Life Back Then

Dr. Kadri, a surgeon, lives in New Zealand. He was born in 1927, and grew up in Ahmedabad.

Editor's note: This article originally appeared on http://posterous.com/site/profile/munirsmemories It is reproduced here with Dr. Kadri's consent.

I was born left-handed. I do not know if this was fortunate or unfortunate. However, it is interesting to note that our son Sunil was also born left-handed and I now note that many global visionaries have been left handed.

I was born on 6 December 1927. Back then, left-handedness was viewed as a handicap for a variety of reasons, including the use of the left hand for ablution. It was considered mandatory to convert left-handed children into right-handed ones. So attempts were made, especially on the part of my mother, to convert me into right handed via a myriad of methods which included both incentives and disincentives. Initially I was reminded repeatedly which was my right hand and which was the left. Naturally, I still used my left hand for most functions. When the verbal incentives were exhausted at one point, I was lightly branded on the back of my right hand to make the message clear. When I started to write it was compulsory for me to use my right hand. This of course created a certain confusion in my mind.

E.R. Ramachandran was born in 1942 in Belgaum. He has settled in Mysore after working in Government and Philips Organizations. He has contributed to the Hindustan Times, Cricketnext.com, and is a regular contributor to Churumuri and humour magazine Aparanji in Kannada.

I had written earlier how, in the 1950s, one travelled in Bangalore by BTS Route No. # 11 bus from Gandhi Bazaar to the Tata Institute of Science, Malleshwaram 18^th Cross in a time slightly less than infinity.

That is only half the story.

From the same stop, started another bus, Route no. 16, which became an unofficial bridge between the City and Cantonment parts of Bangalore.

Unlike other buses, Route #16 had an air of authority and pomp for it took the inhabitants across the city to a place where the British stayed when they lorded over Bangalore. To a majority of citizens, Cantonment was Dandu in Kannada and ‘Kantrumentru' for villagers.

To get the bus started on a cold morning, the driver had to repeatedly crank the engine with a steel rod, which would propel the engine with ear-piercing sounds, making scores of sparrows fluttering around old buildings in the vicinity go momentarily crazy.

Born in 1941, Vinod was brought up and educated in Amritsar. He attended Government Medical College, and subsequently trained as a surgeon at PGI, Chandigarh. He left for USA in 1969, and retired in 2003 as Director of Critical Care Services at a teaching hospital in Michigan. Married with two grown sons, he continues to visit India at least once a year. Sadly, three of the family members mentioned in the following story were dead by 1975.

The man wearing the shades had no legs. As I returned from my morning walk, the small figure half way up the bridge sat on the side-walk performing his morning ablutions with the stumps of his arms.

The dark-skinned man nodded and moved to an inaudible tune as if keeping time. From a distance his round face appeared much younger. With a white rag wrapped around his head, his leonine face appeared content or even happy. That was an absurd thought! But how could I think of happiness? This was a tableau, very different than what I remembered from my childhood. For over forty years I had lived abroad, and once a year got a chance to visit the ancient hometown for a few days. Several years ago I had started to go for a morning walk.

Roy Church worked in Assam tea estates over 1959-67, after three years in the British Army. He is married and his eldest son was born at Panitola Central Hospital, Dibrugarh in 1965. For the last 20 years he has travelled extensively in the Central Himalaya leading groups of friends.

Editor’s note: This story initially appeared on www.koi-hai.com. It has been edited for this website.

I was garden assistant at Dikom Tea Estate in Dibrugarh district when Indian Air Force (IAF) Squadron Leader John O’quino arrived in the 1960s to reopen the Chabua airfield.

This airstrip had been unused since it had been abandoned by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) at the end of WWII. During the War, USAAF had used it to undertake what was called ‘flying the hump’– a high altitude military aerial supply route from Assam, across northern Burma, to Yunnan province in southwestern China. The airfield had no buildings, and the jungle had grown prolifically through cracks in the concrete runway. Readers who have spent time in Assam will recall that the Americans not only built a concrete runway but also concreted the main Dibrugarh-Tinsukia highway 37. It was the only place for miles around where you could ‘put your foot down'.

Well categorized, enormous collection of old photographs of the Indian subcontinent at oldphotosbombay.blogspot.in.

100 year old photos of British India at  http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-rare-photos-a-100-year-old-glimpse-of-british-india/20120508.htm

Photographs of old Shillong (1948) at http://www.cuttingthechai.com/2012/06/5837/vintage-photographs-shillong-1948-and-vallabhbhai-patel-calling-people-assam-lazy/

Bapu Satyanarayana, born 1932 in Bangalore, retired as Chief Engineer, Ministry of Surface Transport. At present, he is the presiding arbitrator of the Dispute Adjudication Board appointed by the National Highway Authority of India. He lives in Mysore, and enjoys writing for various newspapers and magazines on a variety of subjects, including political and civic issues.

Grandstand view

It seems so long ago, nearly 70 years ago (in the 1940s and the 1950s) when life in Mysore city was so simple and uncomplicated.

It was the time when children like me spent more time playing various games in the field, and were not burdened, like children now, with homework and tuition classes. We had a healthy respect for our teachers, mixed with fear, that shaped our values to succeed in life.

I was living in house No. 1498/2 on the road called Weavers Lane, presently known as Ram Iyer's street, running behind Sharada Vilas High School in Krishna Murthy Puram. On the eastern side, there was a wide expanse of open field in front of our row of houses, which, during the evenings, it was teeming with children playing cricket, football, basketball, Kho-Kho and Chinni Dandu.

There was a road going round it, where one could see long distance runners practicing.

Kenneth Hugh Staynor was  born at Madhupur on 16 September 1927. In 1929, his family went to the United Kingdom, and returned to India in 1931 to Kurseong, where his father was a teacher, and later Headmaster, at  Victoria School.  Kenneth was educated at St. Josephs College, Darjeeling, and St Mary's High School, Mount Abu. He left India in August 1951 for permanent residence in the UK to get into research and development in engineering, which was not available in India, and because his ancestral roots were in the UK. He lives in South Wales after retirement. His wife passed away in January 2010\; he has three sons, five grandsons, five granddaughters and one great granddaughter.

A journey by train has always been one of the great joys in my life, but the train journeys I made in India on the great railways of the Raj are the most enjoyable and memorable.

The memories of those journeys date back to August 1931, when as a young lad, arriving at Bombay from the UK, I made a journey of some one thousand two hundred miles from Victoria Terminus of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway  to  Dhanbad on the East Indian Railway, where my grandfather was the Yardmaster. Till then I was familiar only with the trains of the Southern Railway in England with their corridor trains and similar trains in Europe.

Kenneth Hugh Staynor was  born at Madhupur on 16 September 1927. In 1929, his family went to the United Kingdom, and returned to India in 1931 to Kurseong, where his father was a teacher, and later Headmaster, at  Victoria School.  Kenneth was educated at St. Josephs College, Darjeeling, and St Mary's High School, Mount Abu. He left India in August 1951 for permanent residence in the UK to get into research and development in engineering, which was not available in India, and because his ancestral roots were in the UK. He lives in South Wales after retirement. His wife passed away in January 2010\; he has three sons, five grandsons, five granddaughters and one great granddaughter.

Editor's note: This is part of a chapter from Mr. Staynor's forthcoming book. A shorter version this article first appeared at http://irfca.org/apps/trip_reports/show/410.

1943 saw a significant change in my life.

Before that I had got used to life in relative civilisation in places like Calcutta, Darjeeling, Delhi and Simla and several towns on the East Indian Railway where there was mains electricity, running water on tap and proper up to date sanitary arrangements such as flush toilets, et cetera!

Kenneth Hugh Staynor was  born at Madhupur on 16 September 1927. In 1929, his family went to the United Kingdom, and returned to India in 1931 to Kurseong, where his father was a teacher, and later Headmaster, at  Victoria School.  Kenneth was educated at St. Josephs College, Darjeeling, and St Mary's High School, Mount Abu. He left India in August 1951 for permanent residence in the UK to get into research and development in engineering, which was not available in India, and because his ancestral roots were in the UK. He lives in South Wales after retirement. His wife passed away in January 2010\; he has three sons, five grandsons, five granddaughters and one great granddaughter.

Editor's note: This is part of a chapter from Mr. Staynor's forthcoming book.

In 1947, one afternoon, I met a man in the lounge of the Calcutta Great Eastern Hotel.
He was drowning his sorrows with ‘Scotch on the rocks' after a journey from Bombay, en route to an appointment at some British mining or oil establishment in a place called Digboi in the extreme Northeast of Assam. He hailed from Aberdeen and had arrived at Bombay aboard the P&amp\;O ship Strathmore, but unfortunately he was not booked in the Air-Conditioned Coach on The Calcutta Mail.

R C Mody is a postgraduate in Economics and a Certificated Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers. He studied at Raj Rishi College (Alwar), Agra College (Agra), and Forman Christian College (Lahore). For over 35 years, he worked for the Reserve Bank of India, where he headed several all-India departments, and was also the Principal of the RBI Staff College. Now (2013) 86 years old, he is engaged in social work, reading, writing, and travelling. He lives in New Delhi with his wife. His email address is rameshcmody@gmail.com.

Past (1950s)

In the past, Indian Railways was one of the most revered institutions of the country with highest traditions of efficiency and public service. My uncle told me this story of an event that took place in 1954. He was a close friend and classmate at Roorkee University of the two persons in his story.

At this time, the Railway Board was being reconstituted, and its Chairman and Members were to be selected. Two persons were being considered for the Chairman's job. They were G Pande and K P Mushran.