Gursharan Kaur - Strictly personal: Manmohan and Gursharan

STRICTLY
PERSONAL

MANMOHAN AND GURSHARAN

Daman Singh

HarperCollins Publishers India

For Rohan, Raghav and Madhav

Contents

2009

It is around half past six in the morning. We are reading the newspapers as we wait for tea. My father tosses down The Times of India and picks up The Statesman. My mother sighs. I know she expects me to rescue The Times and fold it neatly. Any other day I can pretend not to know this. But not today.

As he scans the headlines of The Pioneer, my father asks me what I am doing these days. He asks me this question frequently. These days I am a writer. One who is I like to think between books. For several months I have had nothing to report. This does not seem to perturb him. But today I have something to say. Clearing my throat, I announce that I have an idea for my next book.

My mother smiles encouragingly. My father shows no sign of having heard. He is immersed in an editorial, no doubt another scathing comment on the state of the nation. Bravely, I continue. I say I am thinking of writing a book about them.

How wonderful! My mother is delighted.

The newspaper in my fathers hands collapses noisily. As expected, he is horrified.

Luckily the tea arrives just then. So does a fat folder full of papers that he will turn to any minute. Quickly, I remark that they must surely have fascinating stories to tell. Stories that their grandchildren would love to know. The look of disbelief does not leave my fathers face. Besides, I remind him, I am a writer. I have to write about something. And here is a great story right under my nose.

He points to my mother and tells me to write about her.

Of course I will, I assure him, but I have to include you as well. I simply cant leave you out. After all, she has lived most of her life with you.

My mother declares that I am right, absolutely right. And your life is so much more exciting than mine, she adds.

Exciting is clearly not the adjective he would use to describe his life. Beta, it is too early, he says. In two weeks Ill have the time to think about this. Now I dont have the inclination, the mental peace. You should wait. I am anxious about what is going to happen to the election process. The next ten days are very crucial. My mind is not on small things.

I do not tell him what a big thing this is for me. I have been dreaming about it for weeks. Thats all right, I concede generously. We can start working on it after the election results are out. I dont mind waiting. Then a thought strikes me. But what if you come back as prime minister?

It is nice to see him laugh. The last five years have not given him much to laugh about.

No no, he says, I dont think were coming back.

That is certainly comforting, but I need to know exactly where we stand. Im not saying you will, but suppose you do?

In that case, he says, looking deep into his teacup, I really do not think I will have the time.

I am appalled. No time at all? You mean you wont even give me half an hour a month?

My mother intervenes swiftly. Of course he will. That is too little. I think half an hour a week would be better.

Relieved, I step aside.

A week! Half an hour a week!

Dont worry, she says soothingly. We will manage. I will take care of it.

But there are so many things I cannot talk about

Then you can talk about other things.

But how can I

Let us keep it open. See how it goes.

But

He is cornered. I almost feel sorry for him.

The phone rings. Just when we were so close. My mother picks up the instrument that never leaves her side. It is for him. Both of us strain our ears, but he is a man of few words. If there is a crisis brewing, we will be the last to know. Some of the disappointment I feel must show on my face.

All right, he says weakly, putting down the phone and picking up his pen, we will see.

I scurry home, fingers crossed.

Two weeks later, my father is sworn in for his second term as prime minister of India. I cannot help feeling a tiny twinge of regret. But as usual, my mother is right. They do manage.

Over the next three years, we talk. Or rather, they talk. I listen. Somewhere along the way, my father actually seems to enjoy these sessions. Sitting back in his armchair in the living room, he is gracious and attentive. He waits patiently for each question, to which he gives a short and precise answer. Sometimes he forgets to measure his words, but only very rarely. Once she gets over the knowledge that she is being recorded, my mother launches effortlessly into the past, beguiling me with her stash of stories and her views on everyone and everything. Unfortunately, not all of these are printable. When we stop for the day, it always seems much too soon.

Like a seasoned detective I track down people they have known, map places they have been to, and return to times they have lived in. Then I patch together all their memories with bits and pieces of what I discover, and glue them firmly in place with notions of my own.

And I write. Whether I write fact or fiction, I am not entirely sure. What I intend to write is the story of my parents. But I have a feeling that it is now mine.

1932

My father was born in the autumn of 1932, no one really knows exactly when. At the time my grandfather was in Peshawar. Gurmukh Singh was a clerk in a firm of commission agents that imported dry fruit from Afghanistan and supplied it to various parts of India. It was a while before he was able to travel to his village in the Jhelum district of Punjab.

The journey from Peshawar to Gah stretched some 350 kilometres. A passenger train would take him to Chakwal. After a bumpy thirty-five-kilometre bus ride, it was an hours trek to the village. This was not the kind of journey that his wife Amrit Kaur would be able to make any time soon. In the meantime, his parents would look after her and the baby.

Before they returned to their home in Peshawar, Gurmukh and Amrit took their baby to Panja Sahib. Located in a town called Hasan Abdal, roughly fifty kilometres from Rawalpindi, Panja Sahib is one of the most sacred of Sikh shrines. As is the custom, the priest opened the holy Granth Sahib at random. The first word on the facing page began with the letter M. The baby was named Manmohan. He was their second child. The first, also a boy, had not lived long.

Little Manmohan lived, but Amrit did not. She died of typhoid, long before her son was able to get a sense of what she was like. During her last trip to Peshawar, an earthen water pitcher had broken on the way. Later, the family would look upon this as an omen, a forewarning that she would never return to the village.

So Mohan grew up in Gah with his grandparents Sant Singh and Jamna Devi. And even though Gurmukh visited just twice over the next ten years, his son did not notice his absence. Surrounded by a large extended family, it was impossible to feel neglected. Apart from his great-grandparents, Gulab Singh and Lakshmi, his grandfathers brothers Amir Singh and Hara Singh lived nearby. A third brother, Ghera Singh, kept shop in a town called Dhodial, and visited sometimes.