Company Gardens: Amritsar

Author: 
Vinod K. Puri

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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.

In my younger days I would go for a morning walk with my father during the summer holidays. My father would wake me and my older brother at five in the morning. Then he busy himself with his morning routine of washing up and preparing a cup of Enos fruit salt on the tiny spirit lamp. As he drank the bubbling whitish drink, we would pull on our sandals and be ready. It was still dark when we left home.

My father always carried a highly polished knobby walking stick. He actually owned several walking sticks, many presents from his friends who had visited hill stations and brought him unique walking sticks. A tall handsome man over six feet, he would be dressed in walking khaki pants or occasionally in a Punjabi lungi. For someone who wore a white starched shirt and dhoti or pajamas during the day, he looked quite impressive in pants. He would trail the stick along the road humming an incomprehensible tune and use the walking stick to scare away the stray dogs.

I remembered the time when our pet dog had gone rabid and bit my father.  My father had to have fourteen daily painful injections in his abdomen. He never complained about it, though an aunt who was also bit by the pet complained for many years. Now, on the roadside, dogs were as plentiful as ever but they rarely bothered you. In the winter chill of December morning, I saw them crouched on the side of the road or sleeping in the small potholes. I noticed that now it was the noisy traffic of trucks and buses spewing diesel fumes that made crossing a road so much harder.

As I climbed up the famous Bhandari Bridge of Amritsar, I remembered a long time ago when the bridge was first built. There were huge mounds of earth moved over months to link up the old city with its suburbs. It was a monumental task.

Prior to the construction of the bridge the only connection the old city had with the cantonment and civil lines was over the ancient Rigo Bridge, which spanned the railway tracks. After the bridge was completed, one could see the strange figure of Bhagat Puran Singh on the city side. The old Sikh wore a burlap garment shaped like a poncho and begged the folks to get down from the rickshaws. For months the outraged fat wives of the city businessmen felt cheated that they had to walk up the bridge! As if the scrawny bicycle rickhaw-pullers were fated to die hauling the fat women!

The old Sardarji with the flowing white beard started a charitable organization, Pinglewara, which took care of the helpless, deformed wretches on the streets of the holy city. The black wooden collection boxes with crude white lettering became familiar to the citizens.  I recalled this was a long time before humanity was aware of Mother Theresa's similar task in the mean streets of Calcutta.

Now you were likely to step over the sleeping figures next to the small dead fires. These were mostly beggars or day laborers who came to the city from poor states of UP or Bihar because there were alms or work to be found.

On top of the bridge, there was the roundabout with the statue of Subhash Bose in the middle. From the back, the statue reminded you of a pudgy businessman incongruously dressed in the fascist Nazi uniform! If the crows were perched on the head of the statue, the thought did cross my mind as to the fate of mortals. Here stood the great leader who the Indians refuse to believe till this day had perished in an airplane accident.

I descended the bridge in the direction of the railway station and headed towards the cricket grounds. At the turn from the Court Road, a fruit-juice vendor washed and peeled the carrots and stacked them industriously on his handcart. I watched the man work swiftly but steadily handling a long knife effortlessly.

Passing the Alexandra School and the Gandhi Ground, I noticed the stadium like appearance. The walls of the stadium were plastered with advertisement for cell phones. More than fifty  years ago, in the 1950s, when I had come to watch three-day matches against visiting teams from England or West Indies, the majestic grounds were not so built up. A pitch in the middle and brick-stands at the boundary for spectators were all that used to be there. The pavilion into which players and umpires used to disappear during tea and lunch break was so unapproachable. The high school finals would also be played at Gandhi grounds but on a secondary pitch.

Opposite the cricket grounds were open fields where I had played in school soccer tournament. For some reason, the master and coach, Gulab Chand, in sixth grade had decided to make me the captain of the lower school soccer team though taller and stronger Harbhajan Singh was a better player. I can still recall the cross-field pass I made running on the sidelines hoping that the other forward would kick a goal. But of course, it was intercepted by the opposite team. We were trashed and I cannot forget it.

I realized how distances in childhood are magnified. I remembered how these grounds used to appear so far away from home, and how my friends and brothers would be dog- tired returning home after the game.

As I reached the Mall Road, I noticed a number of banquet halls and show rooms. The old Mall Road used to boast of only residential buildings. The majestic bungalows were set far from the road. Now you mostly saw the closed gates and signs for doctors' services and other commercial enterprises. The high walls were covered with jagged glass, a reminder of changing times and fears of the inhabitants. The Lawrence Road itself was crowded beyond recognition. The broad boulevard had a lot of eating-places beyond the intersection.

At the intersection of Mall Road and Lawrence Road for a while, there were policemen living in tents. In the early morning they used to clean their tents, picking up the string cots and using the water taps to wash up. Left over from the early eighties when terrorists briefly dictated the daily life of the city, the policemen had taken over a small corner of the Company Gardens. Now even they were gone.

Walking along the Mall Road, I noticed the sanitation workers with long-handled stiff brooms that appeared to raise clouds of dust. The men and women worked desultorily. The sidewalks were wide and inviting except for the dust. The bishtis of my childhood who carried water in huge animal skins and sprinkled it over parched roads to settle the dust were gone forever. The ancient trucks, which sprinkled water from a large reservoir, were also gone.

At the entrance to Gardens I noticed a stall dispensing tea and milk for the early risers. This would have been unthinkable in my childhood. A large number of scooters and cars were parked inside. It was now a fact of life that in order to get some exercises you first had to travel a few miles!

Gone was the famous Thandhi-Khui opposite the gardens. The cool water and poori-chole were famous. Summer-evenings saw small crowds gathered around the balloon-sellers and ice-cream vendors. The handcarts were lighted with petromax lamps.

Hakim Sahib, a Muslim friend of my father, had migrated to Lahore but had started to visit the city when visa restrictions between Pakistan and India eased in the fifties. He may stay at our house for a month. But he was so nostalgic about the city of his birth that he used to come to Thandhi-Khui every evening to eat poori-chole. Hakim Sahib would come back at dinnertime and beg my mother's indulgence, "We don't have a single poori-chole shop like it in Lahore!" His wife would berate him for his lack of manners but Hakim Sahib never changed his routine.

Suave and soft spoken, Hakim Sahib was an industrialist and still had many friends in Amritsar. Along with my older brother, I had spent a week in Lahore in 1955 courtesy of Hakim Sahib's family. As a fourteen year old, I got to visit all the famous places like Anarkali Bazar in the city that was the stuff of our elders' stories. This was the welcome result of cricket diplomacy.

Now in place of the well and the shop were the big houses of the businessmen who had moved out of the congested narrow bye-lanes of the city. Strangely enough a garbage dump sat near the expensive houses. How did the people of Amritsar whose language included phrases like Thandi Khui di Sair cope with the change?

The rose garden now had a large equestrian statue of Maharajah Ranjit Singh at one end. The walkways were much better paved. The large crowd of city dwellers crowded the path, some flinging their arms in windmilling motion, others performed bends and body stretches. Near a water tap, a group picked up the twigs they chewed for brushing their teeth. The hacking noises men made were loud and ill-mannered but no one seemed to mind.

In a small dark plot, I saw a group of men standing in a circle and making strange noises. This was the improbable contribution to healthcare by India! The 'laughing clubs', which had sprouted all over, India, asked their members to laugh in public places. So these men stood in circles and made all kinds of laughing noises. One by one a forced laughter, followed by a 'guffaw', many times of the hyena type of 'haw-haw' sounded forced. But the public display was supposed to keep the members healthy, bring down their blood pressure and add to their life.

In an adjoining lot were a variety of flowering plants. My father used to enjoy walking in this lot, sometimes bending to smell a gardenia bush. My favorite part of the Gardens used be where the swings and see-saw were. The children gathered in this lot and my father would allow me a few minutes to climb the wooden arches. When I tired of climbing I would rejoin my father. If I met a schoolmate or a friend, I didn't dare acknowledge him.

Even now there were few women who joined men in the morning. I noticed that the height of sartorial splendor was the polyester ‘track-suit'. Some curious men would literally thrust their face into mine as if to guess what I was listening to on my Walkman. There was a proliferation of groups of kids or youth playing volleyball or badminton. They had cordoned off the roads that crisscrossed the grounds for their ‘courts'. Many of the players were inept, ungainly, and lacked athletic grace.

At the outskirts of the Gardens were some of the club buildings, which looked run down in the morning light. They used to look magical and mysterious in the evenings with outdoor fans and whiskey drinking patrons. A relic of the Raj, with improbable names like Lumsden Club and Services Club, prosperous businessmen and high officials who often sponged off the traders now inhabited them. I had visited one of these places at night and found the waiters serving greasy kabobs to traders trying to entertain civil servants. The dark mahogany furniture and sepia-framed pictures evoked memories associated with regiments and deputy commissioners of the yore.

I remembered the phrase Paul Scott had used to describe these clubs in ‘Jewel in the Crown'- old-fashioned shabbiness. The State Tennis Association maintained a building but the men hitting the balls in the morning seemed to be novices. Those returning back to their homes and jobs lingered at the handcarts heaped with fresh fruit. The fruit sellers had obviously made the early morning trek to the wholesale fruit and vegetable market outside the Hall Gate and bought the produce.

I walked back past the ancient VJ Hospital, which had been turned into some kind of a mental institution. The drug stores opposite the Hospital were shuttered at this early in the morning. So was the Crystal Restaurant where I used to go for a cup of coffee with my friends when I had the money.

I had spent years roaming the wards of VJ hospital as a medical student, trying to learn from the poor, illiterate villagers who sought health-care. I was reminded of the awkward, uncomfortable feelings of a novice pretending to be a doctor in a long white coat. This decrepit building had been the training ground of so many well-known doctors that a feeling of sadness was inevitable. Single story, barrack-like wards used to have dim lighting, no air-conditioning, torn and smelly red blankets for the patients. The wards used to have almost proprietary names of legendary doctors, Dr Malhotra's Ward , Dr Santokh Singh's Ward and Dr Karam Singh's Ward.

Climbing up the bridge I noticed a crowd of young men sitting on their scooters or plastic chairs sipped tea in thick tall glasses. Across the road a group of old men did the same and went through Urdu and Hindi newspapers. Heated discussions of the world events were the norm.

The pastry shop Bakewell sold bread in the morning. I remembered shopping at Bakewell for pineapple pastry and sconces.

A young boy diligently peeled buckets of potatoes as the shop-owner fried a mound of kachories. Large slabs of paneer (Indian cheese) sat on the counter in their pristine whiteness. On Saturdays I noticed the black pots full of mustard oil that sat on the side of the bridge on tripod stands. In the middle of the pots were stick- figures covered with marigold petals, which struck terror in the heart of the Hindus. The coins and oil as alms were generously deposited to propitiate the gods!  The men wearing unusual kind of head dress with a peacock feather stuck on the side smugly sat on the side smoking bidis. They kept an eye on the ‘take' in the pot.

Now I took a different part of the bridge, which descended to Hall Bazaar. There were army trucks parked outside the vegetable market. The soldiers were there to buy vegetables for the entire regiment. Outside the huge arch of the Hall Gate now stood the bronze statue of the revolutionary Udham Singh. The youthful bent figure was carrying a revolver.  Garlands of marigolds had dried around the neck of the statue.  It stood on a round raised cement platform.

The waist-high iron railing protected the statue of the revolutionary who had gone to England, determined to kill General Dyer, the butcher of Jalianwalla Bagh. Most people did not remember that he had ended up killing the wrong Dyer, not the general but the governor of Punjab! The figure barely evoked the dangerous and delicious feelings I used to have about the youthful, violent bomb throwers who fought the British in the early part of the twentieth century.

I remembered that while returning with my father and brother we took the road going down to the bus stand and would come across vendors selling ripe shahtoot -berries or jamun (Black Plum). My father would silently reach inside his pocket and reward both of us with a Diwani coin for the purchase. The routine of the jamun seller was to weigh the appropriate amount of the dark purple fruit and then tilt it in an earthen utensil, put some black rock salt. He would cover the small container with an aluminum katori, turn it upside down and thoroughly shake it. On a paper torn from newspaper, he would pour out the glistening and bursting fruit for us.  We would greedily eat the ripe berries and were left with stained fingers and lips.

At the bottom of the bridge we would head towards home, passing the truck drivers. As the burly men washed themselves on the roadside, their assistants would be washing the vehicles. Crossing the grounds outside our house, we would see more neighbors and friends. My father would stop to say namaste to some acquaintances.

As we entered the house my father would wordlessly pick up the Urdu dailies Partap and Milap, and head to the verandah where the servant had set up his shaving gear. First he would sit cross-legged on the carpet, and finish his milk, which was brought to him in a tall brass glass. As he read the paper, no one was allowed to touch even a page of it. But as soon as he finished I and my brother would be ready to grab the sports sections. In that time before the advent of TV, our connection to Vinoo Mankad or Polly Umrigar's exploits were radio commentary or newspapers' sports section.

Our mother had by now had her bath and even been to the temple. She would go to the special room where pictures of gods and small clay idols were set up, and read a few pages of the sacred texts undisturbed. She smiled as she came out, and looked at their berry-stained fingers and lips. Meanwhile my older brother and I would run upstairs to be the first to get to the cheap detective novel -Jasoosi Duniya -that we had rented with pooled money. We never wanted to pay extra for the delay in returning the book to the pavement-based book sellers outside Hall Gate.

As the years passed and my father's health deteriorated, he started to go for the morning walk outside the house in Goal Bagh. Then he would go for a daily shave to the barber. He would meet several of his friends and return home with more news than anyone else.

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© Vinod Puri 2012

Comments

Vinod I read your article twice. This is great chapter of your early life years. What is next chapter, may be your life in Medical college. Your life at PGI and journey to USA and life in USA.

Man i can not stop reading it.You have taken me back to my teenage.As BOB HOPE will say thanks for the memories.Great job

I started and could not stop until the whole story was over. every one of the lines brought my own memories . Jassosie Duniya , was my passion too. Keep writing.

Sir phenomenal ! Great writing and lucid capture of those days. Amritsar is no more like that alas !!

Beautifully written. That's why they call them good old days. Life was simple and there was pleasure in little things. Thanks for taking me back to Amritsar of our youth.

What a real time picture of the past years which I spent as a medical studant at Amritsar between 1963 and 1967.It brought tears in my eyes at few places.Thanks a lot for this true picture of past and present.

Thanks Ali. I had left Amritsar in 1964 for Chandigarh in , so never crossed paths with you.

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing.

Very well written...enjoyed reading it...I can see Vinod uncle getting nostalgic... I think you should now head back to India and settle down here!! Thank you for sending the article.

Very nice Vinod. Thank you. One day I would like to go to Amritsar and roam around on my own. I have not done that since 1980. Parveen

Hi Vinod, We probably, have never met. Your text about Amritsar, mainly, what we called Shehar to Baahar, brought back my childhood memories. We lived behind Gharhi Wali Kothi, Lawrence Road. I think it was a routine for Amritsarias. My papaji and we brothers did daily morning walk. I think Papaji went mainly to meet his friends and have social talk. Thank you for the nostalgic scenes. Mohinder (Amritsar Med Graduate 1963-67)

Dear Mohinder, I very well remember the famous Gharhi Wali Kothi. In 1947 when I was 5 years old, we temporarily were housed for safety. At the time our house in Goal Bagh was considered too vulnerable. Hope to see you in Feb. in Amritsar along with Cheeku (my wife).

Editor's reply Thanks to all those who have written comments. It is likely that you also have interesting mersonal memories that are at least 50 years old. I would greatly appreciate it if you would consider writing them up for this website. Please write to indiaofthepast@gmail.com.

Thanks Vinod, the Amritsar of my memories although I did not go the Company Bag as much as you did although I lived very close to it on Rattan Chand Road; On my last visit I had an occasion to go there, only did not know it. Next day I needed to go back and asked my friend where the place was and when she said Rattan Chand Road, I was stunned !! When I went back we went around in circles to find the place where I had gone the night before. I could not find my old house. The next day one of my Uncle's took me there. Where my house was supposed to be stood 4 new Kothis. We used to live just behind Sir Gujjar Mal's Kothi, but there were no signs of that magnificent compound. In another mansion that used to be opposite to us, stood a house in their huge front yard or Bag. The whole place was un-recognizable. Amritsar has changed and not for the better. Thanks for the memories. Did not know Thandi Khui was no more. I have been going to Amritsar but just for a day or so and never really explored. I will tell you that my old tailor's shop on Lawrence Road was still there until a few years ago but dont know if it is still there or not. Again, thanks for the memories.

Dear Vinod Bhai...thanks, these beautifully written memories have brought alive Amritsar of the 50s 60s...the city had so much character and its own unique charm...now all that one remembers is the haphazard development, noisy streets, unruly traffic...and no Thandi Khui

we have never met but i found your article illuminating and informative. It also reflected the inevitable changes we all see but cannot express perhaps as well as you have . Keep writing - it is good for the soul - yours and ours! Anil

Sir..One of the most lucid and nostalgic description of Amritsar-makes me wish that I had lived in those uncomplicated times!(We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap!-Vonnegut). You should consider writing a book on those times..

Hi Vinod, Thank you for sharing this article with me. You bring back memories of Amritsar of old. Of visiting my Granny and Uncles in a city that now only bears the same name. I believe the word for this backward change is Progress. Love Acchi

Really enjoyed the vivid description of the nostalgic life in Asr. It brought back the old precious memories. It was very well written article & I have sent a copy to my brothers. Vijay

Dear Vinod,Very well written.The reason I enjoyed it because I am familiar with whole geography of Amritsar.I went last year for 3 weeks and was disappointed to see disappearance of GARHI WALI KOTHI, THAND KHUI and PRATAP SINGH KAIRO DI KOTHI.

Dear Vinod Uncle , You can take an Amritsari out of Amritsar but you cannot take Amritsar out of Amritsari . Par hun oh Amritsar nahi rah gaya . Sirf yadaan baki hain. All landmarks are gone . Yes ,Garhi wali Khothi is one of them , it is a hotel now . Mall road is now commercial street(Modern Guru Bazar or Hall Bazar ) .Most of old eating joints are gone and the taste of food is different . Even the Amritsar water does not taste same . It has been thirty years since I left Amritsar and it has completely changed . Maybe the city has moved and left us behind (?)or we to want live in the memories of our dear old Amritsar.(Maybe one of the best times in our life). Warm Regards , Chetan

Thanks Chetan. Yes, things change! Thanks for the corrections, yes the names of the clubs in Company Gardens are Lumsden, Service and Amritsar Clubs. May be Mr. Subodh Mathur will be kind enough to change those. My error!

Nanaji its really great to have a look at Amritsar from your eyes,with your narration depicting each and every place very minutely..Its really superb.....thanks for sharing such a lively experience with us...It shows how much you are attached with Amritsar.....

Thanks Aarti. Yes, as much as I get annoyed at the usual things in India, I still love the city of my birth.

Hi Vinod, Thanks for sharing your article about amritsar with me. I read every single word and printed it for keepsake. It is beautifully written piece. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks dear Vinod Bhai for the trip down the memory lane.We really remember Bhagat Puran Singh for his mighty contributions in restoring vision to many corneal blinds. As house-surgeons in RL Eye Hospital,it was our sacred duty to rush to Pingalwara for enucleation of eyes of many unclaimed bodies. Yes,we always remember the goals we missed on the field and some of the self-goals which make us wiser & saner in later years . Indeed Company Bagh had a very special place in the vivid memories of all of us of Glancy Med College.Some of us spent couple of nights in the comapny bagh to escape the unsavory ragging by seniors. And gathered in the bagh for a picnic after a splash of colors on Holi in the hopuse of some of our teachers. It was nice to see you last week in Ft Wayne. Stay blessed and happy.[/size]

hello vinod bhaiya read your story.you write so well.i was really impressed by the way you compared past and present, went and took everybody down the memory lane (lanes) of amritsar. with love renu

Hi Vinod I am not Amritsari and I did not go to school or Medical School there. I have only recently visited a small part which is the subject of your article. But boy o boy, what a masterful literary piece! It certainly should become part of a novel I must urge you to write. I just had to finish reading it late into the night. I would certainly compare this piece of writing to any one of very famous Indian novelists. Well done and thanks for sharing it with me.

Hi Vinod Thanks for sharing this masterful piece of writing with me. It was riveting enough for me to continue reading late into the night. I you can write this you can write a whole novel. Well done.

Dear Vinod, Very well written about Ambarsar, which was famous for Warhiyan and Paparh. I enjoyed reading the fantastic language, coming direct from your heart.

Vinod Reading your "recall of younger days in Amritsar" I was reminded of my medical college days there . Like Dr Payara Singh Chauhan,who by the way was my wonderful registrar at HH the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi when I was a SHO there,once started to read your article kept reading it until late at night beyond midnight. All the best in future writings

Wow!! Dadu. Seems like you had a memorable childhood/teenage. You have a bag full of all the wonderful memories you had in Amritsar. Love.

It is a real professional and wonderful piece of writing. Love You Uncle.

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