Friends

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As little children, friends were those with whom we played, laughed, fought and shared stories of sadness and happiness. We could play with whoever we liked. There was a lot of temporarity in these relationships as small fights could distance friends for life. The parents also took on them to interfere and stretch small incidents to become big, overprotecting their children. It happens even now, in schools, in neighbourhood, in families, among cousins! As children and young persons, you have some of your classmates as friends because you like them, share teachers, travel to your college or university either in buses, trains or even walk long distances from Shimla to Sanjauli in snow or in rain, when I was in college or to Summer Hill when I was at the university. We used to discuss books, teachers and movies, stopping in small tea shops, on our way back at the Indian Coffee House. It was a mixed group of boys and girls. In spite of the fact that I went to Convent of Jesus & Mary and later to St Thomas School, Papa made sure that I went to Government College, because it was a co-educational institution. He wanted me to have an experience of hostel life also at Government College, Mandi. I made friends but we all moved away. Nonetheless, whenever we meet we are happy and have remained friends.

It was after marriage that I made friends. Devendra was my closest friend, colleagues, doctors, some neighbours and many

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strangers became our good friends as we shared values, anxieties and happiness with them. We received support from them all the time. They understood us well and have been there for us! We did not feel the burden of formalities. Many doctors and colleagues mentioned are close friends, as our interaction with so many of them grew personal as years passed by. No matter how close we are, a certain degree of respect for each others’ time and space is never lost sight of.

Major Pradeep Sawhney

We knew you as ADC to the Governor of Punjab. Devendra and I had come to see the Governor in 1980. You were on duty on that day. We were so happy to talk to you as we waited to be ushered in. Though we have not been in touch on regular basis, but we do bond well with love, concern and respect for each other and our families. It is a treat to meet your wife Sujata, who is a Paediatrician. Your son Dhruv is studying in the US. He is affectionate to me. You came after years to meet me in my office after Devendra passed away to the better world. You were sad and found it difficult to come to terms with his going away. You have been in regular touch with me since 2011. You were happy to meet Manu and Priya when you invited them for dinner. It is beautiful talking to you and learn how you work, travel, carry your team with you to bring out issues of Force, a defence magazine produced beautifully, and, on time. Knowing Sujata, Dhruv and you is a blessing. Meeting Mummy after years was a beautiful experience. She is as affectionate as she has been 35 years back. Meeting you in your house has always been nice except that I worry about your health. You have always led a disciplined life. I pray that God helps you to go on as you have in the past year and a half.

Ram Gopal Bajaj and Rijju Bajaj

Devendra, Manu and I have known the father and son for the last 40 years. Bajjoo Bhai, you were my colleague at Punjabi University, Patiala. Rijju you were a small child then. You have grown as a beautiful human being, sharing your father’s values. You both share passion for acting, reading, directing, travel,

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mixing up well with people of your liking. Both of you are very good to your two part time maids who work in your beautiful house in Karla, a few kilometers from Lonawala. In all my official visits to Bombay or Daman & Diu, you never failed to meet me. Always found time to pick me up from Bombay Airport, Powai or the Mumbai–Daman & Diu highway to ensure that I visit your house. Sometimes reaching Lonawala after my work, around 11 at night and leaving by 10 in the morning next day to ensure that I reached Mumbai for my meetings on time. I am fully aware that you had to adjust your shooting schedules with some difficulty.

Travelling with you and being looked after with love, care and sensitivity touches me deeply, Bajjoo Bhai affectionately packing food for me, asking me all the time if I had taken my medicines and ensuring everything that would make my stay comfortable. You both have adjusted with greatest of pressure, your shooting schedules for serial/film without letting me know about it. It is food for my soul to stay with you, have morning tea with hundreds of flowers, trees and chirping birds. Your dogs have become my friends – you adopted these stray dogs. I do my reading and writing in your rich library. Talking to you for hours makes me realise, the heaviest of adjustments, which you have made in life, a continuous struggle, especially for Rijju who finds it so hard to accept that he cannot find ‘out of the box’ projects for acting or directing as he doesn’t like the usual tick in the box films which do not address real issues. Both of you, Bajjoo Bhai and Rijju want each of your work to have an intellect which leaves people thinking on societal issues. Your dedication to your work is what keeps you together. I like when Bajjoo Bhai tells me how well read Rijju is! You are happy and appreciate Rijju for organising Regional Film Festivals at Pune Litfest for the last three years and also having made a short film. Both of you keep yourselves updated with a keen desire to learn and even unlearn. You do come in films and television serials together! Mango Dream was such a beautiful film.

Bajjoo Bhai, I want you to know that ‘your more than hour long poetry recitation’ at Sahitya Natak Akademi left me speechless, your understanding, depth, literary richness with your exceptional theatre skills of an actor-director made it a ‘heavenly experience’ for me! You never talk about yourself. I respect you for your values

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for sustaining relationships, professional commitment, which Rijju has silently picked up. It is so satisfying for me to find you both admiring each other in an unspoken manner. I see it in the eyes of both of you.

Pavan and Renu Varma

Ambassador Pavan Varma and his wife Renu specially flew from aboard to meet me when Devendra passed away. Each meeting with them is a beautiful experience, there is so much of spontaneity and warmth. In our last meeting at the India International Centre, Renu shared with Malvikaji ‘Anand, Zenobia, Ashok, Queenie and Didi are so close and special to us!’ Thank you for your warmth and sharing beautiful incidents with us as we were sipping tea with Masala Cheese Toasts!

Dr Anil Wilson

You were from Shimla. We knew you from our childhood. Your warmth, smile and laughter remained with you even when you were principal of St. Stephen’s College in Delhi University. We felt proud when you took over and gave your best to your students. Manu always felt that even a brief interaction with you, your lectures and your assembly lectures were so meaningful. I shared meals with you several times, you never knew I was coming, these meals were simple, served with love. Everyone in the family has been so loving; Masiji, Mummy, Rita Bhabhi and your children. You endured so much of pain by accepting Pancreatic Cancer as ‘God’s will’. Thank you Anil Bhaiya for your love, time, sharing and for letting me know how you loved and respected everyone in our family especially Papa who worked hard relentlessly. You often shared with me how Anand enabled your visit to the US with spontaneity, not following the formality of offering you tea, but requesting the Vice Chancellor to relieve you immediately. You later realised that he did so to enable you to meet Rita Bhabhi’s parents in Faridabad and leave well in time for Shimla to get your relieving orders from Himachal Pradesh University, where you were working.

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OP Singh, IPS

You travelled with me on a flight from Delhi to Lucknow in 2008. You were initially reserved but warm with expressive eyes. We got into a conversation within minutes of the take off. I was reading Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull. During our conversation, I learnt that you are an IPS officer and were posted in Meerut. You asked me ‘Didi, why do children not accompany their parents to social functions? For parents, it is a commitment. It is embarrassing to find an answer when you are greeted by your host, each time with a familiar question bache nahin aaye! (haven’t the children come!)’. We discussed how children need to be understood from their perspective and I ended the conversation with Khalil Gibran’s philosophy that ‘children are born through us, they are not ours. They have a world of their own.’

During our several years of occasionally getting in touch, I learnt that you belong to Gaya, your father was Bar-at-Law, an accomplished barrister who was blessed with simplicity and sensitivity. Your father was upright and honest. Your mother was a very simple person, who had a lot of love and devotion for her husband and her two sons. After your mother passed away in 2006, you felt all the more that she loved your brother and you immensely. You miss her love and her simple values.

Your brother who is a doctor, used to frequently visit Gaya as he was pursuing his medical studies from Patna University. Your father’s standing instructions to him were ‘have your dinner at the station when you get down the train. The servant cannot be asked to get up from his sleep to give you warm food!’ Your father believed that there was a need to look after those who looked after the family. You believe in the values of your father.

OP, you are married to Neelam, a lawyer at the Supreme Court, daughter of a former Chief Justice and a former Governor. She has no attitude, no airs. She fully supports you to stay committed to work. Your daughter Avni is a lawyer in the Supreme Court and your son Apoorv has a startup. He has degrees in Engineering and

MBA.

You and I have stayed in touch regularly, Neelam and you give me a lot of respect and regard. Your sensitivity and understanding

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as Director General CISF has been special in providing support to Gyan at the airports. You held meetings with your staff to sensitize them because you believed that support needs to be provided to severe autistic children and young people as they need it. It is not at all a favour. You realised that their baggage would be more due to lot of medicines, special food and articles, which they desperately need. People need to understand in our country, as most of us remain rigid and insensitive. You found out that music and swimming is essential for them as part of their healing process. These help them to address their restlessness. You initiated sensitization programmes at Delhi, Mumbai and Goa airports. You wanted it at all the airports.

It is always lovely when we meet, which is rare because of our professional commitments. You respond to my phone calls, in spite of your hectic schedule. This has strengthened my belief in the richness of values of sensitivity and dignity! You are now Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh. You were in an important meeting but you didn’t hesitate to take my call and assure me that all support will be provided to a young boy who was admitted in the ICU of Medwell Hospital, Lucknow. Your team reached the hospital within half an hour and assured the boy’s father Ram Dayal, who worked in Amity University, Haryana, as a support staff. Ram Dayal was so grateful. He brought his son to the University Campus after he recovered. His son’s treatment was being looked after by Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi. Shockingly Ram Dayal passed away weeks after from a snake bite! I regret, I could not do anything to save him. I learnt about his passing away when I was in Chandigarh for a meeting. A strong message from you always is that support needs to be provided while respecting professional commitment. Thank you OP for finding time to remain in touch, for your respect and admiration.

Sheel Vardhan Singh, IPS

You are the Additional Director of IB. You and I travelled together in 2011 from Port Blair (capital of Andaman & Nicobar Islands) to Delhi. It was a long flight of four and a half hours. We both started talking and I was taken by surprise, that your father

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Prof Kushwaha was our teacher in Himachal Pradesh University, where my younger brothers and I were students. I remembered with nostalgia how often I met him, although, he was the Head of Economics Department while I was doing post graduation in History. It was a beautiful culture at our university where even those teachers who were not teaching us, would be interested in our well-being and would be happy to see us. Prof VK Mehta, who was Head of Political Science Department, was another teacher who I interacted with. I met him decades later with his wife in Gurgaon. They recognised me and were so good to Devendra and me. Their son Pratap Bhanu Mehta was in school then, meeting him at the Centre for Policy Research lectures has been a beautiful experience.

You so fondly narrated an incident when Anand had visited your house to meet your father, after becoming a Member of Parliament. You shared that your father was touched and remembered with a heavy emotion the visit again and again. Sheel, you like to talk about your father a lot as you spent a lot of time with him in Summer Hill. You also talk about your mother very respectfully.

You addressed me as Didi, within seconds of our meeting, I discovered your passion for reading, writing and travel. There was never a call from me, which had been ignored, there is a warm response always in the form of beautiful messages. Now you have become very busy because of professional pressure.

Thank you for sharing your value that each one of us owes gratitude to our parents who sacrificed a lot for our future without talking about it.

Ms Gertrud Mueller

I met you first as Dr Gerd Muller’s mother in his house when I was invited for dinner in 2011. Both of us did not realise that it was past midnight when we said goodbye. You were to leave the next day for Germany.

The next time you came, we spent a whole afternoon together at Select City Walk and another full day travelling to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We both realised that we share a very beautiful

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bond and could spend endless hours together, chatting, laughing and discussing issues, social, economic and international. You urged me to visit you in Ochsenfurt for at least two weeks. I did visit you in May 2015. It was a treat for me to stay with you for ten days. You came to pick me up at Wurzburg Station, a long drive from your home.

I loved your beautiful house, your rich library with classics and encyclopedias, our discussions and our urge to discover what was right by reading and opening books, and the Atlas till late night. I found a keen observer and an intellectual in you.

I felt special as you drove me every day to your farm house, to Wurzburg University, to small towns around and historical places, holding my packets of shopping and offering your hand to me for support. I cannot forget your effort of carrying a crate of empty water bottles every morning to replace it with new ones so that I could have fresh water every day and my stomach would remain protected. These were glass bottles, much heavier than the plastic ones.

Whenever I went down on my own to the shops to pick up little gifts, you would keep watching from the window, and, on noticing that I was returning back home, you would run down the stairs to bring me up in the lift. Never for a moment did I feel a stranger in your house. Whenever we were in your farm house you encouraged me to pick up whatever I liked. I picked up two elegant angels and coasters. It was the same in your home, I picked up a nice vase. You helped me pack when I was leaving for London. I miss you and treasure your beautiful life experiences which you so affectionately shared with me. These will guide me. I will always remember what you said ‘we all have our own share of problems. The previous generations have faced, so must the present and future generations’.

I feel as if I have known you for a long time. You begin your day with the Himachal Green Tea that I keep sending for you. You use it meaningfully. I was touched to see that you have it every morning, have translated the information given at the back of the packet in German, made copies of it, to keep small boxes of tea ready to give to those friends who are ill or hospitalised. Your belief that the claim of the manufacturer of its medicinal value has

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helped your friends in their illnesses, touched my core! You taught me how gifts need to be appreciated. I had sent a lamp for you which you have placed on the wall of your dining room! You have specially kept a table in your living room with all the little things which I have been picking up for you, including Devendra’s book!

I keep wondering how in mid eighties you can laugh heartily, be socially relevant, your remarks, ‘you don’t need to do anything special for your health, just work hard and remain happy’. These words convey simply what most of us find difficult to do. You are a happy person with no health issues. You are not on any medication. You never use the word tired or fatigued even after working on your five acre farm, you comfortably drive back after a swim in the pool. In my last conversation with you in July 2020, you shared with me that ‘I have undergone tests. Everything is okay and I am 90 years old.’ There is so much to learn from your life, Gerturd! You always end your conversation by blessing me ‘I wish everything good for you, your son and his family, your two brothers and their families.’ Be around me always.’

Rajinder Arora

Rajinder, you established Ishtihaar, a design and advertising firm, which I respect for its focus on values and aesthetics. I met you to get a book published on Devendra. I handed over to you a book, which had already been published. I did not like the way it looked, its presentation. I told you that I wanted the book to be of a good quality, beautiful in presentation. Next day, you called up to say that Ishtihaar would publish it, only on the condition that I would give you all the photographs to rework on. I gave you the pictures which had already been redone from a good photographer. You still did not approve of the quality of pictures.

I was very fragile emotionally, had heavy work commitments and travel. You came across as a gentle and sensitive person, leaving the discussion on the pictures and the layout of the book till I settled down after an emotional outburst. There were several of these in one year as we worked through the manuscript, the presentation and the pictures. You did not agree to include some of the pictures which I very much wanted to, explaining that those

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were not of good quality! The book came out within a year. It was a limited edition. It was meant to be for family, libraries, institutions and friends. The cost of production and printing was huge as there were a lot of colour pictures, it was hard cover and most importantly it was beautifully produced. It was very well received. I was satisfied as it had been aesthetically produced.

I sent a cheque for its production cost. When I learnt that it had not been encashed for more than a month, I called you up, you said there was nothing to worry. I again called after two weeks and then you hesitatingly informed me that it was held up in my bank because of some technical issue with the bank. I respect you for not embarrassing me. I sent you a fresh cheque. When copies of books were sent to me, there was a packet wrapped aesthetically. It had a beautiful picture frame and a card saying ‘some people stay in our hearts. You are one of them’. I was overwhelmed, the load of seeing all the books together and the card was difficult to emotionally handle.

Your upbringing has been good. Your mother worked as a school teacher till your brothers, sister and you arrived. She left her job to spend her time looking after all of you with patience, love and passing on good values to her children. She took on the responsibilities of creating a lovely home. She understood that your father’s job as an officer at a private firm was demanding.

Thank you Rajinder for many things. I learnt that we could get along as you come across as a sensitive human being and there is a lot we share. You are a gentleman with professional commitment of a high order. We have remained in touch ever since the book came out in 2012. We have a genuine concern for each other’s well-being, and the families’!

My first visit to your house is an experience I wish to treasure. Meeting your mother and your wife Rajni was a treat. Both had so much of warmth for me, I felt at home right from the time I entered, both Rajni and you ensured that I was comfortably seated, and you made the effort to get me a comfortable chair. I enjoyed the tea because each and everything in your house was aesthetic and intellectual. I can now consider it a home where I can walk in without any formality, whenever I feel low or just to enjoy the beauty and elegance. I respect both Rajni and you because you

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have the courage, time and intent to stand up for causes which are so important for humanity. Most of us are becoming self centered. Your beautiful relationship and your common interests, the way you support and respect each other and the way you feel blessed with Mummy’s presence in your home gave me a very nice feeling. It was a treat to meet Mummy, very well spoken, peaceful, learned and, even at this age, her ability to restrain to ensure that our conversation was not interrupted. Whatever she spoke had so much of meaning and value. She told me gently that she left her job as a teacher in a Delhi school as there was no one to look after her children. She did not make it look like a sacrifice!

Rajinder, I was happy to read your beautiful book Apni Mummy, which you gifted to me. I have been thinking about these issues for a long time now. I respect you for your commitment, your work culture and your sensitivity. I was happy to learn a new aspect of your personality, your love for nature, your urge to be in mountains, the visible expression of satisfaction and joy of having trekked to Mount Kailash and the Everest Base Camp. My wish for you is ‘may you be blessed to reach the highest peak to experience a state of bliss’.

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