in India. But Biraji had a brother-in-law, Pushkar Singh Lail, living in Nottingham. I wrote to Pushkar for the draft, impressing upon him that he was not to tell Biraji.
While I waited for his reply, I filled in the application form, except for the space for my name. As a non-Christian, I didn’t know how one dealt with providing a “Christian name.” I couldn’t ask Chachaji since I had not yet told him what I was up to. I asked some of my friends, without disclosing why I needed to know, but no one could help. One day the thought of asking our Dosanjh School headmaster, Dharam Singh, crossed my mind. I broached the subject when I found him alone at his home. He had a bachelor’s degree in English himself, and he agreed to help. A few days later, Mahee delivered the draft from Pushkar, and my application with the draft was on its way to London.
On the day the reply came from England, the college at Phagwara was closed for a few days. After finishing work at the khooh , I went over to the school grounds to play field hockey with some other village boys. The movement of the ball was hard to control on the uneven ground, making the game both more interesting and more trying. The deserted school buildings looked forlorn as we played on into the dusk, delaying the walk home. There were no road lights. On a pitch-black night, you had only your wits and your knowledge of the road to guide you.
This night, unknown to me, there awaited a challenge at home. Mahee had delivered the reply from London to our home, and Chachaji was restlessly waiting for my return. As a father in the India of the early sixties, when sons dared not disobey their fathers, he must have wondered why this was happening to him. Did he feel lonely having to deal with an errant child without his wife, my Biji? There must have been many moments in his life when he felt her absence keenly.
As I entered our home, I was met with Chachaji’s anger: “Why did you do this? How could you do this without telling me?” He showed me the letter: I had been accepted. But instead of elation, I felt all the pain of my father’s disappointment. My tongue felt frozen. Taeeji took me into her embrace and then went away to get my dinner.
There was no studying that night, only an uneasy sleep. From his bed beside mine, Bhaji said, in a wounded voice, “you could have told me !” I had no answer for him, but when we woke the next morning, Bhaji asked what we were going to do. He was always responsible in family matters, and still is to this day. As we busied ourselves in the khooh , we discussed it. I knew Bhaji wanted to go abroad himself. If I went first, it might be easier for him to follow, I said, and he agreed to speak to Chachaji on my behalf.
Bhaji triumphed; a couple of days later Chachaji handed me a bunch of papers. It was an application for a passport. I had a photograph taken, my first ever in a studio.
The completed passport application had to go from the official district town of Jullundur to Phillaur, one of several tehsils , or sub-districts. When the papers did not reach Phillaur, Chachaji, now fully on board, accompanied me to Jullundur in an attempt to speed up the process. There was a deadline: I had to be in London before the first week of January, and it was now mid-November. The following week, the papers arrived in Phillaur. They had been gathering dust somewhere, and someone advised me nothing would happen unless I greased a palm or two. It was getting late in the day, so I decided I should make the trip to Phillaur as well.
I bicycled with a college friend Hargurdeep Dosanjh, nicknamed Chand. At the passport office, I was told I needed to fill out a special form that cost fifteen rupees. When we asked whether the form was available elsewhere, the official said yes — I could get it from another office in town. Chand and I got the form, filled it in and handed it to the original clerk. But the form seemed to have no relevance to my application, and next the clerk wanted to sell us some tickets for an upcoming hockey match in Jullundur, the proceeds from which, he said, were to go to a charity. Chand lost his temper. It was a scam. The clerk wanted a bribe. And if we were to get to Dosanjh at a reasonable hour, we needed to leave right away. We decided to try a different strategy. The residence of the sub-divisional magistrate, the administrative head of Phillaur, was nearby. But like many other residences of the rich and powerful, the SDM ’s had a high wall around it, with a sentry stationed at the tall gate. The guard said “sahib” was not home.
The next day at 9:00 AM , Chand and I were standing outside the unwelcoming gate again. We had left Dosanjh early in the hope of catching the SDM at home. “Sahib is not in,” the sentry informed us. (I detest with a passion this colonial term of “sahib.” In India today it is almost mandatorily uttered by subordinates addressing seniors, the poor addressing the rich, and the weak addressing the mighty. Not coincidentally, the same word is often used to invoke or allude to the Almighty in religious discourses in India.) I peeped through the narrow spaces between the wooden planks of the gate and saw a middle-aged man in a nightgown walking around the yard. I immediately decided he must be the SDM . I called out, “ SDM - ji , we are two young men. We would like to see you. Your subordinates are asking for money to do their work.” The man opened the gate, heard our story and sent his guard back with us to the passport office, where we overheard the guard telling the clerk to do what we were asking. Moments like this reaffirmed my failing faith in the new India.
Before long we received confirmation that the Punjab State had forwarded my application to the nation’s capital for the issuance of my passport. Delhi was only about two hundred miles from Dosanjh, but to us it seemed like a million. The train took ten hours to get there. Undaunted, Chachaji set out immediately, taking the train to Ghaziabad, where he stayed with my cousin Siso, and then bicycling the rest of the way into Delhi. He must have had to push his way through crowds in various offices. And he might have had to find some “people of influence” in Delhi to return with my passport in hand so quickly.
It all reminded me of a time one winter when Chachaji had left home on his bike with a woollen blanket and a change of clothes in a cloth bag. I saw him leave, but I repressed my curiosity; it was considered a bad omen to ask a departing person where they were going, just as it was to call out after a person already on their way. A week later, Chachaji had returned with exhaustion writ large on his crumpled clothes and ashen face. His dishevelled beard and turban spoke to the tense moments he must have endured on his trip. Years later, I learned that Chachaji had been in Chandigarh that week, successfully securing the reversal of a decision by corrupt officials that had seen an acre of our land illegally registered in someone else’s name.
IT WAS MID-DECEMBER 1964, almost ten months since Har-jinder Atwal had bidden me farewell on the college lawn in Phagwara. The bumps along the way had thrust me into deep despair, but the Punjabi equivalent of “this too shall pass” — “ darvuttzamaana cut bhalay din avangay (gird up, persevere, good days shall come)” — always came to my rescue.
I had started to grow up, and I needed more practice in doing important things without Chachaji or Bhaji holding my hand. That was probably what prompted Chachaji to send me, rather than Bhaji, to Hoshiarpur to get some money from Masiji Gurmit. The money was needed for my ticket to England. Maybe Masiji owed Chachaji money, or maybe he had asked her for a loan. I didn’t know. Either way, I made the journey from the bus depot in Phagwara to Hoshiarpur and received the money from Masiji; it was also my chance to say goodbye to my sister Tirath, who was still living there to attend school. Nothing was said between us about my planned departure for England, however; I do not believe Tirath had been told I was leaving.
For reasons I cannot remember, I arrived by bus back at Phagwara late at night. I was carrying over two thousand rupees: not a small sum in those days, especially for the Dosanjhes.
From Phagwara, the direct road that followed the canal and passed by the Dosanjh School was not well travelled at night. The Banga road was much busier; late-night truckers, motorcyclists, cyclists and farmers on guddas ensured the night did not provide easy cover for robbers or the infamous bandits known as dacoits . Still, the rickshawalas wanted forty rupees for the trip on the Banga road at night. I could not afford that kind of money, and anyway, what
