A home away from home

Brig Jagbir Singh Grewal (Retd)

MY battalion, 18 Punjab, had an eventful tenure at Pathankot. A memorable event was our introduction to computers, which were a prized possession then and accessible only to a few. We had none of these devices. So, our Commanding Office approached the neighbouring school for a demonstration. Two computers arrived ceremoniously wrapped in colourful bedsheets from the school laboratory. For us, the uninitiated greenhorns, these contraptions appeared no different than television sets of yore.

Along with the computers came the mild-mannered teacher with a pencil-thin drooping moustache that matched his persona. To the onlookers, some of whom were burly figures, sporting their trademark walrus moustaches and twirling whiskers, his monologue appeared more interesting than the computers and technical jargon. Soon, he blurted out that he was from Kerala, but now Pathankot was his home.

The computer teacher’s father came over to meet me a few days later and narrated his woeful tale of rancour, separation and pain. Two decades earlier, he had run away from home in Kerala after acrimonious arguments with his folks. Some decisions taken in the heat of the moment become irreversible. So did his.

Boarding the first train ready to depart brought him to the farthest station, Pathankot, a terminus then. Having exhausted his meagre savings, overcome by hunger and homesickness, fate soon brought him to a dera of sadhus, where the gushing waters of a stream seemed to drown his sorrows. Here, he found solace and free meals. He started off with cleaning the premises and graduated to performing religious rites, earning the sobriquet of Swamiji. The essence of this byname dawned on him when a woman addressed him so. Realising that Cupid had struck, he stayed on after marrying her.

Despite all the merriment in his life and the birth of his son, Swamiji could not forget his home and would often be sad. But his ego forbade him to return. Reluctantly one day, he got on a train from Pathankot, his wife and son in tow. On reaching Palghat, they nervously trooped into his house. Weeping, his aged parents clung on to him. The 20-year wait had been agonising. Time had taken its toll. He wept bitterly.

The cynosure of all eyes, Swamiji continued to stay on, till his wife reminded him that it was time to return home. In a dazed stupor, he departed tearfully, painfully realising that now his home in Kerala was no more his home and that he belonged to Punjab.

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