Luckily, I did pass the test, and I worked hard to get back into a rhythm at college. I wanted to succeed, especially for Chachaji and the rest of my family. My friends Jagtar and Bhushan were a good influence, and we all became close. When the chief minister of Punjab visited our village, Jagtar and Bhushan arrived for the day, bringing with them our new English teacher, Ranbir Singh. After the crowds dispersed, they came home with me for tea and sweets.
In a village household, a visit from college friends signalled a coming of age of sorts. My family remained silent, despite their view of the exercise as wasteful since I couldn’t afford the more expensive ways of my friends. I craved the approval of my elders and my family, and I knew I would have to earn it. From then on, in spite of other temptations, my focus remained squarely on education. I had also realized that if I became self-reliant, it might mean more freedom to pursue my own goals without burdening Chachaji.
9
I KNEW MANY YOUNG PEOPLE who yearned to go abroad and leave poverty behind. Thousands of sons and daughters (mainly sons, back then) of the newly independent India were trekking west to make their fortunes. Those who returned to visit seemed happy and wealthy. In my immediate family, my cousin Biraji had made the journey when I was ten, in 1956. I had not thought of leaving India myself, but then something happened to change that.
One afternoon as I was enjoying the spring sun on the college lawn and catching up on my reading, a fellow student named Harjinder Atwal stopped to say goodbye; it was his last day at college, he said, because he was leaving for England. He had been accepted at Faraday House Engineering College in London, he told me, and he thought they were still taking applications for admission from foreign students. He gave me the address for the college and bicycled away. Call it coincidence, fate or chance — our encounter would sculpt the story of my life.
I headed home that evening with my mind racing faster than the wheels of my bicycle. The dust on the road crackled under my tires, as if to prick my conscience. Chachaji had always made it clear that I was to stay in India to study. Riding home to Dosanjh that evening with the London college address in my notebook, I felt the shame of a deceitful son. The night felt darker and lonelier than usual. Even the warm quilt on my bed later that evening failed to quell my shivering bones and trembling spirit.
The next morning, after some quick chores at the khooh , I set off for Phagwara as usual. The fog was slowly vanishing in the glistening rays of the morning sun. Post-compartment, I was working very hard. But I was not happy. Chachaji would never abandon his dream of an engineer son and allow me to do a BA in history or political science instead. Those who studied humanities remained poor or underemployed: that was his logic, and it was somewhat true. Chachaji’s own life of poverty dictated his choices for me.
After several days of battling my doubts and fears, I invested half my daily allowance on an aerogram. I wrote to the college in London, asking for a prospectus and an application form. Not a soul knew about it. My routine of college, home and khooh continued uninterrupted for the next few weeks. Then, one Saturday, Mahee, the village poet-cum-postie, delivered an envelope from the college in London addressed to me. I quickly hid it from sight, opening it when I got back to school, in the anonymity of the college library.
As I read the prospectus and the application form, two challenges emerged. First, I would need to consult a dictionary to decipher many of the words and phrases used in the material. That would be cumber-some, but doable. The other was more difficult. The completed application had to be returned with a five-pound draft attached. At the time, getting an amount greater than three English pounds required approval from the Reserve Bank of India in Delhi. Getting that approval would be an impossibility for me. It meant travelling farther than I had ever gone and, what’s more, I would need Chachaji’s consent.
By now, I had made up my mind to try to get to England. I didn’t have the courage to share that with Chachaji or Bhaji — not until I had the college admission in hand. Biraji, too, had to be bypassed — having been repeatedly yanked out of school by my Tayaji, he was anxious that nothing should delay my continued education. For him, as for Chachaji, that meant staying and studying 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