How I met my PIO Partner

As a student when I arrived in England in January 1954, there were not many Indians then and I knew no one in that foreign land. Coming from a patriotic pandit parentage, my command over Sanskrit and Hindi was good but my English was pure Hinglish. Soon I met a leading member of Indian community President of Hindu Association in London- Mr. Fakir Chand Sondhi. Originally from pre-partitioned India he hailed from Sialkot., migrated to Jalandhar and had settled in the U.K. But he was no “fakir”. Indians- used to gather at his house for weekly satsang and good Indian dinner. I volunteered to recite mantras and perform havan for purification of the corrupted Indians who openly indulged in drinking and meat eating in that land of mlecchas.

Once a Hindu priest was needed to perform the final rites (anteishti) in London. Indian High Commission sought help from the Hindu Association. I volunteered to conduct the rites. After a few days, I received a cheque of eleven guinea (old English gold coin equal to 11 pounds and 11 shillings). That was an honourable fee for the service, fixed by the Funeral Services Directorate. My father though a performing pandit never accepted dakshina ( fees) for the funeral services. So, I too refused to accept the fees. Mr. Sondhi and a secretary of the Hindu Association said: “ you know if you don’t take it, it would simply go to the Funeral Director’s pocket. You are a working student, take it and buy some books.”

I was still committed to social service to my Indian community in that foreign land, and often participated in Indian Students’ Association founded by Krishna Menon. One day, at the students’ get together I met Mrs. Laj Vanti Sondhi, a lovely Panjabi lady dressed in saree. She expressed her concern that children born in England did not know Indian mother tongue and wondered if I could help. She asked me if I could teach her younger daughter Nirmala, age 18, born and brought up in England. The young girl knew nothing of Indian languages except a few Panjabi swearing words. As I had taken up a job in a night factory, I slept in the morning and went to University in the afternoon. Only over the week-end I would go to the Sondhi’s for free Hindi tution. That was my contribution to Indian community – I believed. But that was also the beginning of my romance leading to long lasting love with the Sondhis.

It was around 1958 or 59, that I got a job as Programme Assistant with the BBC. Indian Section. One evening at the BBC we staged a Hindi play for the Indian audience. I took this opportunity to invite the Sondhi girls to our programme. Ms. Yagya, the elder one was not free. I escorted the younger one to the Hindi play – obviously to improve her Hindi. But after the play Nirmala unwittingly accepted my suggestion to go around visiting our studios. As it happened to be late evening ( passed 9 )and the week-ender staff gone, the studios’ lights were switched off. I tried to enter first to switch the light on but it was not necessary. The young lady was already in, and it was dark and lonely. That was our first kiss and I said: when I kiss a girl that is final for me for seven lives.” Nirmala consented, and our courtship began with the first Hindi play in London.

In 1960, I almost completed my Ph.D., and on the 27th July , Nirmala’s 21st birth day, I proposed our engagement. With or without parental approval that was not then necessary. Strongest opposition to our marriage came from my would be mother-in-law. “How a pandit would marry our daughter!” But the rich Fakir was a very sincere and saintly man. Himself self-made he valued hard work and ambition in the young. Not having high education himself, he showed high respect for scholars and was ever supportive to Indian students.

Since the mother was unhappy I planned the engagement at the BBC Club. Entire Indian section of the BBC was happy to celebrate when my phone rang. “Sheel ji, ( my nick name in the family) could you not do engagement at our place?” Great Fakir was conciliatory. “But Daddy, Mummy is not happy, and we don’t want to upset her.”

“Your mummy has asked me to invite you at home as she wants to witness the engagement. I can pick you up on my way from the office.” I had always longed for her motherly love as my own mother had died when I was just 5. I had no one of my own family around but enjoyed support from a few BBC colleagues. Therefore that brief phone call confirming Mother’s blessings was like the pleasant showers in the hot summer day.

I adored my mother-in-law. She represented 40% percent of mothers of my country who grew up in our villages, and without education, were transported to an alien land unprepared to face the war times in England. During the war years of scarcity, and unemployment , with four kids to fend, she helped her husband to build up a small scale income generating business in England. She was always conscious of her inadequacy of English language and culture but kept her head high. But I found the mother culturally conditioned to worry about “what the people say..” And that was the one thing I never worried about.

With a Ph.D. husband Nirmala was looking for a good home in her in-laws village in India. But I never promised her a Rose Garden. On the contrary, I had promised to take her to some village in India and work for the upliftment of our people. In the post-Independent decade that was a romantic idea for us young patriots. But having lived in England for almost a decade, I had no foggiest idea how an Indian village looked. After our marriage I wanted to have my first baby born in Independent India. In summer of 1961, I brought my 5 months pregnant wife to hot climate in India. That was her first visit to the land of her forefathers but she had to face its realities. At the second half of her life, when her sons had settled abroad – in the US., in the U.K. and in Canada- Nirmala has moved into a village in Uttaranchal, at the outskirt of Dehradun, below the Mussoorie hills, a Shishu Chetna Kendra . She has been engaged in making a cultural revolution among the 40 families of surrounding village communities by teaching, guiding, and cultivating aptitude for new ideas and learning better ( modern) way of life without pomb and pressures of urban civilization.

We married in a simple ceremony held at the Rotary Club in London. No wedding cards were printed, no dowry was negotiated, nor any jewellery was exchanged.

Nirmala strode with me climbing mountains, trekking in the Alps and Himalaya, honey-mooning and ski-ing in Scandianevian countries, driving in England and America, and was almost killed twice in India by dishonest medical practioners.

Nirmala had no idea of village life in India and she was totally oblivious of social and cultural conditions prevailing here. India was a dream land – a place of holidaying of ex-patriots, but in a romantic mood she had chosen to be with me. She had toughned along with me for 45 years. She often wanted to go back to England but when she sees innocent faces singing Gandhi’s “Ishwar-Allah tere nam, …sabko san-mati de Bhagwan” and when the 40 kids (2- 5 ages) in their kiddy’s voice, half-closed eyes with wide open mouth and always out of tune sing: “Insaf-ki dagar pe, Baccho dikhao chal-ke. Ye desh hai tumahara, Neta tum-hi ho kal-ke.” She forgets her personal pains and sufferings. Her tears dry up when she hears the cries of our village girls who cannot cry or laugh at will.

In physics there is one Uncertainty Principle. But Nirmala believes in a Certainty Principle that never again, nor in her next life she would take Hindi lesson from me.