters of iconic Moin plays and won admirers. “Dr Zoya Ali Khan’ is Marina Khan; Dr Ahmer Ansari is Rahat – the charming couple of cult classic ‘Dhoop Kinare’.” Gradually, names of popular PTV characters from Moin’s plays started emerging in birth certificates of newborns. I have named my daughter Sana, Shaheen or Zoya or Zara was the oft-repeated social circle talk in Colonial Clubs, over card games of rummy, flash and poker tables as also at the Tennis courts, leftover, and popularized by the British.
Less than two decades post-partition, among the 60s and 70s born Indian generation, the Urdu-educated elders or grandparents suddenly became more sought-after than the convent or Hindi educated parents. Many an Urdu dialect and dialogue from Moin’s plays entered an essentially Sikh and Hindu home and became amusing fill-ups among children- Gustakhi, mausiki, khasoosi, shaukeen. We had dialogues like – ‘Zill-e-Illahi ko khasoosi bhojan paroosa jai!’; ‘Ye jhumlebaazi band kar, Gustaakh!’ Significantly, the word ‘mazloom’ or helpless was never seen used for women in Moin’s plays, whose protagonists were strong, feisty, spirited and humorous women.
Haseena Moin -a trailblazing, celebrated dramatist, playwright, scriptwriter, Pride of Performance awardee of Pakistan and of numerous international awards, passed away on 26th March 2021, in Karachi following a cardiac arrest. However, her legacy lives on among Indians across borders and the elders of her ancestral country. She elevated the Pakistani woman in Indian eyes and inspired the female gender cross-border too. In her lifetime, Moin succeeded in bridging hearts between her twin homes divided by the infamous Radcliff line. She was born in Kanpur, India in 1942, and left for Pakistan with her family in 1947.
Her plays were adored, as Sarabjot Mallik a classmate in Amritsar, now an artist, recalls –“Moin’s serials had an ease of manner, were identifiable, decent and replete with comic moments”. Men equally enjoyed the series and closed down business concerns synchronizing with serial timings.
During my first visit to Pakistan In 2005, five years post the Indo-Pak Kargil war, -“My father fondly asked me to bring CDs of Moin’s plays, popular shows, and serials of PTV. I found pirated copies freely sold at Hall Road, in Lahore’s labyrinthine Androon Shehr or the old city. The CDs were much in demand by the new flock of Indians following a free flow of people to people contact under the aegis of CBMs (Confidence Building Measures) between the two warring neighbours. CD sellers told me –“Moin’s serials are in serious shortage often, much as they are in demand by Indians and of other Muslim countries”.
It fascinated me that these serial CDs got reinvigorated with the free flow of people to people contact through Indo-Pak border and posed stiff competition to the Made-in-India Hindi films, sitting cosily and sharing neighbourly racks with Indian film CDs- adored in turn by Pakistanis. It felt interesting to assess, grudgingly though; that India had to concede this once in no uncertain terms- ‘What wars couldn’t achieve, the virtual waves of Moin’s serials did to win strategic depth with Indians’. PTV serials especially Moin’s ideas, were rational, grounding intelligent, decent and real-time and with cine treatment far superior, compared to Indian TV Channel programmes.
Alternately, it was exciting for me to watch the utter craze for Indian films. It was widespread, abundant, free flowing especially in Lahore the capital of West Punjab, Pakistan. Melodies of Indian movies were played everywhere- in buses, taxis, homes – A violin player unabashedly churned out song after Indian Bollywood song at the famous Gawalmandi, Food Street of Lahore, adding a melodious and aromatic Indian tempering to delicious Lahori cuisine, during my delightful invite to dinner. That’s what Indian films meant to Pakistani public, banned as they were, from watching them in Pak cinemas; apparently to elevate Pakistan’s hobbling unrefined film industry popularly referred as Lollywood. The country that produced lacklustre film ideas had an undisputable aptitude to create and produce wholesome content on state-run television channel, beating its own film industry with ideas, subjects, treatment and sensibilities, was ironical. Moin’s serials were a big contributor to this success story.
Alternately, that same year, Indian Television dramas were much discussed in Pakistan – The mother of my dear friend Neelma Durrani- SSP Lahore, who loved watching Indian TV serials of the mid-90s on cable in Pakistan–‘Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ and the likes of Kamolika as vamps, mischievously enquired “Ek baat batao beta, -Do Indian women sleep in extravagant Sarees, and loud make-up and lengthy sindoor lines, every night?” She twinkled. “Do they want to impress their husbands?” eliciting a belly laugh from me-“We are just like you Amma (addressed her lovingly),” I hugged shaking with laughter. ‘Ye Indian drame bhi Na, bas drame hi hain, haqeekat nahi’ (Indian TV dramas are just dramas not anywhere near reality) I lamely justified.
In the same era of the 70s, TV signals from Pakistan were hazy in Kashmir. So, Kashmir, famed for its haseen vaadiya (charming valleys) couldn’t see these Haseen – Haseena Moin’s serials in real-time. Anita Mehta, owner of –‘The original Photoshop’ – the legendary ‘Mahattas’ of Srinagar-Delhi, since 1915, recollects, – “Entry of popular Moin plays and others came as pirated copies in seedy Kashmiri CD parlours in the mid-80s. Kashmir too was mesmerised just like the mainland, by Moin’s serials”. Since Kashmir-Amritsar enjoyed socio-economic umbilical cord. Kashmiris returning in summers told their brethren in Kashmir about Pak serials.
A distinguished TV producer and former general manager of PTV in addition to being from an exalted lineage as the daughter of illustrious Urdu –Punjabi Poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Alys Faiz- Moneeza Hashmi, while speaking to Kashmir Images in India gushed –“Moin and I had a fastidious friendship”. We connected through PTV- the lone channel of the 70s. Distance didn’t deter us from keeping an enduring friendship of 40 years, the same number of years we both were in Television, she, the dramatist and I, the producer. I was stationed in Lahore and Moin in Karachi, but being frequent travellers we met often.”
A Moin serial meant – rich fare of diverse plots, amazing direction, eagerly and equally craved in India and Pakistan. Language, shared culture, became robust bonding and meeting points between two Punjabs and Jammu’s counterparts in Sialkot and Mirpur. Jammu too turned crazy over Moin’s serials; the Sialkot booster stationed in Pakistan ensured clear signals to this erstwhile princely state that was part of the bone of contention between the two countries and over which three wars were fought.
Ravinder Kaul, renowned global theatre critic reminisces how Jammu was glued to PTV. The animosity of wars replaced timeline of endearing relatable stories of our generation, when streets remained empty. Many Pakistani actors and singers became stars and legends. Jammu’s former Deputy Commissioner, a Punjabi short story writer admired in collective Punjabs on either side of the border, for books published in both Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi scripts, Khalid Hussain, remembers people making wild guesses and hurrying back from work on Fridays to watch the twists and turns in Moin’s serials.
Taru Bhatia Peshawaria a schoolmate became much sought after the following news -Rahat and Sahira Kazmi of Pakistan were staying at her place in Green Avenue, Amritsar. As word spread – Taru recalls –“It was a near riot of fan craze! People climbed over boundary walls and neighbouring trees for a glimpse of Pak duo. Then, Rahat was considered the Amitabh Bachchan of Pakistan! Amritsaris screamed, waved from the streets when I sat with Rahat- Sahira in a car. I honestly felt like a queen! We were headed for an interactive session of Pakistani stars with students of SR Government College for Women, Amritsar. In the college auditorium, crazy girls let out catcalls, hysterically recited popular dialogues of the actors and screamed and yelled. The multi-storied college building swung, rocked and frolicked with the infectious aura of adulation,” Taru gleamed recalling that unforgettable day.
Unlike Indian Ekta Kapoor serials presumably abhorred by men, Moin’s serials had an overall endearing quality that drew men to watch. Amritsar based artist, writer, businessman Arvinder Singh Chamak felt, Moin’s characters were stamped on his mind in our childhood days. In Moin’s plays, Pakistani women were spirited, carrying bob-cut hairstyles which were metamorphic for me. My mother was from Gujranwala Pakistan and we, who had been fed with tales of purdah and burqas, were dazed to watch gutsy, lively, modern female characters of her serials, coping and dealing with the vicissitudes of life. To say her characters were inspiring would be an understatement”, said Chamak who went on to do three international theatre pieces in Lahore in 2005-2006 and 2007 with Neeta Mohindra and MK Raina troupe- Rang Toli. Chamak had the opportunity of meeting Moin whose literary legacy is precious, during his visit to Lahore in 2006. “To discuss progressive writers of the time and the way the city-twins Amritsar-Lahore resonate culturally with her was delightful,” he recalls.
Dr Zoya of Dhoop Kinare – a Moin serial, assumed a fashion icon status in India, recollects Mrs Amar Singh, a pioneer in the beauty business in Amritsar with the first beauty parlour- Figurette. “What was unforgettable was the slicked-back bob-cut hairstyle of the young doctor that became a craze with girls here. Natural make-up, special looks on Eid, weddings and other occasions flowed in congruence with the script line. Moin’s serials got us hooked to their styling, clothes, words, gestures, body language, mannerisms, unpretentious make-up and left us deeply impressed,” adds, Amar.
In a televised interview Shahnaz Sheikh – a craze as Sana Murad in much-acclaimed Moin serial – Ankahi, gave wings to a strong, delightful, humorous female character that even Pakistani men, otherwise conservative, relished. Shahnaz, at the panel discussion with Moin remembered how during military dictator–Pakistan’s President Zia-ul-Haq’s rule, indoctrinated Islamisation, plunging a new, emerging, modern Pakistan, back to the dark ages. He ordered-Television producers to show all hero and heroic characters in traditional Salwar Kameez, signifying the virtuous, alternately, all dark, dicey and negative characters were to be shown wearing western outfits of pant shirts.” Shahnaz chuckles, remembering- “In 6th episode of the popular serial Ankahi, suddenly, the good men donned the Salwar Kameez and the devious ones wore trousers and shirts”. It was ordered that all women be seen in head-dupattas or veil. So, a woman stepping out of water or washroom or upon waking up or while cooking, had dupattas stuck to their heads. Orders to keep a distance of four feet between men and women also followed. “So, leave alone holding hands, a page of a book was expected to be read via a bionic vision from four feet away!” she added.
Even Sarees stamped as Hindu traditional wear, faced a ban. Perhaps legendary Pakistani singer Noor Jahan was the last and only privileged woman to don the Saree during her television appearances. “Women wearing Saree in Pakistan evokes stares and double-takes and the inevitable question –“Are you Indian?” writes Saba Imtiaz in her comprehensive article ‘Borders’ published in “FiftyTwodotIn”. The impression came alive on meeting Zareena Saeed in the year 2011, while leading an all-woman delegation to Pakistan, made possible by my dearest friend Shahnaz Hussain. Zareena Saeed, English Professor, Punjab University, Lahore Pakistan, a visibly die-hard Saree fan claimed she wore only Sarees; it was on the tip of my tongue to ask Zareena, if she had an India connect, we were so conditioned to see women characters in Pak serials in Salwar Suits, never in a Saree. Shahnaz my friend too loves to wear Sarees to special events.
Meantime, in the same discussion, Moin mocked at popular Pakistani play Humsafar that became hugely popular in 2000, showing a beautiful top Pakistani TV actress- Mahira Khan, as a helpless, tearful woman looking for a male messiah to save her.–“the strong dignified peppy woman of Pakistan that we took 40-years to create onscreen as an inspiration to the subdued gender of our nation, vanished in the four years that I fought with cancer and couldn’t write dramas and scripts”. Moin brushed aside comments on her serials labelled as “Lighty Flighty”- opposed to serious dramas, at the same panel and lamented –“My tough woman was replaced with helpless, weepy, timid, tearful female character; and I, was accused of spoiling girls- that my girls were bold- but I shot back –“they weren’t disrespectful!” Women should be daring and know-how to cope and command respect, this will remain my stand, forever,” Moin hand-stamped her preference in no uncertain terms, at the discussion.
In year 2016, I visited Lahore again. A friend Faisal Satti’s friend Annie Quratlain a producer in PTV offered a visit to PTV studios. I jumped at the chance even as my astonished daughter on her first visit to Pakistan was stunned by my childlike thrill. My tickles of joys and ecstasy of revisiting my childhood was only short of her stint in bungee jumping. PTV studios were brimming with photos of popular 70s & 80s Moin serials. Our friend clicked pictures of us on sets of sitcoms, Qawwali, Newsrooms, a tastefully done living room, with photos of identifiable yesteryear actors of mass craze serials and much more. I remember my eyes sparkle, my step bounce, my bundles of chuckles, my glee unfettered and it truly became an unforgettable Adrenaline moment for me. Perhaps seeing the location came as a closure to my dream of visiting ‘that’ Pakistan seen on TV back home as children.
Among the expressive photographs spread the deep shadow of the creator Moin’s sudden demise. How these unknown, ordinary people turned into household names and cult stars. They were a far cry, from weepy characters -scenes of most Pakistani TV serials, today. I reflect on Moin’s passing and wonder if Sukrita- the charming lady of Dalhousie, of a spirited memory chip, who ironically, developed Alzheimer’s – a disease wiping her memory slate clean, that took her life; would she ever meet Moin- the women empowerment crusader, in Soul-land? If ever, then Urdu indisputably would ignite the conversation; tales of pre-partition, partition, and freedom may light their fire, generational similarity may concoct a Rice Palau or Biryani and their collective humour may stir the Kesar Chai and brush smooth the ruffled feathers and bond a fastidious friendship! Who knows Moin may strike an idea for an Indo-Pak serial and add a new twist to the tail of storytelling with real-time inputs from India, sorely missed in her vast repertoire of cherished Drama serials. The meeting may become a grand sweep, successfully brushing aside long drawn animosity between both countries; this time, perhaps for eternity.
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SNIPPETS
· Television in India started experimentally in September of 1959, with a small transmitter and a makeshift studio in Delhi. Daily transmission began in 1965 as part of All India Radio (AIR) television and later extended to Bombay and Amritsar in 1972. PTV came to Pakistan in November of 1964, the first broadcast from Lahore.
· Haseena Moin, famed dramatist of Pakistani serials penned many a serial that left a lasting impact through generations including Uncle Urfi, Ankahi, Tanhaiyaan, Parchaieyen, Bandish, Dhund, Dhoop-Kinarey, Aahat, Kasak, Pal Do Pal, Tere Aajane Se. Her play Gurya won an award at the Global TV Plays Festival in Tokyo for best script and direction. It felt like Moin took a line or idiom, tossed it around and turned it into a story, with a standout character’s nameplate.
· Pakistan’s first original script ‘Kiran Kahani’ aired in early-1970s was penned by Haseena Moin. Earlier PTV relied on novel based scripts for TV serials. When Moin’s play took to the airwaves, it turned unforgettable.
· Haseena Moin – the beautiful woman, who wrote, created, love on reels of the small screen, never found a sweetheart in real life! Moin never married, died single, and wasn’t even touched by a rumour of an affectionate relationship with the opposite gender. So minute was Moin’s reflection of real life, she observed, understood, and breathed life into her diverse characters as if she had borrowed the nuances from a popular book ‘Men are from Mars and Women from Venus’ by relationship councilor John Gray. No! The book came much later, Moin had an inbuilt antenna combined with talent that observed and served the true essence of varied human behaviour.
· Moin was the writer of the first coloured drama of Pakistan, aired on PTV called Parchaiyan, which had a huge star cast.
· Characters from Moin’s drama became hugely popular especially across the border in India. In the late 70s -“Rahat Kazmi & Sahira Kazmi came from Bombay to Amritsar and stayed at our place”, Taru Bhatia Peshawaria reminiscences. Then in the year 1982, we went to Lahore and the Kazmis invited us for dinner at their home. I remember I was very impressed by their home and found it “very arty with a classy floor sitting. The couple was not only cultured but exhibited intelligence about varied topics.”
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How did Rahat and Sahira Kazmi land in Amritsar?
It’s quite interesting how Pakistan’s top actor Rahat Kazmi and his wife Sahira Kazmi landed in Amritsar and stayed with a local family. It was after the Indo-Pak partition, that film producers Ram Dayal Sabharwal and his father Sardari Lal Sabharwal produced independent Pakistan’s “first film” Teri Yaad starring Nasir Khan and built lifelong relations and connections with the performing artists’ fraternity of Pakistan, this closeness did not get divided with the new national borders. Ram Dayal was married to Nirmal Sabharwal whose sister Swaraj Bhatia was married in a well-known political family of Amritsar. Taru Bhatia Peshawaria was the daughter of Swaraj. Ram Dayal had asked Swaraj and her husband Shyam Sunder Bhatia to host Rahat and Sahira in Amritsar since they were to cross over to Lahore Pakistan from Wagah border. Thus the duo had the privilege to stay in a local home of Bhatias and participate in an interactive session in SR Government College- Amritsar’s best women’s college at the time.
(Right) Awais Sheikh Sarabjit’s Lawyer releasing book- ‘Sarabjit Singh- A case of mistaken Identity
Sarabjit’s lawyer -Awais Sheikh, in dock !
Letter to caretaker Punjab CM for security to Pak lawyer
By Rashmi Talwar
AMRITSAR May 3, 2013——————
Awais Sheikh, the Pakistani counsel for deceased Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh in Pak jail, is a scared man. Although having a slight physical stature, he has guts of steel and has never felt frightened while supporting Sarabjit’s case. He took over as lawyer of Sarabjit after 26/11 Mumbai attacks from Mr Rana another counsel of the Indian prisoner, during the time when hatred between the two countries was at its peak and the Pak SC had announced an ex-parte decision due to the absence of Sarabjit’s counsel in court.
Even when Awais was thrown out of his rented place by his landlord, labeled an Indian agent and during the time when protests were held against him outside Lahore Press on the announcement that Sarabjit was to be released but was retracted within six hours and another prisoner Surjeet singh was released in his place; Awais did not cow down and never backtracked, he held on to his courage. He came to India more than 25 times without fear of persecution from intelligence agencies of Pakistan.
In a letter today to the caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab- Najam Sethi (in view of forthcoming elections in Pakistan) the Human Rights Watch has written that Awais was subjected to an attempt at kidnapping at Wagah border besides receiving threatening letters and phone calls from organizations that claim to have strong links with Taliban. They have urged the government to provide him clandestine (invisible) security so that he does not become a visible target of those who want to eliminate him.
Awais has addressed umpteenth press conferences since 2008, in both India and Pakistan, even garnering support of celebrities to urge both countries to repatriate their prisoners after their prison terms were over and has mounted an attack on both countries for their callousness, time and again especially in the case of Sarabjit.
But after Sarabjit’s death in Lahore, it was the first time that fear was in Awais’s voice. After the attack on Sarabjit he said, he was fearful that he too may be eliminated. He related to me over phone from Lahore – “I came to see off Dalbir Kaur and Sarabjit’s family at Wagha Indo Pak border after they met Sarabjit in hospital, and this time the intelligence sleuths laid a trap me, of which I was pre-warned, so I managed to sneak out in a private vehicle.” And further, expressed his fear that after Sarabjit’s slaughter –“This time, they will come after me and kill me too!”
Awais has written a book titled “Sarabjit Singh- A case of mistaken identity” published by Indian Publishers Rajkamal Prakashan, that was released in Delhi and Amritsar in January 2013. The book has complete details on Sarabjit’s case as well as many other prisoners in jails of India and Pakistan belonging to either country.
Besides this he has copies of documentations to prove Sarabjit’s real name was Sarabjit and not ‘Manjit Singh’ as filed in the FIR. He had earlier penned another book –Samjohta express”- The train between India and Pakistan. Awais was last here in India, to release the book on Sarabjit Singh, in Delhi and Amritsar in January 2013.
Justice Markandey Katju Chairman of the Press Council of India, former Supreme court Judge and chairman of the ‘Free Sarabjit Committee had commented on the book –“The prosecution evidence in the case of Sarabjit Singh is very weak . His name was not even in the First Information Report”.
The winner of USA’s ‘Global Media Award for Excellence’ Zubeida Mustafa had stated on the book –“Sarabjit has not received a fair trial. That is the irony. The quirks of international relations and a flawed legal system have combined to determine the unhappy fate of this man.”
The swish of chiffon Sarees had already mesmerised our generation of teenagers or those in their early 20s. Yash Raj films had introduced us to ‘Tulips’ and ‘Windmills’ of Amsterdam for the first time in Silsila – a film that took much from the real-time high profile romance of Rekha with the most handsome baritone voiced Amitabh Bachchan.
The fragrance of mountains from Kashmir to the Swiss Alps, the lakes and flora had seemed like the stars in his films were floating on whispering clouds, endless rainbows, the bluest waters.
RISING KASHMIR: Remembering Lahori YASH CHOPRA
Kabhi Kabhi, Chandni, Lamhe, Darr had the leading lady so dreamlike, that one wondered if such creatures actually existed. We, as young girls then, all wanted to emulate them. So, school and college farewells, saw girls in sheer chiffons with a swaying paalu following them. Never mind if some of starry-eyed ones tripped on the edges, but they had to be one amongst the exalted queens of Yash Raj films, to be able to garner a tall-dark-handsome, Mills and Boons, type of guy.
During my journalistic years much later, as women journalists were often saddled with soft beats- like it or not, I too was put to task on film personalities. I do not feel any guilt in saying, I enjoyed it thoroughly, much to the smirks of fellow women journalists, who felt it was a page3 type story. Hardly journalism! as they called it. In, came a chance to interview Yash Chopra, the King maker of Romance.
He was here in Amritsar with his wife Pamela Chopra and was conferred the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy (honors causa) for his contributions to art and culture by Guru Nanak Dev University, in 2004.
The then Vice Chancellor (VC) Dr SP Singh was more like a father figure to me. He invited me, individually to have special lunch with the awardees at the 30th Convocation of the Univ.
As I saw Yash ji and his wife holding a plate, Dr Singh, a bright glint in his eye, egged me on to interview him there and then. “A journalist must never lose a chance. I know this, because I too was journalist at one time,” he urged.
But I couldn’t bring myself to barge in upon a couple, cosily eating lunch together. I told Dr Singh, that I shall do the interview only after, he is over with his lunch. Later the honoured VC even related this incident to my Bureau Chief, as all laughed at me, in our office.
Perhaps Yash ji had heard our conversation and quickly finished his lunch and joined us. “Tell me what do you want to ask?” ‘Sirrr! I wanted to talk to your wife’, I blurted out in confusion. ‘About what?’ he asked. Sirrr ji! I want to know how she views your films, your profession and your success.’ I said.
He gave a coy smile and said, ‘ No, Pamela doesn’t like to talk to the media’, as I stole a glance at his wife enjoying the lip smacking Amritsari cuisine, in a world of her own. I remembered that they had a love marriage. Soon, we reached an unoccupied cane sofa and Yash ji, made me sit beside him. The rest of the media persons too had been let in as the lunch was almost over.
We all sat with him, some at his feet glancing at him, some standing over his head and others surrounding the little sofa. Once on the route to queries, I asked him if he would ever make an Indo-Pak film as he was connected to Lahore as his birthplace. Yash Chopra said his forthcoming film would be exactly that but categorically ruled out taking his film troupe and artistes to Pakistan. He expressed his apprehensions over security issues. However he said he did not like to project any Anti-Pak sentiment in his films. He had not named his film at the time but ‘Veer Zara’ was already in the pipeline. On being asked if he would ever make a Punjabi movie, He smilingly retorted ‘but I always bring Punjab in my films’. Well, DDLJ, Silsila, Dil Toh Pagal Hai, Veer Zara had plentiful of Punjabi flavor in them. About getting the Rekha, Amitabh and Jaya in love triangle in Silsila which was a seen as scoop of sorts, Yash ji said, I signed them and the next day flew off to Switzerland. Those were the times of only landline phones’ he laughed. We all understood and looked gigglingly at each other.
Yash Chopra, who was then on the advisory board of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, showed no qualms about taking on the government on censorship issue for their leniency in passing vulgarity in films and TV programmes. He said remixed songs were jarring to him as they mutilated a beautiful composition and made it like a ‘Hijra’neither man nor woman. ‘No one can see these vulgar videos with their family’. Over reports of a nexus between films and International Mafia raging at the time in 2004, he said he was unaware of it, if it did exist.
Interestingly, I was one of the first ones to cover the story of Indian Prisoner Sarbjit Singh still imprisoned in Kot Lakhpat Jail in Pakistan which is known to be a case of mistaken identity and by some strange coincidence another case of mistaken identity was also underway at that time in the sessions court in Amritsar and I had minutely studied it and verily reported it even as it was a sub-judice case , but had led to release of the accused, a 70 year old .
It was, but a wild thought then, that Yash ji too would be including a twist of ‘mistaken identity’ in his forthcoming Indo Pak movie. Lo and Behold! This hunch came true in Veer Zara. Later, I covered the entire shooting of the film in Amritsar at Khalsa College, Attari International Railway station, Samjhauta Express, Harike, Wagah Land route and various other sequences shot in Amritsar and around.
Scene from Veer Zara
When I went to Lahore the very next year in 2005, for the first time . People there were thrilled over this very Indo-Pak romance. However, some said the language used was not authentic lahori and petulantly pointed out that the sets too could have been improved had Yash ji come to Pakistan and noted the minute details as he is wont to do in all his movies. One elderly lady in Pakistan had a question to ask –‘Why is the boy from India and the girl from Pakistan in the movie?’ She asked sweetly, ‘Why not vice-versa?’ I gave her beaming smile, How could I have an answer about the storyline of one of the topmost Directors of Bollywood in whose honor the government of Switzerland named a lake as ‘Chopra Lake’ in a place called Alpenrausch.
A Clip from Film SILSILA
True to the title of his last film-‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ Yash ji passionately took on his work.
In Yash ji’s sad demise, I feel as if the Heavens had their quota house-full for this ominous year 2012, wherein many greats in performing and other arts, musical legends and now even the most loved comic- Jaspal Bhatti of ‘Ulta Pulta’ fame has his Powerlines cut, true to his forthcoming release ‘Power Cut’. Along with Amritsaris heavy weight Dara Singh – the benign grandfather figure, Rajesh Khanna the ultimate in romantic hero, Jaspal too has journeyed to the Gods to provide the endearing comic touch, to the Grand Play being mastered in the World Beyond. First Published in RISING KASHMIR after Yash Chopra passed away ….
Amritsar, September 10
Days before External Affairs Minister SM Krishna reached Lahore to shake hands with chief minister Shahbad Sharif on Sunday, the warmth in this part of Punjab was being gently stirred up, gastronomically. Near the Attari-Wagah border, the best of cuisines from both sides of Punjab waited to tickle the taste buds. Diplomacy could wait, after all, with Punjabi ‘tadka’ ready to serve up a preamble.
The idea is simple: move on with peace with food as an essential ambassador. So, here it is: ‘Lahori Dum Biryani’, ‘Chapali Kebab’, ‘Miyan-ji-ki-daal’, ‘Lahori bhindi’, ‘Amritsari daal’ ‘Amritsari fish’, ‘bhuna gosht, lassi, kheer, rasmalai, jalebi, firni and what have you.
You are right; a distance of 30km (how far is Lahore, youngsters on this side often ask) isn’t much to proffer a flavour switch. Conceptually, it does. Here’s how.
Walk inside ‘Sarhad’, a stone’s throw from the border. “Our chefs have carefully put together ‘Lahori Thaal’ using spices and flavours from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan,” says Aman Jaspal, the owner. Since fish and mutton are a favourite on both sides, these form the basis of many recipes at ‘Sarhad’.
Aman knows Lahore and its by-lanes. “Amritsar and Lahore share a rich culinary tradition. We want engrossing conversations on cross-border cultural exchanges over a sumptuous meal,” he says.
He has already hosted special guests such as Pakistani filmmaker Ayesha Akram at ‘Sarhad’. Aman quotes her: “It is a simple and an impressive way to bond. Most conversations happen at the dining table.”
The marquee on Sarhad also flaunts a ‘Museum of Peace’. “There are many multimedia displays from the Partition and Pre-Partition days besides pictures, maps, renditions and writings by famous people who witnessed the Partition. Our collection has been sourced from scholars in London researching Indo-Pak relations,” says Aman.
From Lahore
* Mian-ji-ki daal (a medley of five lentils), tawa gurda kapoora, dil, maghaz, chaamp and ‘khusrey de kebab’
From Amritsar
* Kulchas and puris, Amritsari fish, parantha, tandoori chicken, bhuna gosht, lassi, kheer, ras malai, jalebi, firni
Candle Lit Vigil on Indo Pak /Wagah Attari /Border in Amritsar -2012
RISING KASHMIR FRONT PAGE – 17 AUG 2012 Indo Pak Candle Lit Vigil /Wagah Attari /Amritsar –
Peace Pangs and Pain of Partition, Candle Lit Freedom at Midnight ———– By Rashmi Talwar
On the Midnight of August 14-15, a candle in hand, I walk with peaceniks, to Wagah-Attari Indo-Pak Joint check post in Amritsar. The tearing border of yore, on this particular day, is beauteously bridal showered.
Dark trees, shrubs draped in twinkling drops of fairy lights and strings of glitzy flags, transform the stringent security postures and the night’s gloom into a bejeweled bride, festooned for the Independence Day Celebrations of India and Pakistan- the two countries who had chosen to separate but cannot wish away their umbical cord or get over their shared history.
Like a wedding shagun, a basket of fruits and sweets arrive from Pakistan to India and the gesture is reciprocated the next morning by India to Pak.
It is the 17th year by Peace activists as well as organizations ‘Folklore Research Academy’ (FRA), ‘Hind Pak Dosti Manch’ , ‘Punjab Jagriti Manch’, that conceived the idea of Candle lit Vigil annually on this momentous occasion of Freedom, at a time when one country’s dusk coincided with dawn of the other.
Lighting candles had come as a symbolic gesture of peace between two clanking forbidding Gates – an unspoken barrier of no trespass! That open every morning and close by sunset.
The idea of candle lit vigil was infact a simplistic emotional call for friendship, sharing pains of separation, longing hearts and prayer for harmony on the midnight of Freedom. It started as a friendship mela at Wagah, in memory of Raja Porus a common hero for denizens of both countries.
I reached a little early, giving me the luxury of retrospect. Gaping at the peeking moon, beaming in its full circular glory, through diaphanous clouds, it made me wonder if there shone a moon on those sultry, bloody August nights of 1947. The nights of stealth, loot, rape, fear, blood screams and surrenders to the greatest inhumanity to shake the Earth, leaving millions homeless, naked and paupered.
I wondered was this, one of the routes traversed by those loaded bullock carts, donkeys, sheep and goats and teeming millions, household buckets brimful with oddities, weary animals, to have written their footsteps in blood, crossing the Cyril Radcliff line.
“Did they fold their hands in prayer looking at the sky for a savior or in thanksgiving, for being alive?” Starving, in tatters, lost and bewildered as to what this meant for their future.
The cities, towns and villages quivering at their changed destinies, shuffled like a pack of cards, by a single stroke of a pen, of the reigning regime of the English; fearful of the bottomless pits of depravity by human-turned animals.
I looked askance at the trees, “Why did you stand as mute spectators to the bloodshed of innocents waylaid by mobs, blood curdling screams of many a fair maiden carried away in a frenzy of lust and fury?”
I had heard of many a head of the family’s frozen turbulence, in putting their girls and woman on the sacrificial altar, cutting their heads with a swift stroke of a sword and the bloodied heads, rolling onto male feet. Brave some women stood with chilled faces witnessing the, ‘nanga nachch of vaishiyaat’ (naked dance of death)…
I stilled these stirrings….
Tonight was different, guards had been raised, and BSF personnel guarded at every 50 steps.
A threatening barbed wire fence loomed in the darkness but faces glowed in shimmering fairy lights.
I saw, people had changed !
Perhaps, the wounds healed and generations that faced it all, turned greyer and wiser. “Hatred divides and Peace Unites; There was no third path !”
The call from Indians this time too was answered with solidarity and support from Pakistan’s peaceniks of SAFMA (South Asian Free Media Association). A call for harmony, peace, mutual coexistence, for progress and prosperity through enhanced trade, visitations, easings, release of prisoners on either sides.
Now an annual feature, the candle-lit vigil first started as a trickle say FRA’s leading names Ramesh Yadav and Talwinder Singh; with the first breakthrough of poetical symposium at Wagah Indo-Pak border by Kendri Punjabi Lekhak Sabha in 1993.
Down the years the innocent blaze of candle lights contributed to awaken the political authorities from their self-imposed slumber.
The flag of peace taken forward this time did not include celebrities. Mahesh Bhatt, Tara Gandhi- Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter and journalist Kuldip Nayyar were conspicuous by their absence while the cultural programme on the stage too was taken over not by the likes of established singers Harbhajan Mann or Hans Raj Hans, but by blooming youthful singers -Jyoti and Sultana the teenage Noora Sisters of Coke studio fame who unleashed sufi Punjabi music,, bonding the gathering of multitudes that trickled in from border villagers. The crowds swung into a frenzy of music, Bhangra and Buraaah !
Singers Nachattar Gill , Firoz Khan—who sang –‘Sadi Zindagi ch khaas teri thaa, Sochi na tenu dilon kadd ta ..(You have a special place in my heart, think not that my heart has abandoned you ) or “Ravi puchey Chenaab toh , Ki haal hai Satluj da ..” (River Ravi asks river Chenab in Jammu &Kashmir, how is river Satluj -Punjab being the land of five rivers –Panj-five, aab-water ) addressing the Indo Pak separation.
Pak women journalists, an MNA –Member of the National assembly –Tahmina Daultana, Faiza Ahmed Malik –Member state assembly, Awais Sheikh- counsel for Indian prisoners in Pakistan, besides mediapersons made up a medley crowd of representations from Pakistan who stood on the Indian side of the border hand in hand with Indians.
On the stage Raga Boyz –a three member band of brothers and sons of Ustad Hamid Ali Khan –Pak’s Gazal Maestro, drummed out the famed trespasses of naughty ‘Jugni’- the cult female folklore figure , brave and rebellious, bellowing out her antics, to the huge crowd who joined in from adjoining border villages.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s congratulatory note was read. “But what good is word oral or written if changes do not take place on the ground” contended Satnam Manak spearheading the Peace march.
Kargil war in 1999, viewed as a back stabbing operation by Pak , served as a bolt from the blue, for the efforts of peace, close on the heels of the CBM euphoria over improving Indo Pak relations, but peaceniks never gave up .
In its 66th year of Independence, and 17 years of ‘candle lit vigil’ this is only the 5th time that peaceniks from Pakistan were allowed to come near the gate to give momentum to the movement of peace.
And the jubilation turned infections when India’s candles glowed and were waved while Pakistanis took more liberties and stuck the candles in the niches that make up Pakistan’s side of the metal border gate. They even mounted upon the gates, peeking through and singing songs while the Pak Rangers and Border Security Force personnel in India smiled and laughed at their antics indulgently.
Songs of ‘Tere Mere geetan pyaar da Pul bandhna, Iss kaandiyali Tarr ne ek din Phul banna …’ (Our songs shall one day become a bridge, ..this barbed wire shall one day turn into a flower..). singing ‘Heer’- another common legend of love, turned crowds to thump a -bhangra in euphoria.
A 40 member Peacenik delegation from Pakistan and the Indian Peace organizations jointly highlighted the commonalities of Punjabis beyond the dividing line. Making fervent appeals to both nations to shed differences and grant visa-less travel to senior citizens, for a year, especially those who had suffered the pain of the partition.
The call did not end here. It called for visa less travel for under 12 year olds. The idea was brilliant. In other words it called for a grandparent to take their grandchildren to the land of their forefathers and forge a feeling of love amongst those who have no clue about the reasons of enmity, stoked by vested interests whose lifeline lay in continued hostilities.
They called for cutting of expense on weapons and alleviating causes to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, creating better civic infrastructure.
For “setting up visa counters at JCP on both sides to facilitate more travel.” This meant more people to people contact and a chance to remove long festered misgivings and doubts. And to resolve the Kashmir issue amicably.
Unlike Kashmir that still has its Bloodlines intact post partition, Punjab was brutally amputated and separated from the other Punjab.
Just after the candles were lit and had played their part, a rain shower washed the entire dirt floating in the air to bring winds of change for this land of hope. I again stole a glance at the moon that emerged through the spent clouds, its baby face shone more glorious and I prayed it would banish this darkness of hatred forever. URL of story :http://www.risingkashmir.in/news/peace-pangs-and-pain-of-partition-31716.aspx FIRST PUBLISHED IN RISING KASHMIR ON FRONT PAGE DATED 17 AUGUST 2012
When I was a little boy in Tarn Taran, a doggerel known to every Punjabi was oft quoted: “The man who has not been to Lahore, is not born”. A second lesser known, but often said in verbal jousts ran: The Donkey has been to Lahore, and now puts on airs.
I hadn’t been to Lahore for many years, and thought mid-February the perfect time to visit friends. A night stay at the Guru Nanak University was a pleasure. A better kept campus with rich plantation, can hardly be seen anywhere else. A visit to the Golden Temple, in the mid-day warming sun, was as always exciting: plenty of people from every corner of India, and queues, to get in over the narrow causeway. I talked to many in the Parikarma. Even I was astonished, at the presence of all of India. I met Tamils, Andhrites, families from Odisha, others from Bihar and Bengal. This was just a sample. Everything sparkled in the bright sun and clear air, and the mood was one of joy.
Manohar Singh Gill, Member Parliament
The drive to Attari-Wagha was interesting. The many laned road is perfect. Just out of Amritsar, was the bronze statue of Sardar Sham Singh Attariwala. Thirty years ago as a young Commissioner, I dreamt of putting up such monuments, but the time was not ripe. On both sides of the road, I saw excellent wheat, and the yellow mustard of Mulk Raj Anands’ short stories.
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At the Attari Border, I saw hundreds and hundreds of laden trucks, waiting to cross over. I questioned people. They were carrying many kinds of vegetables. I asked of the waiting time, and was horrified to know, that it is generally a week, sometimes even more! This is hardly smooth commerce, and I could imagine the suffering of the drivers in the cold, and the loss to the transport companies, in efficient utilization of the trucks. I enquired, if it was as bad on the Pakistani side. I learnt that they were better! Why was this so on our side? It appears that the perpetual Indian curse of distrust, and lack of common sense, leading to the filling of multiple forms, and many many useless enquiries. I am clear from my long experience, that most good policies and reforms, are reduced and sometimes nullified by bureaucrats, who see a devil under every bed, and think that form filling is the solution to it all. The robust Punjabis on the Lahore side, are inclined to use their common sense more, than big rule books. To cap it all, trucks pass from 9A.M. to 2P.M. after that the police on both sides, practice their evening aggressive parade. It is strange that vital commerce is allowed only for a few hours, the rest of the day being given over, to the promotion of aggressive parades and negative attitudes. The fact is both the police and the people are relaxed, and not with this goose stepping.
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I will give a parallel example. The Amritsar-Lahore bus, was started with great fanfare, many years ago. The day I crossed, the bus too had gone to Lahore, entirely empty except for the driver and the cleaner. It seems this happens all the time, and everybody is pretending, that a great confidence building action has been taken. I am from a Tarn Taran village. I had said publically many years ago that the bus will fail, unless there is a Pakistan Visa office in Amritsar, and an Indian one in Lahore. I think they existed, but were shut down after the 1965 war. The bus needs a man from my village, to come to Amritsar in the morning, get a 24 hrs visa stamped, go to Nankana Sahib, and cross back in the evening, dining with his family. Punjab people have to fill half a dozen forms, which are sent to half a dozen Ministries, mainly home and police agencies, and they are lucky if they get a visa in six months! All this to take a day trip to Lahore, 30 miles across the border. The system being followed is meant to nullify the initiative, no less. Strangely more then a thousand rupees are charged for this 30 mile trip.
I will also say, that the Lahore people suffer equally. I could quote numerous examples, of high dignitaries, and professionals begging around our embassy in Islamabad. Their request sometimes, for my help embarrasses me. Pakistanis get a visa to go direct to Delhi, and are not allowed to get down at Amritsar, to visit the Golden Temple, or for cheaper medical treatment, in a familiar Punjabi environment. The Delhi-Lahore bus too, zips through the Punjab, escorted at our cost, but no Punjabi can get on it! I wish somebody would explain the rationale to me.
On the Pakistan side, many people welcomed us, and we stayed with Cambridge friends. In 1974 Dr. Rashid Amjad, newly married, was doing a Ph.D. in Cambridge, when I was writing a book, on the Punjab Green Revolution Success. He is the only case that I know, who got married to a pretty girl, took her to Cambridge, and still managed to study other irrelevant matters, and somehow get a Ph.D.! Manzoor had worked with me in Nigeria for four long years, but never given up the Rishta. The Mall Road and the wide thorough fares were a delight. The Silk cottons, were already bursting into potential blooms, ancient plane trees touching the sky were everywhere. For centuries Punjabis have lived with invaders, and the doggerel is known to all of us : Khada Peeta Lahe Da, Baaki Ahmad Shahe Da. Eat and drink what you can, the rest belongs to Ahmad Shah Durrani. So every evening there had to be a massive meal hosted by a gracious lady. One evening we were taken to Andaaz Restaurant in Old Lahore, overlooking the beautifully lighted Badshahi Mosque, Ranjit Singh’s Tomb, and the Akbar built Fort.
Of course, I played a round of Golf. I could not compete with the idle of Lahore, distinguished high public servants they might have been, but I did not disgrace myself. In the pavilion Verandah, I found four old bodies, tucking into plates of fried eggs, tomatoes, toasts, cheese and mushrooms. I went across in a wicked mood to greet them. They tried hard to ruin my cholesterol levels, and were anxious to take me to dinner. Another golfer passing by, was introduced to me as a past Federal Secretary. He gave me a knee touching greeting, in honour of the Indian Election Commission’s past work. I had been there once.
In that society of the well to do, I suddenly spied, an Aam Aadmi, a peasant, sixtyish, white Punjabi Chaddar, and white Punjabi Turban in a jaunty village style, that I know. He had a broom and was sweeping tree leaves. He was looking longingly, at the only Sikh on the horizon. I walked across and greeted him. We soon learnt that we were brother Gills. All Punjabi peasants, are Gills, Chatthas, Waraich etc. We are a tribal people from the North, religious variations came to us later, and our past over rides all these. We hugged each other, and numerous photographs were taken. He said I had made his day. I knew that he had made mine.
The next day I went to Kartarpur, some distance from Narowal, two hours from Lahore. People think only of Nankana Sahib, where Guru Nanak was born. My take is different. The miracle child lived his first 15 years at Nankana, the next 15 at Sultanpur Lodhi in Kapurthala, working in the Lodhi Governors office. At age 30, he gave it all up, and became a Sufi Fakir in search of the ultimate. He travelled to Baghdad, Mecca Madina, Assam, Tibet, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. After 20 years of having sat with the Sants, Sadhus, and Sufis of the world, he came back at the age of about 50, set up a Farm on the banks of the Raavi, and spent the next 20 years preaching what he knew. Guru Nanak’s teachings are all from Kartarpur. He passed away there. Muslims and Hindus argued over burial and cremation. As the legend goes, they found only flowers under the Chaddar, and half were buried, half cremated. To me Kartarpur, from where a mature Guru Nanak preached Sikhism, comes first and his place of birth second.
Sadly, in 1947 Independence came to both countries, but marooned the Mecca-Madina of the Sikh people. For the last 64 years, we are allowed limited permission for a few thousand each year, by the Home/Police Ministries of the two countries for pilgrimage only to go to Nankana Sahib, Lahore, and Panja Sahib near Islamabad. Guru Nanak’s Kartarpur was locked away, and it fell into disrepair. Now, the Pakistan Wakf has repaired it, and opened it for limited privileged visitors. In 2004, I had gone to Dera Baba Nanak, a small township, where Baba used to come across the Raavi, from his right bank Ashram, to preach to the people: hence the name Dera Baba Nanak. I stood on the Dhussiband on the Raavi, and saw Kartarpur 2 kms across. I found that Sikh men and women came everyday, in their hundreds, to bow in the mud, cry a little, and go back home. They could only glance at Kartarpur with longing eyes. It is strange that the Sikhs are the only people in the world, who are denied free and liberal access to their Mecca-Madina. I believe that the indifference on both sides, has given this punishment to the Sikhs since independence.
In the early winter morning, we drove across wheat and yellow mustard fields, through the pleasant countryside, passing villages and small settlements. The agriculture is good but frankly could be better. I did not see too many boys, and particularly girls, on the road going to school. In our Punjab thousands of girls on cycles, rushing to lots of schools is a happy sight. I missed that. At Kartarpur we suddenly turned a bend in the road, and there was the Gurdwara, elegant and standing alone, in a vast green rural landscape. A large number of people were waiting to greet me. I paid my obeisance and climbed to the top to look across at the eucalyptus trees on the Dhussiband across the Raavi. So close and yet so far.
I had wanted to meet people, real people, peasants, the salt of the land. I had met enough of the upper crust in Lahore. A large number had come. We sat on Charpais. Deghs of Biryani had been brought. Everyone ate. Three leading singers from the area, were there. Each sang to his heart’s content, and my delight. They sang of Guru Nanak; Bulle Shah, Heer Ranjha and Farid. I then spoke to them, and made it clear, that Guru Nanak was for the people. Therefore for me to come, and do isolated prayers, and not meet the people, amongst whom he is still revered as a great Sufi, was not possible. The experience will live with me, as it will with them.
At Nankana Sahib, the next day, I found that the Gurudwara is much improved. The mud inner compound is elegantly marbled. There are many double storeyed rest houses for pilgrims and a Sarovar. There is also an excellent Guru Nanak School nearby, where a thousand students study. My wife and I had lunch, with the family of Haroon Bhatti. He is the 16th descendent of Rai Bolar, the Zamindar of the area in 1469, when Guru Nanak was born. Rai Bolar took to this miracle child, and Sikhs have plenty of stories of Rai Bolar’s great love for Guru Nanak. So do the Bhatti family. The family were gracious and kind, the final proof, Saag and Makki Roti in a big spread.
I went to Aitcheson College and spoke to the boys. I visited the Lahore School of Economics, set up by my friends, the two Chaudhary brothers, both Cambridge alumni. This outstanding school, is putting a thousand boys and girls into Pakistan society every year. Girls and boys were in equal numbers, the girls better dressed than our Delhi ones. There were many Libraries and cafeterias. They had tried to give a Cambridge atmosphere. I believe this school will impact, Pakistan’s future in a positive way. Someone on my side should have a look, and start something similar in the Punjab.
Since 2004, I have been campaigning at every level, for direct and free access to Kartarpur, from Dera Baba Nanak, without visas etc. The idea is simple. We can walk barefoot, two kilometers across a boat bridge over the Raavi, built post monsoon, do our prayers and come back. The path could be cordoned on both sides, with barbed wire, with police in attendance. Security will be satisfied, and the Sikh people of India, will have full access to their Mecca as all other faiths, have to theirs. In the 21st Century, it is time good and caring people in both countries, looked at this, to give comfort to the Sikhs.
Dr. Manohar Singh Gill
Member of Parliament
Contact No- 011-23792953/ I thank Dr MS Gill for sending this write-up for Saanjh.wordpress.com… Regards Rashmi Talwar for Saanjh-Amritsar Lahore Blog
Prof Sham Lal Banti, broke into a sweat in the middle of the night. “Oh Parmatma! What am I going to face this year?” he shuddered. Agonizing efforts, hundreds of toss and turns with incantation of ‘Ram! Ram!’ brought him some shut-eye.
The next morning dread set again, looking at the overcast sky, the clouds ready to burst into a thunder. He thought what an ominous start to the ‘new session’. Nevertheless, polished shoes et al, he bravely stepped into the college premises albeit haltingly.
He looked around, saw boys and girls thronged the corridors and cringed at the sight of -‘Tattered bits hung here and there on their ‘frail’ bodies,’ ‘They could be blown away by whiff of the wind’…he thought. He had heard it being called –“Zero figure Syndrome! .
Girls with weird painted fingertips, earrings pierced through their eyebrows and belly buttons! “Heavens!”- He yelped inwardly, Even their ‘tongues’! …. “Save mankind, Lord Ram!”-he prayed silently.
What was on their feet—‘Shapeless contraption like shoes creeping up their thighs, sandals with straps so long around the legs, that they looked like creeping reptiles !’
Humor caught up with him and a chuckle escaped his lips-“A gregarious crowd no doubt”. Teen of today throttled the beauty parlours to get their way!, came another rhyme to his mind.
He smiled, accepted it as signs of equality — no more gender bias as even boys had their arms cleaned of hair and eyebrows shaped.
No sooner another sight and “Hey Ram! Hamari Bhartiya Sanskriti ka kya hoga”, slipped out loud. A passing boy heard his remark and told him “Dude! Take a chill pill.” Now what is a chill pill one would ask? But not him –After all he was Mr. Know all -the Professor.
As he walked down the corridor he saw more- boys with the weirdest of hairstyles.
Some with ponytails, few with colored strands, a group with literally ‘hair on edge’ like the head suffered an attack of ‘goose pimples’. However his eyes blinked at the sight of the” Katori cut” . He had the imagination to understand how a small inverted katori was kept on the head and the rest of the head was shaven off.
Next came the “ Mushroom cut”-A lot of hair was left on the crown and the rest shaved off –the end result was like that of a ‘toadstool’.
Professor Saab’s thoughts raced back to yesteryears when he was dragged to the barber U.M.T (Under the Mango Tree) and instructions were loud, clear and specific-“Chote, chote kar dena, ‘choti’ ko haath na lagana”. “Hai pitaji, acha hai apne yeh sab nahi dekha” he mused.
Shuddering, he opened the classroom door and was hit by a bolt of lightening; his eyes almost popped out to see his younger son dancing on a desk supporting a ‘bald pate’…..He was the fashion icon of the day ! Meekly gulping, Professor Saab decided it was time to actually take “The Chill Pill”… eom Vandana (Minni) Mahendru is a popular content writer
Who will call the PM ‘Mohna’ again?
by Rashmi Talwar
I look at the golden shower cassia tree in my garden and I am reminded of two such cassias growing in far-off Gah village in Pakistan, that I had presented to the late Raja Mohammed Ali, a childhood classmate of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
“Meinu mere Mohne nal milva do! Meinu Hindustan da visa mil gaya hai!” was one call I received in May of 2008 from Rajaji alias Babaji. I was aghast! ‘Mohna’ was the nickname he used for the Prime Minister. In March that year I had met Babaji the second time in Katasraj (Pakistan) and carried copies of an article by me in The Tribune about him and his friend ‘Mohna’. I gave a copy to a senior officer of the Indian High Commission at the Katasraj shrine, urging him to issue Babaji a visa.
After four rejections, three months later, Babaji was ready to come to India and elated in anticipation of a meeting with his illustrious classmate – albeit without any appointment!
I looked for ways to fix that seemingly ‘elusive’ appointment, on the Net. I wrote on the PM’s website, even found an IAS officer, seemingly by divine intervention, who helped script a letter and fax to the Prime Minister, but to no avail.
Meantime, a thrilled Babaji, unaware of the ‘trials and tribulations’, called everyday and we agreed on ‘priceless gifts’ for the Prime Minister comprising ‘soil and water’ of the PM’s school and ancestral home in Gah besides ‘tilley wali chakwali juttis’ and a 150-year old ‘resham ka lachcha’ made by Babaji’s grandparents.
A week left, and still no reply! Finally, media had to become my ‘sole-mate’. There were renewed media contacts in Lahore, Amritsar and Delhi. A foreign news agency in Lahore filmed the story about preparations to meet the Prime Minister, and ended it with a question –‘Whether the Pak friend would meet the Indian PM?’ It was featured on BBC just prior to Babaji’s arrival in India. Still no reply!
On Babaji’s arrival a local school gave him a thumping welcome with bhangra by kids at the Wagah Indo-Pak border. The press grabbed bytes of the dancing children, gifts of soil, water and juttis!
The same night an official of the PMO called! More relieved than elated, I requested for accommodation and conveyance in Delhi for them, besides security during travel to Delhi, the following day.
Babaji reached Delhi and was whisked off to a five-star guest house and given a chauffeur-driven car. Two days before the meeting, Babaji urged me to accompany him but my refrain was “this is the time for only friends, not me”.
It turned out to be a most poignant moment between India and Pakistan. Later, a tearful Babaji left India carrying the cassia saplings, a booklet with publications of his visit, a large photo with the Prime Minister and him wearing the chakwali juttis, gifts by the PM of a pair of watches, suits, shawl, dry fruit and Assam tea and even a doctor’s prescription, as live proofs for his village-mates.
Even though Babaji is no more, the entire village safeguards these prized possessions and has even framed the Indian doctor’s prescription — as a historical memory of Gah’s priceless connection with India.
FIRST PUBLISHED IN “THE TRIBUNE” ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
Publications in India of PM Friend in Pak
Times of India & Indian Express Publications in India of PM Friend in Pak
Kotla Sultan Singh a decrepit village 30 Kms from Amritsar is known more as the birthplace of legendary playback singer Mohammad Rafi
The singer’s class mates one of them being Bakshish Singh remembered the singer by his nick name ‘Pheeko’. At his age of 93, Bakshish can still surprise you with his memory about good friend Mohammed Rafi whom he met just once in Amritsar after he became a singing sensation .
This time on the singer’s 30th death anniversary 0n July 31 the ancestral village held a singing competition in memory of the boy who did them proud. The village’s Senior Secondary School (then primary) has also been renamed as Mohd Rafi Sn Sec School where the singer studied.
Bakshish’s bleary eyes light up when asked about his singer friend and he goes into realms and realms of incidents of their childhood together .
“Rafi was uninterested in studies and used to slip out from the school (there were no rooms then for classes, only a tree shade) . He was often spanked and thrashed by school teachers and parents for bunking. Often we used to see him in the company of fakirs singing with them or drumming a tune on any inane object in his hand. His house was next to ours and that’s how our friendship grew. We used to play together and while taking our domestic animals for grazing he used to keep singing or humming a tune .
His father Hajji Ali Mohammad was a cook and I remember during those days of child marriage , Rafi’s baraat went to Lahore after which he stayed a few years in the village. Later about 2-years before Indo Pak Partition his father took him to Lahore to make his vagabond son do some work. There the family had a barber’s shop at Lahore’s Noor Mohalla and Rafi was tasked to clean the shop . One day as Rafi was busy cleaning and singing alongside, two top music directors in the shop (Lahore was then the cultural capital of Punjab ) spotted him and asked him to sing once again for them. Impressed, one of them took out a song on a piece of paper from his pocket and pushed it into Rafi’s hands and told him if you are able to sing this song at a Mushiara scheduled to be held in one week , we will select you. Rafi was thrilled but was poor at reading therefore took help of others to read the song , memorized it and set it to a tune. After he sang the song at the Mushiara , there was no looking back for him . the music directors took him under their wings and the rest is history . according to some Rafi learnt classical music from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan,Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwanlal Matto and Firoze Nizami.
Bakshish Singh’s son Santokh Singh Samra who is the head of Kotla Sultan Singh contends that the village is trying to do its own bit to keep the memory of the singer alive.
“We started a computer training centre at the village named after Rafi. The school gate and the road leading to the village was also named after him. Now, we have left out an acre of land, which we intend to convert into a park named after him. We will also have his statue inside the park when it comes up,” he said.
Born on December 24, 1924, Rafi died on July 31, 1980. He lent his voice to Bollywood’s megastars including AmitabhBachchan, Shammi Kapoor, Dharamendra and Dev Anand. He has numerous hit songs to his credit including several duets with famous playback singers Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.
It was music that got him to Lahore where he sharpened his musical skills under the guidance of Ustad Ghulam Ali Khan. In 1944, he made his singing debut in a Punjabi movie called Gul Baloch with Zeenat Begum. The song was a duet called ‘Soniye Ni Heeriye Ni’ penned by Shyam Sunder.
However, it was Homi Wadia who actually recognized the power of Rafi’s voice and insisted that he sing a song for his upcoming film ‘Sharbati Ankhen’ under the direction of Feroz Nizami. His voice comprehended an incredible variety which is beyond comparison. This range and texture enabled him to reach new heights in his career. And it was his voice that would eventually set him apart from his colleagues.
Rafi lent his voice to film songs as well as everything from Bhajans to Qawalis. His voice was suitable for almost any genre of music be it a heartrending ghazal like ‘Aap Aye Toh Zindagi Ayee’, a sad bhajan like ‘Sukh Ke Sab Saathi’, or a crazy and whacky duet song like ‘Jaanu Meri Jaan.’
Mohammed Rafi contributed his enjoyable tinges to the piece of music and made it eternal. His voice had this exceptional quality of forcing the listener to transform the lyrics into pictures and with the presence of his mind as a singer, it aided him to mold his voice across an array of faces that linger unshakable in our memories. For instance, his take on Comedian Johnny Walker was quite extraordinary. He managed to sound exactly like Johnny Walker, especially in the songs ‘Sar Jo Tera Chakraye’ and ‘Aye Dil Hai Mushkil Jeena Yaha.’ Before the shooting of the song would proceed, Rafi would call Johnny Walker and discuss the character which Johnny Walker would play on screen.
And it’s no surprise that actors like Joy Mukherjee, Biswajit Chatterjee, Bharat Bhushan are remembered more for the songs which Rafi has lent his voice to than for their acting skills. It was Rafi who sang the famous ‘Yahoo’ for Shammi Kapoor.
Queen's Baton Published in Pb Kesari on July 14, 2010
BY RASHMI TALWAR
Wagah-Attari Indo-Pak border never looked so bridal…..
The marigold rivulet like strings on the border gates–a witness to millions of passersby over the past 63 years to either side of the Radcliff line- today looked in ‘merry’ celebration, as if on the entry of the girl back to her ‘sasural’ (marital home).
Yes, the girl was the “Queen’s Baton” –shining in her elegant glory, handed over from the Pakistani side by Punjab (Pak) Governor Sulman Taseer to Indian Olympic Association chief Suresh Kalmadi at dot 9.30 am of a particularly pleasant morning of June 25 2010, amidst a colorful frenzy of emotions as the Indian side’s –’Sare Jahan se Acha …’ matched the Pakistani side with ‘Jea, jea Pakistan..’.
Taseer, Kalmadi walked alongside, crossing over the zero line into India with a team of 20 Pak members, to an equally euphoric welcome to the undisputed symbol of sports amongst onlookers and participants on the Indian side.
This was after all, the first time a South Asian country was hosting the Commonwealth Games and India was a front-runner!
Indian stands responded eagerly to the waves from Pak enclosures particularly to Beena Sarwar- Pakistan peace activists’ of ‘Aman Ki Asha’ –an Indo-Pak joint venture through the powerful medium of ‘words’– Now converted into an open display of bonhomie between the people of both countries.
A beaming Suresh Kalmadi petted his team for the excellent welcome, particularly Jagmohan Bhanot OSD Commonwealth Games, who conceptualized the idea of joining hands with “Aman ki Asha”, to march forward on this historic turf, in an effort aimed to clearing the detritus of past bitterness, of blood, wars and revenge, of shattered families and loot–Into emotions of undiluted joy and celebration!
All of the past, was forgotten momentarily, as rivals set aside differences in a collective effort to usher in the Baton – that perhaps would help ‘warring countries’, direct their energy flow in the playfields towards human endurance and team competitiveness, rather than policy-stands by Heads of countries with their formal nods & nays, swayed by pressures within or without.
A chain of gaily colored handkerchiefs with peace messages that flowed into India, made by Pakistani children, alongside the Baton Relay, was given a virtual ‘nuptial’ knot with similar kerchief chain by Indian children, bonding the two countries on a note of Peace in the region.
As the ‘new generations’ stood face to face smiling and in awe of this historic moment, the hope of having ‘different’ playmates from across the border, writ large on their glowing faces.
From either side of the gates they looked at each other- surprised, but found ‘no horns’ that have been fed about each other’s features since their senses took charge. The little ones took no time to gulp their initial inhibitions and animatedly responded to each other in all their pure innocence! -As children are wont to do.
Celebration started on the Indian side and Political compulsions did rear their head, but remained mostly unnoticeable. First, Punjab’s ruling BJP-Akali and congress MLAs sat in stoic silence next to each other feigning concentration on the jubilation of color, music and rhythm of Punjabi Bhangra, Rajasthani and of Jammu and Kashmir –all border states with Pakistan, sharing a common and composite cultural heritage.
CM Parkash Singh Badal from the dias, shared about his formative years in Lahore and claimed to know every nook, corner and ‘gali’ ‘especially the famous ‘lassi’ of Lahore. He cited some personal instances of his college as an under grad in arts at Foreman Christian College, Lahore and talked about removing the Indo-Pak Gates and walls between the two countries through sports.
In the last leg of the baton passing ceremony, Punjab CM passed the baton to Minister of External affairs Parneet Kaur wife of former CM Capt Amarinder Singh, ‘as if he was passing the reins of his government to her’… Badal addressed Delhi CM Sheila Dixit as his sister but reserved the ‘familial endearment’ only for her avoiding any reference to the other female lead- Parneet. Parneet on her part sat dignified in the VIP stands and avoided any glance towards the border gates ..that had caused much consternation in her personal life from a particular female enchantress.
But the crowd hardly noticed this ‘fee-fa’, lulled as they were by the unique audio-visual treat and the grandeur setting of this event.
If anyone could be singled out for thoroughly enjoying this moment it was the IOA Prez — ‘Tu Maane ya na Maane … Dildara …Asan tenu Rab Maneya by Puran and Pyare Lal Wadali (Wadali Brothers ) brought emotional bonding.
The Commonwealth Queen’s Baton carrying the message of “Peace through Sports” had landed a day earlier in Lahore at the ‘Allama Iqbal International Airport’ carried by A crew of QBR, including Ajay Chautala, Member of Indian Olympic Association (IOA), Raj Qadian, Avny Lavasa, Louis Rosa and Asokan.
Sheila dixit said she felt honored to be the chief minister of Delhi at the time when India would host its first Commonwealth Games.
Pure bonhomie between neighbors India and Pakistan gripped the occasion, that drew not only the youngsters to dance impromptu but also the IOA Chief Kalmadi was seen swinging merrily in the mood, created by Pak artists at the Wagah-Attari Indo Pak Border on “Ab jaan lutt jaye…. Yeh jahan chutt jave …saang pyar rahe, ……Mein rahun na rahun… Sajda ! Sajda ! tera Sajda !……” a peppy emotional number from ‘My Name is Khan’ sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan- Live On stage!
It was joined in equally chorus by a Fusion, by music troupes of ‘Wadali brothers’ (India) and ‘Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’ (Pakistan) and the climax through ‘Duma Dum Mast Kalandar…”–a popular folk song of both Punjabs. There was then no stopping the elation.
The baton has specially been designed on an 18 karat gold leaf and the relay was the largest of all the previous editions, covering a distance of 1,90,000 km during its visit to 71 participating nations across the world. It had started from Delhi to Buckingham Palace (England) and was formally launched by Queen Elizabeth-II to travel to all 71 Commonwealth Nations.
And the countdown of 100 days began…for the baton to reach back to Delhi–the venue of the XIX Commonwealth Games from October 3-14, after setting foot in 28 states and seven union territories of India.
It was passed on to the Indian sports greats Vijender Singh Olympics Bronze medalist Boxer and four-time world champion woman boxer M C Mary Kom at Indo- Pak Border and thereon to many a great Indian sportsperson. However, it remains to be seen if only 70 countries or will the 71st country would also participate as enthusiastically as seen near the Wagah-Attari dividing line, …or was the ‘undivided’ feeling just a fleeting gesture…..
1. One CM ‘s spouse with the other CM’s spouse …It seemed an odd moment for the senior Badal (Parkash Singh Badal) to share a stage with Maharani Parneet Kaur the wife of former CM Capt Amarinder Singh . They had carefully avoided standing with each other all through the event but finally had to face each other side by side on the stage when the Queens’s Baton was passed from Badal to Parneet ….Lolz ..seemed like the Sn Badal was handing over the reins of the Government to the wife of his rival …!!!
2. A chain, made of handkerchiefs with peace messages formed by Pakistani children, accompanied Queen’s Baton Relay, which was joined by a similar chain from Indian children.
3. CM Parkash Singh Badal shared about his formative years in Lahore and claimed to know every nook corner and ‘gali’ ‘ especially the famous lassi of Lahore. He cited some personal instances of his college days, when he was pursuing graduation in arts at Foreman Christian College Lahore and talked about removing the Indo Pak Gates and walls between the two countries through sports.
4. Tu Maane ya na Maane … Dildara …Asan tenu Rab Maneya by Puran and Pyare Lal Wadali (Wadali Brothers ) brought an emotional bonding .
5. The Commonwealth Queen’s Baton carrying the message of “Peace through Sports” had landed a day earlier in Lahore at the ‘Allama Iqbal International Airport’ carried by A crew of QBR, including Ajay Chautala, Member of Indian Olympic Association (IOA), Raj Qadian, Avny Lavasa, Louis Rosa and Asokan.
6. Sheila dixit said she felt honored to be the chief minister of Delhi at the time when India would host its first Commonwealth Games
“Ab jaan lutt jaye…. Yeh jahan chutt jave …saang pyar rahe, ……Mein rahun na rahun… Sajda ! Sajda ! tera Sajda !……” amidst this peppy emotional number from ‘My Name is Khan’ sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan- Live ! It was a scene of pure bonhomie between neighbors India and Pakistan, that drew not only the youngsters to dance impromptu but also the Indian Olympic Association Chief Suresh Kalmandi was seen swinging merrily in the mood, created by Pak artists at the Wagah Indo Pak Border on June 25, (Amritsar).
About half an hour before the Fusion Number by the music troupes of ‘Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’ (Pakistan) and ‘Wadali brothers’ (India) broke into a ‘Duma Dum Mast Kalandar…”–a common folk song of Punjab on either sides of the border, Kalmadi was handed over the ‘Queens Baton’ for the Commonwealth games by Punjab (Pakistan) Governor Sulman Taseer at exactly 9.30AM India Time (Pak is half an hour behind) ,who came alongside the Indian delegation crossing over the zero line into India with a team of 20 members.
The baton has specially been designed on an 18 karat gold leaf and the relay is the largest of all the previous editions, covering a distance of 1,70,000 km during its visit to 71 participating nations across the world. It started from Delhi to Buckingham Palace (England) and was formally launched by Queen Elizabeth to travel to all 71 Commonwealth Nations.
And the countdown of 100 days begins…for the baton that arrived today to reach back to Delhi–the venue of the XIX Commonwealth Games from October 3-14, after setting foot in 28 states and seven union territories of India. The Baton was passed on to the Indian sports greats Vijender Singh Olympics Bronze medalist Boxer and four-time world champion woman boxer M C Mary Kom.
Leading sports personalities and other dignitaries including Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit , Maharani Parneet Kaur MP and wife of former Chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, MLAs and MPs were in attendance at the border outpost as the Baton was handed over to India.
The voice of Farida Khanum has enchanted listeners for decades, on both sides of the border. The legendary artiste, when she was in Delhi recently, said she had always got a lot of love from India, and that the arts made a huge difference to cultural relations – something that an initiative like Aman Ki Asha has reiterated often.
“Lijiye hum aa gaye, pahunch gaye aapke paas,” is what she says genially when the conversation begins. “Yeh pyaar mohabbat humein kheench laye. Bahut bhaag daud karke visa liya hai. ICCR and Roots to Routes ne bahut bhaag daud ki, bahut mehnat aur lagan se kaam kiya hai,” she says, in a heavy Punjabi accent.
Farida Khanum was born in Amritsar and spent the early years of her childhood in Kolkata before their family moved to Pakistan during Partition. How often has she come to Delhi? “Bahut martaba aa chuki hoon. Eighteen years ago, I came here for a performance for the Gymkhana Club. Getting an NoC was a big problem at that time. That was my first time in Delhi,” she says.
Narrating the story of her years in India, she says, “Meri padaish Amritsar ki hai, belong toh hum Punjab se hi karte hain, par hamari family ka rehna Kolkata mein ho gaya. My elder sister worked in theatre and films there. “Waise hum Punjabi hain, par asli soch toh meri Bengal ki hi hai, uske liye bahut kashish hai mere dil mein. Dono mix hoke kuch achha hi ho gaya ki Allah ne fankar bana diya, aur aap bachcon ko sunke khushi hoti hai,” she says.
“We left home at first because it was announced that India and Pakistan were to be partitioned and so was the state of Punjab. Uss waqt kashmakash hui, ghar jalne lage, maramari ho gayi. Toh hamare logon ne kaha ki Pindi (Rawalpindi) chalte hain, paas hai, mahine mein wapas aa jayenge. We took just enough stuff for a month, but we could never come back after that. Announce ho gaya ki Amritsar Hindustan mein chala gaya. Bachpan ka time tha, humein laga ki yeh kya hua. We started living in Pindi and then moved to Lahore. Hamare liye toh Lahore bhi naya tha, Pindi bhi naya tha. Iss wajah se do-teen saal uljhan rahi. Jo gaana seekha tha usmein difference aa gaya. Then I joined Radio Pakistan. Jab Allah Taala ko izzat deni hain, kisiko naam dena ho, toh aawaz mein bhi khoobsurti daal dete hain, aur logon ko achha laga. Naam toh mera Farida tha sirf, radio ke liye Farida Khanum kar diya.”
In the context of Aman Ki Asha, what difference to bilateral ties does she think art and cultural exchange can make? “Bahut farak padta hai beta, government ka bhi mood cool ho jaata hai, artiste ke aane mein ijazat de dete hain. Usse artiste bhi khush hota hai – unhe mauka milta hai ki Hindustan jaa ke apne fan ko sunayenge, apnon se milenge, tarse hote hain Hindustan dekhne ke liye, sochte hain sair hogi, dosti hogi, mohabbat badhegi. Zahir hai, aapki mohabbat mein koi kami hai nahin, woh yaadein bahut hi khoobsurat le ke jaate hain, woh kehte hain ki hum dobara aana chahenge. Yeh mel-jol, pyaar-mohabbat purana hai, lekin ismein zara si jo rukawat hoti hai, uske baad jo ijazat milti hai, usmein aur hi mazaa aata hai,” she says emphatically.
And what sort of response has she got from her fans here? “Jab bhi main aayi hoon, pyaar ke lafz hi likhe hain aapne. Artiste ka dil bada ho jaata hai ki itna toh main gaati hi nahin jitna inhone likha hai. Bahut achha lagta hai. Allah ka shukr hai, haalaat behtar se behtar ho rahe hain. Duayein hi dete hain hum bhi.”
The listeners here in India have always been connoisseurs of music, and regard for the arts is only growing. “Ustad Amjad Ali Khan sa’ab ke sahabzade kitna khoobsurat performance dete hain, mausiki toh yahan ki zindagi hai. Abhi ki baat nahin hai, purani baat hai ki Hindustan mein gaana hoga toh uska aur hi rang banta hai. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan sa’ab bhi issi pyaar se yahan aa gaye, ki fan ko bhi aage badhana hai, naye bachchon mein,” she says.
And which younger performers has she heard and liked? “There are many, so many!” she exclaims. “Nazia Hassan and her brother did some good, light music, their kind of pop was very different and did so well. Lekin jo humara idhar ka kaam hai (classical music and ghazals, etc), ismein bhi bachche dilchaspi le rahe hain, zahir hai usmein bhi unka riyaz badhega, ismein bhi tarakki hogi.”
I thank all who have taken the trouble to comment or like this post.IN fACEBOOK.. believe me it is close to my heart …..
Although, every year, I share photos of a tenderly, tended garden in Amritsar in March when in full bloom ….there is also a little story I would like to share with the heterogeneous mix of my friends …..
In one of the pixs, next to the green lamppost is a ‘innocent’ looking palm spreading more horizontally than vertically. When I requested my friends in Lahore, Pakistan, about carrying a little sapling to my Desh, a night before leaving, they promptly uprooted the palm breaking the pot, soldiered some soil of Pakistan, wetted it with water and wrapped in a polythene bag. On our arrival in India on the Samjhauta Express, my husband got talking to some who were similarly waiting. As the luggage started arriving, one of them pointed it out to my husband …”Dekho loki bootey vi Lahore to le ke aa rahe ne.” My husband knew it could only be me. Sheepishly, the man skipped away; when he saw it was the wife of the man he was talking to, who was carrying the ‘Green’ bounty.
Over there in Lahore, people asked me “India mein aisa Palm nahi milta kia ?” and back home I was queried on the same “India mein aisa palm nahi milta kia, jo app Lahore se utha layi ho?”. They did not know, that it was not the palm but the living, growing memento that I had got to bond me forever with the overwhelming “Realization of Peace between people of India and Pakistan” catering to my love for the Living, Growth, Nature, Progress and Smiles.
This was not the first time, and hopefully wouldn’t be the last .
On a visit to Nepal a quarter of a century back, I had similarly brought a Bamboo bush which turns Greenest of Greens, in the hottest of summers when all others look scorched from the burning sun.
Also, from countries having strict quarantine rules, come rocks, stones and pebbles, often to the chagrin of our friends, who laugh and point out “..Sare pathar bhar ke le ayin hain , weight tey zaida hone hi si..” I found a new way to lessen the weight, and carried them in my travelling belt. When I explained to officials of Custom and Immi that I was a “stupid” stone collector and it was not a ‘hijacking tool’ . I was just lucky, they believed me and let me off, often smilingly, while my dear and near ones continued to laugh incessantly, even to this day.
This ‘queer buzz’ in me again manifested itself on a different occasion . I got a call from Pakistan …Apka article Tribune mein parke , humey Indian high commission ne visa de diya hai …abb humey humare dost se milva do”..The call was from Raja Mohammed Ali, a childhood friend of Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, from village Gah (birthplace of PM), Pakistan……”Yeh sunn na tha, aur hum chal pare, unko milvane ke liye. Aisa kaho bachpan ke dost ki kahani ” Krishan- Sudama ” vali thi, lekin humko kia, humko bas karma tha …yeh .
…waise hi jese Dr Hardeep Singh aur Mrs Hapreet Kaur ke khoye hue bête Giandeep @Richie ke peche hum chal diye….
Raja ji aur Mohna ji (PM was called Mohna by his classmates) ki unnkahi kismet thi . “Ji” “mulakat hui Raja ji aur Mohna ki, aur sare Jahan ne dekha …Aur India se …..Jate, Jate Raja ji ko 2 Cassia (golden Shower) ke bootey diye ..aur woh idhar ke logon ke kahil ho gaye.
These two cassia saplings were out of three, one of which is planted behind the statue in the pix and will hopefully flower this year. However, the two are already flowering in the Pakistani village Gah bringing pleasure and smiles, since last year. ..my only wish is as my father in law (GRHS) said to me ….”Dont look back , move forward, there is no time better than now …”
U r free to share this post if u like ….Be with me on finding Giandeep….I know we will find him …..Godbless Amritsar
‘Juttis’, traditional footwear well known for comfort, are found in various designs and colours, ranging from Punjabi, Kolhapuri, and Jaipuri, but when it comes to ‘Kasoori Jutti’ of Pakistan, nothing can beat them in design, style and of course, comfort.
The traditional embroidery, elegant style and softness make the ‘Kasoori Jutti’ a hot item for fashion buffs in Punjab, while its ‘dabka’ work is truly a craze.
Available at Amritsar’s ‘Mauchi Bazaar’ or cobblers market, ‘Kasoori Jutti’ is available at dozen of shops and the price ranges from ten dollars to 45 dollars.
Many shopkeepers import embroidered material from across the border and assemble it in Amritsar, as to suit their customers.
“The specialty of Kasoori Juttis is its delicate embroidery, which is normally not found in other footwear,” said Satish Kumar, a shop owner.
“Comparatively, the Pakistani Juttis more durable, but the Punjabi juttis we make here (in Punjab) are better in quality. In Pakistani juttis, they don’t use cushions, which we do. Cushions bring softness in juttis,” he added.
Imported directly from Kasoor, “Kasoori Jutti” makes an annual business to the tune of 3.3 million dollars.
The trade can be enhanced if both countries agree on a free trade policy, and, this is what the majority of traders in Amritsar want.
“If border trade is opened between India and Pakistan and normal visas are issued to people, the business will get a boom. We can also export our items to Pakistan. Sometime back, a pilgrim took juttis from me, and it was very much liked by the people in Pakistan,” another shop owner said.
By Rashmi Talwar Chaudhary Hashmat Khan in PTV soap telecast from Lahore
The”50th anniversary of DD” in 2009 really amazed me! Was DD (Delhi Doordarshan) born before our generation in the 60s emerged? I recall the first encounter in late 60s when neighboring tiny-tot friends grandly held court about TV meaning –’Tele-Vijon’ –a ‘magic box’ that popped up movies, cartoons, songs and what-not.
Word spread like an animated wild fire about the fairies. Every Lil-one wanted sunflowers waiting for the feathered beauties to deliver the ‘enchanting box.
But Things moved fast and before we knew it our father got the 1st TV in the entire neighbourhood in 1969. A ‘pie’ company one, almost like a mini almirah with a fattest bottom that refused to sit on the ordinary and had to be provided with a luxury spread. An aerial installed and everyone stared starry-eyed as pictures and sounds emerged. Although coined much later the jingle of Onida TV commercial “Neighbor’s envy Owner’s Pride” aptly fitted the state of affairs.
Before JD (Jalandhar Doordarshan)entered our homes and lives, it was the neighboring PTV that dominated the silver screen in the border areas of Amritsar, Punjab and high reaches of Himachal Pradesh. We often used to envy the Lahori Pakistanis and their American fare on TV, delectable cartoons ‘Popeye the sailor’ and glued-to-seats soap operas “Time Tunnel”, “Bewitched”, “Star Trek” , “Lost in space”, “Six million dollar man” , “Bionic woman” , “Lucy show” , “CHIPS (California highway petrol)”,”Planet of the Apes” ,”Different Strokes”. The visually mutilated lip-locks in foreign soaps (conservative PTV!) actually helped in watching TV with parents and elders. That (soberity !) amazingly still holds true for some border farmers who stall any attempt by their young, to subscribe to cable or dish TV and religiously watch PTV and JD till date.
The recall, virtually put me in a childhood reverie when games like marbles, guli danda, hide and seek, seven plates, staapu or football would see a disappearing act, by the dot of time for a serial. By then almost everyone had a TV Set after the 1971 Indo-Pak war.
During the ’71 war, PTV was used in ample measure to spew venom at India. Soon after the war, the Indian government woke up to the harrowing reality of influence of negative publicity and a swift damage control exercise came in the form of JD channels that entered our homes in the border areas, with the first movie “Pakeeza” then “Mugle-E-Azam” and rocked the boat for PTV.
But then merely “two” energy pills hardly weaned away the audience from PTV which in contrast presented aesthetically beautiful weave of its own soaps “Ankahi”, “Tanhaiyaan”, “Uncle Urfi” immensely popular “Waaris” story of dominating Pakistani tribal War-lords; or the laughter riot of “Sona Chandi”, “fifty fifty” and even the shining Toyota to be won in quiz programme “Nilam Ghar” by Tariq Aziz besides the ghazals of Noor Jahan, Abida Parveen, Gulam Ali, Mehandi Hasan, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Mussarat Naseer’s wedding songs “mathey te chamkan val..”,Mallika Phukraj and her beautiful talented daughter Tara Sayeed.
No longer were we the poor country cousins of our Delhi counterparts because we enjoyed a choice of 2 Channels while they sufficed with only DD. Slowly JD picked up with “Chitrahaars” and “movies” followed by the first serial “Buniyaad” and subsequently “Hum Log”. Although we enjoyed them but frankly they were no match for the classy and slick productions of PTV.
But then 78 weeks of “Ramayan” in 1986 followed by “Mahabharat” in 1988 were unprecedented addictions that finally won the war for DD against PTV. PTV pittered out after private Indian channels followed CNN and BBC into Indian homes, rechristening the ‘magic’ box as the “idiot box”.
I recently visited the holy city of Amritsar – home to the famous Golden Temple, the most revered shrine for Sikhs. Little did I know that my intended spiritual pilgrimage would turn into an entrepreneurial pilgrimage as well. It all started with a chance meeting with the owner of the hotel where we were staying, Mr. Ajay Kapoor. My brother and I were looking for an internet connection and were escorted to Mr. Kapoor’s office, for that purpose. It did not take us long to strike a conversation with Mr. Kapoor and find out that not only was he the owner of the hotel where we were staying but also an entrepreneur at heart. Many stories were shared but one of them stood out that I’d like to share, in Mr. Kapoor’s own words.
I do not have a lot of formal education but what I do have is a lot of practical, on-the-field education. One of the key things I have learnt over the course of my entrepreneurial career (Mr. Kapoor has been running various kinds of businesses for more than 30 years now) is that Relationships are fundamental in building any business. My son is pursuing formal education in Australia and I help him out a bit, financially. I do not send him money directly, I send the money to friends of mine in Australia and then ask them to hold on to it until my son comes and picks it from them… and I tell my son to visit these friends of mine and collect the money from them. Sometimes, I even send envelopes with “Very Important” written on them to my acquaintances (some of them are very accomplished folks) and request them to hold on to those until my son shows up to collect the envelope… and what I send inside the envelopes is a simple letter addressed to my son, that just says “I love you”.
I was quite moved by Mr. Kapoor’s story because it contained deep practical knowledge of an important lesson in entrepreneurship, in the simplest of ways – Relationships matter, big time! All Mr. Kapoor is constantly doing is increasing his son’s capacity by creating an opportunity where he can show up at the doorsteps of these accomplished people and coordinate some action with them. You never know which one would blossom into a rewarding relationship for life.
Here are a few other lessons in Entrepreneurship I took away from Amritsar:
It is all about the People: Mr. Kapoor insisted we address each other by our names and said that that is just his philosophy. According to him, without names, people just end up as titles once they are gone and that is just common practice that will generate mediocre results for the business.
Competitive Advantage: Our train was late the night we reached Amritsar and by the time we got to our hotel it was 11:30PM. We had a full 3 course meal before we went to bed, something that would be a luxury in most hotels (keep in mind we were not in a 24 hours service 5-star hotel, but a local hotel in this holy city). The hot meal, after a tiresome journey, just hit the spot and this does give Mr. Kapoor a competitive advantage over those that do not provide this service, that late.
Personal Touch: By the time we were done with our day trip, the next day, we were quite tired. Being a little short on time (we were leaving at 5AM next morning), I could not imagine leaving without eating the city’s favorite delicacy – Amritsari fish. Mr. Kapoor not only arranged for it for us but also accompanied us on our table with his charming company, while we savored the delightful dish. We were simply “Wowed” by the Personal touch he extended as part of his fantastic hospitality.
Trust from the ground up: Mr. Kapoor lives and works with his brothers where he and his brothers run the common business and the entire family treats the resources as a common pool – which he fondly called “Swimming Pool”. I was awed by the mere thought of how much one can learn about trust, a fundamental virtue in every business, just by living and working in this model.
While sitting on the train on my way back to Delhi, I could not help but reflect back on my trip to Amritsar, where I got much more than what I had bargained for – Not only was I fortunate to take my grandmother to the sacred pilgrimage, but also inadvertently was taken on an entrepreneurial pilgrimage of my own – thanks to Mr. Kapoor.
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This article was contributed by Himanshu Jhamb, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Himanshu on Twitter at himjhamb.
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Rashmi Talwar Saanjh-Togetherness 
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