Doglapan by Ashneer Grover EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Ashneer Grover
- Language: English
- Genre: Business Professional’s Biographies
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Malviya Nagar: Where It All Began
‘Ladka toh refugee hai.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. After all I, a Delhi-born boy to Delhi-born
parents, was being referred to as a refugee formally, for the first time in my
adult life; that too, by none other than my would-be in-laws. This was in
2003, a full fifty-six years after my grandparents had landed in Delhi, from
Multan district in Pakistan, after Partition.
No marks for guessing that it
was meant not as a statement of fact but as a reminder of aukaat for a
service-class Punjabi who had won the heart of their most beloved Baniya
‘Jain’ daughter, who came from a business family. It’s another matter that
this rather persistent refugee went on to attend the most premier educational
institutes, landed a plum job and eventually won the family’s heart and their
daughter’s hand.
The original refugees in question, namely my paternal grandparents, were
allotted a 200-guz plot in Malviya Nagar, a refugee colony, when they
landed in Delhi with their siblings and children in tow. It was on this plot
that six independent floors, of 100 guz each, were built. Out of these, house
number 90/20, popularly known as ‘Nabbe Bees’, was to later become my
home address for the longest time.
As a child, I remember pestering my grandmother to tell me stories of
their lives back in Multan. I loved to see the twinkle in her eye as she
reminisced about the past and spoke at length about their fields or khet, as
she referred to them. The one story that she would always tell me was about
how, if the entire khet had to be covered on foot, one would need to leave
early in the morning, and even then one would only be back the next day.
In
turn, I would egg her on with, ‘Haan haan, aap toh fasal bote hue jaate the
aur kat-te hue aate the (Of course, you would sow the seeds on your way
up and harvest the produce on your way back).’ Growing up, the story
stayed with me as a great reminder of the fact that even when that 200-guz
house replaced the large expanse of their fields, it did little to dampen their
spirits. In fact, they never recounted the horror of Partition—just fond
memories of the past life.
The Tale of the Pandavas
Any account of the life of my grandparents wouldn’t be complete without
this rather curious story. Legend has it that a Peer baba read my
grandmother’s face and made a prophecy. ‘Tumhare yahaan paanch
Paandav paida honge (You will be blessed with five sons),’ he had said.
With the birth of her first son, the prophesy seemed to be coming true.
So
my uncle was named Yudhisthira, after the eldest of the Pandavas. Only
their next child happened to be a girl, leading everyone to dismiss the Peer
baba’s prophecy as hogwash. But they were proved wrong, as my
grandparents did go on to have five sons, and two daughters. And no, the
other sons weren’t named after the rest of the Pandavas; so we didn’t have
the star cast of the Mahabharata at home.
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