Brij Mehta Diaries

After an year of unsuccessful stay at Delhi returned to Khanna to join the family and grandparents.  As I recollect it was House No 330,Mohalla Dhobian (Could never figure out why it was named so as there was not even a single Dhobi around) ! May be it was named so pre partition period) & was located  just behind Subhash Market. Khanna which is a semi large town now was a small Kasba those days with inhabited just about a KM of stretch on both sides of the GT Road. It was the largest Grain Market in India with pile of Kanak & Moongphali (Wheat and Ground Nuts) lined up along side GT Road during peak Harvest season in front of “’Arthtis’’ (Brokers) shops. I was informed that our Grand Parents shifted from Kharian to Khanna just before partition and the house where we resided was  allotted by the Govt. My father’s Cousins namely Mehta Madan Mohan Rai, Ram Mohan Rai(of Village Ajnali near Mandi Govind Garh),Shnakh Rai (Thanedar ji). Onkar Rai Mehta s/o Madan Taya ji & Smt Satya Devi was my class mate in the school so was Ashwini Bhimwal (Gikku) my Grand Masi’s son. Balwant Rai & Cuckoo were son of Mushtaq Rai/Dayawanti Tayi ji while Dilshad Rai/Vidya Tayi ji lived in Khatikan da Mohalla. Their son Khushbash Rai who joined BSF later resided close to our father’s residence when he was at posted at Jodhpur alongwith his wife Kamlesh and two lovely sons. Khanna  had a Railway station which had halts of a few trains like one for Delhi at night and one towards Bombay in the afternoon. Besides that there were a 1-2 Local trains running to Ludhiana and Sirhind and were called Addha(Named on the length of the trains-as only 4-5 Single class train ).Madan Tayaji resided in Laxmi Mills compound. His elder son Ravinder was employed in a Bank.His sister Indra was married to Jagir Singh Datta of Chandigarh who later joined IIP,Dehradun(Whom I interacted a lot during my IMA Days& subsequently).Ravinder & Janak’s daughter fondly called Happy was happily married with Anil Datta ji of AAI (Airport Authority of India) and now settled in Dwarka ,New Delhi and we remain in touch. There was another mill in Khanna which was owned by Mehta Brothers.

The Mohalla Dhobian was a mix residents of shopkeepers and some skilled persons who owned shops in the market and had shops of Frame making,Soda/Lime Thela ,Cloth Shop/Photography. One family owned a Tonga(Ram Lal ji) (His son Bhushan was my age) while another one plied cycle rickshaw. On one end of Mohalla just adjacent to Sharma ji house was the shop of Comrade uncle ,active in Politics as he was of member of CPI (Communist Party of India) and had a small Hand Dye print shop and was friendly with our father. Our neighbour with whom we shared our wall were whole seller Fruit dealer. Their one son Gulshan was slightly elder to me and one son was in the army and another in a school Administration (who will help me later)(Our property was sold to them only by my father in 1982 or so. Shri Dilbagh Rai was our grand father was known as Patwari ji and Durga Devi was the Grand mother.One of her brothers ,Chunni Lal ji ,who had partial blindness set in, lived in village Ajnali just past Mandi Gobindgarh towards Sirhind and we used to visit them often and they used to look after us with lot of Lassi /Tandoori, Roti Palak Saag etc .His elder son Inder Mohan was also my age and is now settled at Karnal. Grand father’s sister also lived alone in the Mohalla in a small corner of a house and always spinning charkha all alone. Shri JN Sharma owned the famous land mark studio ,Sharma Studios ,the only Photoshop in the market and lived a 2-3 houses away from us. Sharma family had three daughters Sushma,Shashi & Vandana and a son Anmol,the youngest one. Eldest one was Sushma & was   of my age group.(Met the family again in 1985 and Sushma in 2000  as she had settled in US after marriage to Subhash ji , Vandana & her husband Capt Bharat live at Bhiwadi in Rajasthan where they are settled with two of their daughters (Sakshi & Rewa ) & we have met them a number of times. I could meet Shashi and her husband  when they were posted at Pathankot and I was travelling on duty to Pathankot for some sports meet .I used to share company with Mr JN Sharma ji at the photo studio while listening to Radio Commentaries of Indian Cricket matches together as it was our common interest & discussed Faroukh Engineer ,Nawab Pataudi and Bapu Nadkarni etc. I remember once Uncle ji with his younger brother discussing a film song “’Chand si Mehbooba ho meri aisa maine soch na tha haan tum bilkul vaisi ho jaisa maine socha tha”’ it was sort of conflicting line for a layman as a listener ,however ,I was too young to interpret to this line/song or to add to the confusion of interpretation . Mr & Mrs Sharma ji showered their blessings and love for all of my family members and our sisters. As mentioned met Capt & Bharat and Vandana a number of times as also still remain in touch through Social Media with them. Capt Bharat is an excellent human being ,soft spoken ,religious minded  and always motivated me to do well and appreciated my association with Sports especially Indian Football. I always missed Khanna as I had my adolescent years were spent there and met a large numbers of cousins and did my Schooling up to Higher Secondary. I could not however visit Khanna to meet cousins except to attend the Kirya ceremony of Onkar ji in early 2000 or so.With the expansion of the town and development of infrastructure especially the Fly over extending from one side of the town to the extreme virtually makes you by pass the town except getting a bird’s eye view while driving past on GT Road.I along with my Grand father used to go to a tube well for a bath in the outskirts of the Kasba which also had a Camping Ground on the Amloh Road.This camping ground was located just behind the present day Bus Stand. Urbanization has also probably engulfed the large ground where Army vehicles camped at night while going towards Border areas of Punjab/J&K.

It may be mentioned that our house was one of the few which did not have an electricity or water connection. There was a common Public hand pump just opposite our house and I used to collect water for the house in buckets. To meet our requirement of light we had four Kerosene lamps which I used to daily clean up and fill daily with K Oil just around sun set time and light them. One was for our mother to do cooking in a wooden Chullah,one for grand parenst Baithak, one for room inside and for the large Verandah where we all used to sleep in Summers in the open. There was Large Verandah,Three interconnected rooms and one room added later after my father retired from the Army. At the entrance there was a Baithak used by Grand Parents and a small room on the way to Verandah which I used to sleep during Winters.In a small corner on the right was a small bathing place for the family. The Latrines was   accessed by a wooden ladder  were top of the house towards the Gali(street) as it had to be accessible by sanitation people(manual scavengers) to clear the soil daily in the morning. The sanitation women  were given Roti and sabzi daily. Its however to mention that Water and electricity connections were made around 1969-70 at the house. Marriage of our eldest sister Sudesh Bahin ji was solemnized in Khanna with Padam Bali ji of Dehradun and Bauji had taken a House on rent to accommodate our relatives and Guests who were to attend the wedding.

Besides a pair of Addha Trains to Ludhiana /Sirhind Khanna had limited number number of train halts namely Janta Express to Delhi at 10 PM and  Bombay Express at 12.30 PM.The Arrival / Departures of these also indicated time through Whistles of Huge Steam Engines to Local without looking at Watch (we did not have one being studying).In summers we joined some local Social workers and provided drinking water to passengers in these trains. We used to take long walks in the evening along GT Road Upto Samadhi wale Baba /Rail tracks in the evening. Khanna had a Cinema Hall named Novelty and I saw many a old films there.Towards 1966 another theatre came up and was named Adarsh Talkies. The tickets were as low as 50 odd Paise to about Rs 1.50 and so on (but it was beyond my reach then and had to collect small coins after buying essentials for the house !). Recorded First Movie at Khanna in my personal diary at Adarsh Talkies was “Bhoot Bunglow3 Jan 1966 & “Sharabi” at Novelty Talkies on 26 Jan 66.