Septuagenarian returns from Pak without realising dream

AMRITSAR: A keen desire to visit his birthplace at Khangarh in Mujjafargarh district of Pakistan could not materialise for 78-year-old NS Gabarhia, a retired Station Master, but he is happy that he was able to visit historic gurdwaras at Nankana Sahib, Lahore, Chakwal and Mata Sahib Kaur Gurdwara in Rohtas Fort recently.

NS Gabarhia

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 8

A keen desire to visit his birthplace at Khangarh in Mujjafargarh district of Pakistan could not materialise for 78-year-old NS Gabarhia, a retired Station Master, but he is happy that he was able to visit historic gurdwaras at Nankana Sahib, Lahore, Chakwal and Mata Sahib Kaur Gurdwara in Rohtas Fort recently.

Born on December 12 in 1941, at Khangarh, a Mohammedan princely state, he fondly remembered seven years of his childhood in the dusty town.

He continues to keep track of tiny town of Khangarh. He painstakingly preserve any news item appeared in newspapers from his childhood town. Coincidentally, during his first visit to Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib, he met one person named Shauqat from Khangarh. He shared with Shauqat that after crossing over to India in 1947, it is for the first time he had visited pre-partition areas during his visit to Pakistan.

Gabarhia was quick to inform him that his father Dr Manmohan Singh, who passed out of Government Medical College, Amritsar, in 1937, was a family physician of Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, the then ruler of the princely state.

He vividly remembers the house and locality where he had lived with his father, mother Jeet Kaur, his siblings Narinder Kaur and Surinder Kaur, besides uncle Charan Singh.

Shauqat informed him that he was a student of a grandson of Nawabzada who was a lecturer at a college. Gabarhia shared with him that Nawabzada had taken his family into his haveli after communal riots had broken out before the Partition. He said once, Nawab had even opened fire on rioters after they tried to force their entry into his haveli.

“We lived in that haveli for well over six months. Then under the vigil of Gorkha troops, we boarded the train to reach Chheharta railway station on the outskirts of Amritsar,” he recalled.

He said he always wanted to visit his birth place. Once he tried to visit the town when he was employed with the Railways, but was asked to fill a questionnaire with 21 questions. So he abandoned the idea.