‘He never revealed his ideas’
Bipin Bhardwaj
Tribune News service
Chandigarh, June 12
Surrounded by relatives, family friends and fans of her husband, Kamla Saini, wife of Padma Shri awardee Nek Chand, was inconsolable as the couple could not celebrate their 65th marriage anniversary together, which was just 19 days away.
Recalling the sequence of events, Kamla said her father selected Nek Chand as her life partner while he was working at Panipat, they got married on June 30, 1950.
Talking to The Tribune, Kamla Saini said that she was unaware of her husband’s creation for years. Nek Chand gave her a surprise when he asked her to accompany her to his ‘wonder land’ which was a small thatched hut with a water tank in its courtyard and a boundary of empty tar drums around.
“He never revealed his ideas and thoughts to me even when I got angry with him when he collected waste material on his bicycle. He usually replied, “All this will go along with him,” disclosed Kamla Saini while trying to hold her tears back.
“He used to leave home early in the morning with his lunch box tied in a piece of cloth and return home late in the night. I even asked him to stop all this when the Administration pasted stickers our house. At that time he was chargesheeted in a case for bungling of funds”.
Anuj Saini, Nek Chand’s son, says that his father was very touchy about his creations and always used to pace up and down in the house while trying to give shape to his ideas.
“I saw my father so tensed for the first time in life when the UT Administration had decided to erase the Rock Garden and he subsequently suffered a cardiac attack,” recalled Anuj.
