My Father, page 3
The school in Banera was to begin on 1 July 1931. To maximize his time with his mother and yet arrive in Banera on time to begin his studies, my father set out for the twelve-mile journey on foot at 5 a.m. on 30 June 1931. By coincidence, this was his birthday and he had turned ten that day. It took him ten hours to cover the distance. It must have been a huge relief when he finally arrived at the home of his mausi and mausa (aunt and uncle) at 3 p.m. The two received him warmly as if he was their own son.
The following day, my father was admitted to the fourth grade in Akshaya Memorial Hindi Middle School. Though he was of the right age for this grade, his readiness for it was questionable. He had never studied in a proper school and had had no exposure at all to the subjects of history and geography, which were an integral part of the fourth-grade curriculum. When it came to mathematics, while he had been good at arithmetics, he had no knowledge of geometry. His class teacher advised him to move to a lower grade. But the teacher on whose advice Dhapubai had sent him to Banera intervened to ensure that he was retained in the fourth grade. Father soon proved that he was up to the challenge. He ranked second in his class in the half-yearly examinations, and then got the top rank in the annual examinations.
The move to Banera was to be transformational for my father. This was in no small measure due to the fact that the town offered him an environment and opportunity to grow that Suwana, perhaps even Bhilwara, could not have. Situated in the midst of the Aravalli mountain ranges, Banera was a picturesque town. Though it declined over time and came to be formally designated a village, with a population of 11,400 in 2011, it was a hub of activity during the years my father studied there. The town came into prominence in 1681 when Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb conferred the rights to seventy-five surrounding villages, inclusive of Banera, on Raja Bhim Singh, the fourth son of Maharana Raj Singh I of Mewar. Because of this conferment, Bhim Singh is also often referred to as the founder of Banera. By the time the great-grandson of Bhim Singh came to the helm in Banera, the Mughal empire had disintegrated. At that point, suzerainty of Banera passed on to Mewar state.
During the years my father studied in Banera, it had a population of approximately 7,000. Unlike most jagirdars of Mewar, the rulers of Banera were progressive and enlightened. They built numerous irrigation tanks in their jagir, among other things, which added to the prosperity of farmers while also bringing extra revenue to them. Because of the enlightened policies of its rulers, Banera remained free of any agrarian unrest through its entire existence of almost three centuries.
The rulers made good use of the revenues they received. They added beautiful palaces to the old Banera Fort on the hill, for which the town is known even today. They constructed a large tank and a massive swimming pool on the outskirts of the town while building a beautiful park adjacent to it. The Akshaya Memorial School was built in 1903, and an allopathic dispensary in 1925. Even the major towns of Mewar, such as Bhilwara and Chittor, did not have allopathic dispensaries in those days.
The ruling family encouraged sports. The town had an impressive playground in a beautiful, natural setting outside the walled town. Students, teachers and others regularly played football and hockey there. There were two volleyball playgrounds adjacent to the school. The games were mandatory for students, with punishment being meted out to those found absent from them. The town hosted inter-school and inter-town tournaments, which attracted large crowds and created much excitement all around. The traditional rivalry between Banera and the nearby town of Shahpura found expression on the playground as well.
The annual school day was celebrated with great fanfare. On that day, there were inter-class tournaments in traditional games such as kabaddi and kho-kho by day, while the main function took place in the evening, with the rajadhiraj presiding. The function included one-act plays, dances and music by students. The programme concluded with prizes distributed to winners in the sports events and the year’s examination toppers. My father never won a prize in sports, but he never missed one in studies. The tradition set by him has been upheld at least in part by those of us who have followed him: not a single member of the Panagariya family has distinguished himself or herself in any sport to date!
Returning to the main story, my father had successfully overcome the initial handicaps of insufficient preparation for the fourth grade and topped his class in the final examinations. The academic year over, summer vacations began, and Father got the opportunity to return home. Dhapubai had been looking forward to this day since he had left Suwana almost ten months earlier. Over his protests, she saw to it that she supplemented his diet with ghee and milk during the months he was with her. He got to enjoy his summer break with his former classmates and friends. During the year in Banera, he had gained exposure to stories of the Mahatma Gandhi-led freedom movement against the British. Inspired by those stories, he would often go around the village with his friends shouting the slogan ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’, an act forbidden by the Mewar state government under direction from its British agent. The presence of a government official within hearing distance would be a special reason for Father and his friends to raise the slogan. Luckily, no official took any action against the children.
Before my father and his mother knew it, the summer vacation months flew and it was time for him to return to school for another year of study. Dhapubai bid her son goodbye with tears in her eyes. Once in Banera, he resumed his studies. His first rank in the fourth grade earned him free books for the fifth grade from Rajadhiraj Amar Singh. The school had a public-spirited scoutmaster, and at his encouragement Father joined scouting. The town also had a good library, which Father began visiting on a daily basis. He would regularly read the Hindi newspaper Veer Arjun, which the library subscribed to. It was edited by lndra Vidyavachaspati, a leading journalist known for his nationalist writings. The paper inculcated the spirit of nationalism in my father from an early age.
Given that Banera had two small water tanks and one big tank, even the small children in the town knew how to swim. In his twelfth year now, my father still lacked the skill. He decided to teach himself to swim. He borrowed a couple of inflated tubes from a friend, went to one of the tanks situated in the middle of the town, and jumped into it with the tubes. It so happened that the tubes floated away and he began to drown. By the grace of God, an expert swimmer happened to be watching him. He immediately jumped into the tank and saved him. Though my father eventually did learn to swim, it was an escape he never forgot the rest of his life and he would always describe it as a miracle.
Father managed to stay at the top of his class in the fifth-grade examinations too. The school was once again closed for the summer vacation and he returned to Suwana to be with his mother and friends. During this visit, he got to learn astrology from a former classmate’s father, who had several books on the subject, including the Bhrigusamhita. In retrospect, judging by how well Father assessed the personalities of my children, Hirsh and Ajay, from their horoscopes, and predicted the broad contours of their future, he had mastered the subject well. Amita, my wife, still marvels at the accuracy of his assessments and predictions. He also read the Ramayana and the Mahabharata during the summer, finding the latter particularly fascinating.
The year was now 1933 and my father and his sister were twelve and nine years old, respectively. Kanakmal’s younger brother was twenty-nine and still a bachelor. Kanakmal’s wife and some of the local Oswal families began pressing Dhapubai to offer her daughter in exchange for a bride for him. However, Dhapubai was a shrewd and tough woman who knew how to guard her own interests. She understood perfectly well that her pretty daughter was her only chance to get a bride for her own son. She firmly ignored the entreaties of her sister-in-law (Kanakmal’s wife) and the Oswal families. Nevertheless, in order not to leave matters to chance, she decided to move fast to arrange matches for her son and daughter.
I do not know how she went about connecting with families of potential matches. It is probable that her brother’s family helped her. What I do know from conversations with my bhua is that she worked out a triangular arrangement with two other families that had a brother-sister pair each. As per the deal, the three brother-sister pairs would be simultaneously matched into three husband-wife pairs and be married in quick succession.
My father and bhua made the first brother-sister pair. My mother and her older brother made the second pair. And Bhuralal Khatod, who would marry my bhua, and his sister made the third pair. The families of the three pairs agreed that my bhua would be married to Bhuralal Khatod first; his sister would then be married to my mother’s brother; and the last would be my mother to marry my father. The sequence was on the insistence of Bhuralal’s family; they feared that if my father got married before my bhua was given to their son, Dhapubai might go back on her word. The agreed sequence naturally placed all the risk on my grandmother’s shoulders, but given the circumstances, she took the chance.
Formal engagement ceremonies for the three couples were performed during the summer of 1933. The first two marriages took place within the year. The marriage of my father and mother was fixed for the summer of 1934. My mother, Mohan Kumari, and her family lived in Bhilwara, as did Bhuralal and his family. Therefore, while my bhua went from a village to a town, my mother migrated in the reverse direction. The latter was only two or three months younger than my father. At the time of marriage, they were both thirteen years old.
On 1 July 1933, my father was back in his school in Banera. He continued to do well at studies and retained the top rank in the sixth grade as well. When the school closed for the summer, he was back in Suwana in the third week of May 1934. Ceremonies for his marriage, which lasted nearly a month, began almost immediately. Every single day, relatives, family friends and neighbours in the village would invite him for meals. ‘Sometimes I had to eat at about a dozen places in a single day,’ he recalled in his autobiography. Every evening, there would be singing and dancing at home, and every third or fourth day he would be taken on horseback in a procession around the village. For Dhapubai, this must have been one of the happiest months of her life.
This happiness was punctured, however, the day before the marriage party was to leave for Bhilwara, where the wedding was to take place. Some time back, the Oswal community of Bhilwara had got divided into two camps, with one camp supporting community feasts to commemorate deaths and the other opposing it. The Oswal community of Suwana had joined the former camp while my mother’s family was in the latter camp.
The night before the wedding party was to leave, the panchas (leaders) of the Oswal community in Suwana informed Dhapubai and her family that they would join the party only on condition that their meals in Bhilwara were arranged at a place other than the bride’s home. This being entirely contrary to the longstanding tradition, an effort was made to get the panchas to change their mind. Discussions continued for several hours during the night. In the end, at 4 a.m., Dhapubai relented and the wedding party left for Bhilwara at 6 a.m. But once in Bhilwara, the panchas upped the ante, demanding that the procession of the groom’s wedding party not pass by the bride’s house. Given the prevailing custom, that would have been insulting to my mother’s family. Rather than accept such humiliation, my father and other members of his extended family refused to bow to the demand. The panchas and the other Oswal families returned to Suwana without participating in the wedding.
Luckily, an Oswal wedding party from Sanganer, where another branch of our family still lived, happened to be around for another marriage ceremony. They offered to merge their party with whatever remained of my father’s wedding party. The combined party then went past the houses of both brides, thereby saving my father’s family from embarrassment.
The wedding ceremonies lasted for three days, after which my father returned to Suwana. Given that marriages in those days took place when the bride and groom were still young, the bride would not move to her husband’s family immediately after the wedding. Accordingly, my mother stayed in Bhilwara with her parents.
In Mewar, in those days, only men used to form the wedding party of the groom. Therefore, Dhapubai had stayed back while the wedding party went to Bhilwara for the ceremony. Upon his return, Father discovered that his mother was furious at the humiliation that the panchas of the Oswal community of Suwana had inflicted on her family. She vowed that she would not accept even water offered by any of them for the rest of her life. A proud woman, she remained firm in her resolve for the remainder of the one and a half years of her life. The terminal illness that was to strike her soon did not break her will. Elderly women from the Oswal families would bring her buttermilk during her illness but she would steadfastly refuse it. She would swallow roti with water, if that was the alternative, rather than accept offerings from those families.
Soon after his marriage, my father’s summer vacation ended and he returned to Banera to resume his studies for another year. He was to now appear for the Hindi Middle Examination conducted by the Allahabad Board of Vernacular Final Departmental Examinations. Because all the students from his school had failed in the examination the previous year, the teachers as well as the students were under great pressure to do better this time around. The rajadhiraj of Banera had threatened that he would sack all the teachers of the school if the story of the previous year repeated itself.
The examination was held in March 1935 in Ajmer and the class did well, with everyone passing it. My father proved himself to be the best student in the class once again. He was the only one to pass in the second division with distinction (high honours) in mathematics. He was the first student to get a distinction in any subject since the Middle School had been established in 1903. The rajadhiraj of Banera and his prime minister awarded him a gold medal each for the accomplishment. My brother Ravi still has one of these gold medals in his possession. According to him, my father had exchanged the other gold medal for books.
The visit Father got to make to Ajmer to take the board examination was the most fascinating trip of his life until then. That was the first time he got to travel on a train. There were other students and a teacher who accompanied them. The train arrived at Ajmer railway station in the evening, and Father saw electric lights for the first time. From the railway station, they went to Soniji ki Dharmshala (a charitable inn where travellers can stay temporarily at nominal or no charge), where he encountered water coming out of a tap, again for the first time. After settling down in the place, the students devoted the following two days to preparation for the examination, which was scheduled for the third day. Once the examination was over, they visited some prominent spots in Ajmer, such as Soniji Ki Nasiyan (a Hindu temple), Dhai Din ka Jhopra (a twelfth-century mosque) and Khwaja Saheb ki Dargah (a Sufi shrine). My father later recalled that throughout that trip he thought Ajmer was nothing short of a fairyland.
After returning from Ajmer, Father came straight to Suwana. It had been a year since his marriage and it was time for my mother to join his family. Accordingly, Dhapubai sent him to Bhilwara, where he spent a fortnight before returning home with my mother. Much to his horror, upon his return he discovered that his mother had fallen ill during his absence. At the time, he thought it was some ordinary fever from which she would recover soon. But with the passage of time, bit by bit, his hopes began to fade away.
Summer over, Father returned to Banera to figure out his Future. Three of his classmates and he decided that they should take the Mewar Middle Examination in English, which would make them eligible for admission to the ninth grade, as per the rules of the Mewar Board of High School. The headmaster of their Middle School in Banera encouraged them and even agreed to give them free lessons.
Though he began preparing for the examination in earnest, Father remained distracted on account of his mother’s illness. Restless, he returned to Suwana a month later, only to find her entirely bedridden. There had been no improvement whatsoever in her condition. Nevertheless, Dhapubai insisted that she would be fine and sent him back to Banera to resume his studies.
A few months later, Dhapubai’s brother came to Suwana and took her to his hometown Balesaria, hoping that the blessings of the local deity would cure her. My father also went from Banera to Balesaria to join her. He was shattered to see the deterioration in her health. She was, in fact, suffering from tuberculosis. Years of hard work, malnutrition and unending family worries had left her too weak to fight this dreaded disease. As my father would recall later, ‘At the time, there was no cure for this nasty disease. And even if there had been one, we could hardly afford it.’
Dhapubai stayed in Balesaria for a month, visiting the local deity twice a week. But her health continued to deteriorate. My father brought her back to Suwana. Gradually, she was reduced to a skeleton. As death approached, she told my father that after she was gone, he should invite the local Oswal families to the community feast to commemorate her death and break the impasse between them and our family. Perhaps she felt that after her death, my father would need the support of the community. At 4 p.m. on 26 January 1936, this grand grandmother of mine breathed her last.
This must have been the most devastating event of my father’s life. When his father died, he was only five years old and may not have realized the gravity of the event. Besides, his mother, the ultimate source of security for a child, was still there for him. But at fourteen, he must have had an appreciation of what it would mean to be entirely on his own. To her credit, Dhapubai had seen to it that he had acquired enough education to stand on his feet and that he had his life companion, my mother, with him before she departed. But at least at that time, none of this could have been much consolation to my father. Indeed, judging by what he wrote more than sixty years later in his autobiography, it was not. To quote him,
