On my father's death

“Chandrika, forget everything as if nothing has happened.” One of my elderly relative tried to console me when I was crying uncontrollably on my father’s death.

“I can’t forget him.” I replied amidst of my sobs.

“You have spent so much time with him. He taught you so many things. You have lots of sweet memories to remember. But look at me, I have never seen my father.”

I stopped crying and looked at him with a surprise.

He told, “When I was one and a half year old my father died. I couldn’t remember his face.”

“You must be having his photograph or portrait.”

“We were not rich enough to afford them therefore there is a vast blankness for me on remembering him.”

“One person, Mr. ‘X’ was walking bare feet on hot summer. His feet were burning and he was cursing God because God had made him so poor that he couldn’t even afford a pair of shoes for himself. On the way, after sometime he met a person who didn’t have lower limbs and was creeping on the hot road with the help of his hands while his hips were rubbing against hot road with his every move. Mr. ‘X’ thanked God for giving him feet.” I recalled the story and wiped my tears.

Courier-wala

“Madam, courier-wala is coming.” Security guard informed me.

“Fine.” I said and put the receiver down.

It was hot and humid. To quench my thirst, I took out a cold water bottle from refrigerator and pored the water in a glass. While I took the first sip, the door bell rang. I hardly drank two more sips then it rang again. I put the glass unfinished and almost ran to open the door for impatient courier-wala.

He handed the courier to me. I signed the receipt of courier and returned back paper and pen to him.

“Do you send couriers?” He asked.

“No. Not much.” I was bit shocked with his blunt question.

“I can do the free pick up of courier from your house. We have a shop near to your society. Please note down the address of my shop ................ and phone number................ Whenever you need it just call me. My number is......................and my name is......................Generally a person provide the service for only one courier company. But we provide service for all - First Flight, Blue Dart, DTDC,..................You name it and we have it.”

“Thanks!” I ended his endless marketing.

“He didn’t have the time to wait patiently till I attended him but he had plenty of time to do marketing of his recently started business. Bahoot aage jayega ye banda to! (He will reach for the sky)” I thought.

Ten bonus years

In 2007, my father fell sick. He needed constant care. Therefore, I left my profession to take care of him. My family members and I took good care of him. He followed all the precautions, diet and exercises suggested by the doctors. He disciplined his life as per the doctor’s advice. With the result, he lived happily for ten more years.

While he was recovering, I attended to him as well as family business. In the beginning, I did not know the ABC of business, money management and financial transactions. I was naive. 

While looking after him, taking care of his smallest needs, we spent a lot of time together. During these years, I got his full attention and time. I learned from him not only budgeting, saving, investing, spending, money making and business tactics but also much more about life.

Those ten years were the bonus years! And the best time of my life!!

Goodbye PAPA!

My father, Dr. Madan Lal Saini was the most hardworking person I ever knew! He worked near about 18 hours per day. He never took any break from work. In his life, there were no holidays. Even during festive time like Diwali or Holi he was busy working while the rest of the world was busy in enjoying lights and colours. In spite of whatever happens in the world, he strictly followed his working routine.

His hard work made him successful in academics as well as in business. He retired as Professor of Plant Breeding, CCS Harynana Agricultural University, Hisar. Earlier in his academic career, he was a bright student and always secured excellent marks in his school and college time. He was awarded Dr. V.K. Kashyap Gold Medal in recognisition of the best Ph.D. research worker for the year 1974. He worked on genetic improvement of gaur crop for about 12 years and remained associated in development and release of eight important varieties of guar. He was awarded ‘The Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Memorial Prize for Agriculture Research for the biennium 1982-83 for outstanding contribution in the field of plant breeding and genetics. Associated with wheat varitety WH542 and had been awarded ICAR Team Award for Multi-disciplinary Research in Agriculture and Allied Sciences for the Triennium 1994-96.

In the field of teaching, he guided four M.Sc. and seven Ph.d. students. He was awarded Best Teacher Award of the Department of Plant Breeding for the year 1998. He also received The Outstanding Teacher Award, a national award in teaching for the Biennium 1998-99 for outstanding contribution in the field of Plant Breeding and Crop Improvement by the ICAR.

He was selected for the prestigious B.P. Pal National Environment Fellowship Award for Biodiversity for the year 2002 by Government of India, Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi to work on grasses and medicinal plants in arid region.

He wrote three books namely ‘Plant Breeding and Crop Improvement’ Vol I and Vol II and Practical Manual on Plant Breeding. He wrote near about 200 papers including research papers, review articles and popular articles.

In business, he was keenly interested in introducing new technologies, starting new projects and launching new schemes for the betterment of society.

Surprisingly he followed his working schedule punctually even after he fell sick. His poor health could not restrict his working hours. In the last days of his life, he was discussing business, suggesting innovative ideas to make money and guiding me to tackle problems.

He led a very simple and disciplined life. He was kind, honest and was always ready to help everybody in need.

With moist eyes, I said ‘Goodbye’ to him last night.

Photo : While searching album for his photo, I found the pics were mainly about taking awards, giving talks or researching in the field/ lab. There were hardly any photos with friends or relatives. So here is one taking The Outstanding Teacher Award from Mr. L.K. Advani.

A breeze of romance

FIRST DAY OF SADHANA CLASS

When I opened my eyes after practicing anuloma viloma, I saw teacher’s helper standing in front of me quite confused. Before I could ask her, she inquired, “Do you know who live in the room adjacent to your’s?”

That was a million dollar question for me! I suggested her to ask Ms. ‘G’ who must be aware about this. She hesitated to ask Ms. ‘G’ because of language problem.”

Just to help her I went close to Ms. ‘G’ and whispered ‘Excuse Me’ as I did not want to disturb the rest of the class who were practicing sadhana.

“Excuse me.” This time I said a bit louder.

“WHAT!” She opened her eyes and inquired with anger.

“Who are your roommates?” I asked politely.

“I am doing sadhana, can’t you see. You can ask me later.” The anger was still in her voice.

I calmly said, “The teacher’s helper wants to know. I am asking you just because she can’t converse in English. Please tell if you know.”

My calm tone brought down her anger. She told the names.

LAST DAY OF SADHANA CLASS

I was feeling thirsty; I got up from my yoga mat and went towards the main door of the asana hall. I was quite surprised to notice that Ms. ‘G’ was not present in the class even though one hour class was over. I went down the stairs. I found my water bottle empty. I took it to fetch some water in it. I noticed her sitting with Mr. ‘V’, one of our batch mates on the stones near river Ganga. Many a times they were sitting together, enjoying each other’s company generally during the free time. When I came back I noticed the teacher’s piercing eyes and Ms. ‘G’ and Mr. ‘V’ walking slowly in opposite direction with their heads down. Ms. ‘G’ came late for about 70 minutes in the sadhana class.

“A breeze of romance disturbed her sadhana!” I thought.

Memories on a paper

“What are you writing?” An ochre robed middle-aged woman asked me. I was writing on a paper while sitting with her in a shared taxi. Unlike other ochre robe people, she was too talkative and was only silent when she was munching something.

The local villagers had blocked the road to Gangotri as some young person died because of landslide. The government officials were searching the dead body but the fall of stones, mud was too heavy, and the flow of river was speedy as well. Above all, it was raining making the land slippery and searching a difficult mission. They were also trying to convince the villagers not to block the road. All this was taking time and I was feeling bored so decided to pen down my experiences. On searching my purse, I found a piece of paper. On that, I had to jot down my memories of 30 days living with people of different cultures, living away from home for the first time, studying in an ashram and funny situations that happened. I did not want to miss out a single such situation. The space was less, words were more, and to manage them I was writing extremely small.

“Why are you writing so small?” She inquired again. “I can’t read.”

“I was jotting the points so that later on I can create a blog post out of each point. And I do not want them to be read by anyone till they appear on my blog after mixing a little fiction and some more humour to it.” I thought, “A piece of paper was journal of my 30 days memories!”

Examination Fever

“Chandrika, ask me any question from the course. I have prepared for the examination. I am ready to answer any question out of the syllabus.” Mr. ‘J’ said as I was filling up my glass with aromatic drinking water. I looked up perplexed as what to ask. I had not prepared for the exams yet which was going to held after two days. Moreover, I had read only one question by that time.

“Ask me any question, just any question.” He repeated.

I said, “What are different types of kriyas?”

He told, “For nasal cleaning, jalneti (Cleaning with water) and sutra neti (Cleaning with thread), for respiratory cleaning, kapalbhati, for food pipe cleaning, antar dauti. It is of four types plavini, kunjal kriya, agnisara and vastra dauti. Danta dauti (teeth), hrid dhauti (throat), moola shodana (rectum) cleaning are some more.”

He took a deep breath and said, “Abdominal churning, vama nauli, dakshina nauli and madhyam nauli for stomach cleaning. For cleaning of lower intestine, basti.........That’s all!”

“You forget to tell about eye cleaning, trataka.”

“Oh, yes. One is candle gazing.”

“Ya. Frontal gazing, gazing between the eyebrows and nasal gazing, gazing of the tip of nose.”

He repeated frontal and nasal gazing. He seemed to be impressed with my knowledge.

“Bye. I have to prepare for exam now.” I said.

“I have prepared only ONE question which I asked him and the rest of the course I have yet to go through!” I thought. “After talking to Mr. ‘J’, I was suffering severely from examination fever.”