Eligibile Match

Sunder’s luck turned suddenly in 1946 when he found a stable job with an English daily in Lahore. Surprisingly he rose very quickly in the new establishment. Though he was only a few months old in the paper he was asked to write the daily editorials during the absence of the regular editor who went on a month long leave.

On the return of the editor Sunder was made the Special Representative of the paper. That gave him a lot of prestige in the profession and a chance to see the communal carnage in the undivided Punjab. What he saw convinced him that India could not remain united after the British leave. He planned to move to Delhi and in May 1947 he got a good position on Jawaharlal Nehru’s staff. A few months later he was selected as Assistant editor of the News Services Division of All India Radio, a senior position in the profession.

Rukmani, wife of , a senior journalist who was very friendly with Sunder thought he would make a very fine husband for her sister who had just taken a masters degree in Kerala. Soon Radha, a smart and vivacious girl of 20. arrived in the capital and requested Sunder to show her around Within days they became good friends and started spending a lot of time together. They would meet every day and spend the whole morning in each others company. Sunder was on evening shift in the Newsroom. Every day they went for coffee or something and remained together till about 2 in the afternoon when Sunder had to leave for the evening shift. The relationship was very welcome to both as they were very new to New Delhi and had no friends of their own.

In the circumstances it was natural for the people around to think that the two of them were going steady. Rukmani as well as Sunder’s sister[he had no other family members] thought the relationship would culminate in their marriage. Sunder never thought like that. Radha was a very good friend and a very pleasant person but nothing more. He was very fond of her as a friend but there was no emotional attachment of any type. It would have made no difference to him if Radh was not a girl, he would still be fond of her as a good and close fiend. While this was going on Sunder’s maternal uncle in Kashmir decided to marry him off to the daughter of a rich businessman who had offered a sizable dowry.

A senior journalist with a gazetted position in the government was a rare catch in the marriage market in forties. Fathers looking for good matches were willing to pay for such finds and Sunder’s uncle was very keen ‘to cash the rich cheque’. But Sunder was not ready to get married as yet, something that his uncle could not understand. He would say what is Sunder waiting for, he has the best possible job in his profession, a good health and a very good marriage offer? How many people are lucky to have all this at a young age? But Sunder stuck to his resolve not to marry just yet and the uncle had to give up in the end.

One day a cousin of Radha told Sunder about a good movie that was on and invited him to go see it with him. Sunder agreed and the two of hem saw the picture together. Rukmani was very upset as to how could Sunder go to a movie without Radha and said so to Sunder. He tried to tell her no harm was meant and it just happened. But Rukmanii felt it was a signal that Sunder did not care for Radha who she thought had failed to attract him towards her. Her trip to Delhi had failed in her view.

One week later Radha was on the train to South on her way back home in Kerala. Sunder came to know of her departure after she had left. He felt very sad and wondered why she left all of a sudden and without telling him.

In a years time Sunder married a girl whom he liked. Soon he had a family of his own. Four decades later a common friend from the South told him that Radha had gone to America and taken a job in a Library. To his query ‘how is she?’ He was told, ‘sad as ever. She has not forgotten her love, some one from the North’. She did not marry and was living all alone still.

A Candy

Little Priya was fond of chocolate candy. The old man who loved the baby always gave her one whenever she asked for a candy. The relationship between the two was very close. They used to go for walks in the park, play games and spend a lot of time together. They were very happy in each other’s company. One day one of the neighbors told Priya’s mother that sugar candy was bad for the kids. It spoils the teeth and gives birth to worms in the intestines of the children. That day the simple mother who hailed from the hills decided to stop Priya from eating a candy.
As usual Priya asked for a candy after school but her mother told the old man, ‘don’t give her one. It is bad for her health’. The old man tried to convince her that there was no harm if Priya ate a single candy in a day but she would not accept his word for this. In the meantime Priya felt bad and cried and cried. This gave a very uneasy feeling to the old man who told the mother that he was giving a candy to the child just for ‘today’ as she might fall ill by crying too much. In the end the mother agreed.
By then Priya had cried so much that she had fallen asleep on the bare floor. When the candy was given to her she just held it in her sleepy hand and looked at it for a long time, then flung it away and went back to sleep. The old man who saw it all felt very bad, two big tears rolled down his eyes.

The Last Zamindar

He grew up in the last days of feudal Kashmir when it was still ruled by the Maharaja who was interested to collect revenue and maintain peace. The land was given by the Durbar and the Zamindar’s word was the law in the seven villages, that the family owned. The peasants did not own anything, not even the mud houses they lived in. Everything belonged to the Zamindar and he could throw out a peasant whenever he felt like it. The peasants had to bring the entire produce to him and out of this he would give them one fourth keeping three fourths with himself. It was a very cruel system, in which the kisan [peasant] had no say. The zamindars kept a sharp eye on the people around themselves and maintained peace with the help of goons employed by them

In recent times there were signs of unrest as the people held meetings and rallies demanding an elected government.

“A responsible government” “what non-sense? How is that possible ; who are they to demand that, Don’t they know that Kashmir was bought for cash.
The Zamindar felt that it was time to show some firmness to “these wretches, who were being misled by the so-called politicians, real thugs”
He was very disappointed when the government negotiated with the Kisan leaders and agreed to hold free and fair elections. Within days the old system broke down and a new system came into existence giving all the power to the “elected members of the assembly”, representatives 0f the kisans.