The story behind the windfall

Nobody welcomed the Central Government’s announcement of the Delhi-Katra expressway the way my family did. The mega road project gobbled up a few acres of my infertile land. The monetary reward given under the Right to Fair Compensation Act, 2013, was extraordinarily fair and I wasted no time in depositing the cheque. Good news is meant to be shared; out of sheer excitement, I, too, did it. My wife and daughter promptly started making their priority shopping lists. The son settled abroad was delirious with joy, terming it a ‘lottery’.

I thought about Punjab’s bygone era that existed more than a century ago. The peasantry could not have imagined at that time the prosperity that was to sweep them. Sandy dunes and thorny bushes covered the landscape of undivided Punjab. Agricultural produce was limited to whatever the rain-dependent crops could yield. The canals traversing the land were built later. Social vices such as female infanticide, illiteracy and drug addiction were rampant. Most of present-day Punjab was under the rule of the Maharajas, who were mostly interested in their European holidays rather than public welfare and governance.

Under such circumstances, adventurous sons of the soil migrated to foreign shores or joined the Army. Dalel Singh, my grandfather, was barely 17 years old at the onset of World War I. His paltan, the Ferozepur Sikhs, set out for the Middle East to fight somebody else’s war. He returned back a battle-hardened soldier, having dodged a sniper’s bullet which grazed his turban. Perhaps, if the enemy soldier had accurately applied the ballistic wind correction, it would have been a different story.

The granite plaque on the southern wall of India Gate bears testimony to the bravery and resilience of Dalel Singh’s paltan. Between the two world wars, he fought on the western front against the perpetually rebellious Afghans, while also getting married and starting a family. When World War II erupted, he was once again called upon to serve, this time in the North African desert, joining the ranks of over a million soldiers deployed overseas by the British. Halfway through the war, having reached the age of retirement, he returned home donning the Captain’s rank and an Order of British India citation. The grateful British resettled the old soldier, giving him some tracts of land for tilling.

I reminded my son that there was no element of luck or chance akin to winning a ‘lottery’ in this entire episode. Someone long ago had signed a blank cheque, risking his life. And we had every reason to be proud of this brave man.