Kapurthala residents share memories

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service 

Kapurthala, July 20

Born in Paramjeet Ganj Mohalla, Sheila Dikshit spent her early days in Kapurthala with her maternal grandparents. She studied till Class VI at Hindu Putri Pathshala where her grandmother was principal. Dikshit revisited the school in November 2004 when she was CM. Her maternal grandfather was Kapurthala’s first Civil Surgeon.

The house where Dikshit lived is now locked. Her maternal uncle and ex-president of the school management committee, Vishwanath Puri, passed away last year. BN Gupta (74), a former secretary of the school committee, expressed shock at Dikshit’s demise. “Her maternal family and mine were part of Kapurthala Maharaja’s core team,” he recalled. Showing pictures of her visit to Hindu Putri Pathshala 15 years ago, he said: “She went to each classroom, sat on the bench and recalled her association with teachers”.

Talking to The Tribune during her visit then, she fondly spoke of the tonga ride to school. “No teacher dared to frown at me as my nani was the school principal,” she had laughed, adding she did not even have to pay the school fee. “I was weak in math and Hindi,” she had shared. 

Principal of Kanya Maha Vidyalaya Dr Atima Sharma Dwivedi spoke of the time when she went to invite Dikshit for the college convocation in 2009. “Even as bigwigs waited outside, she called me in immediately. She told me the college I headed was her mother’s alma mater. She had studied there as a boarder in the thirties. She also told me she had accompanied her mother to her college once as a child. When she came for the convocation, we were awe-struck by her simplicity. She arrived by train at 4 am with one guard and her PA even though she was Delhi CM then,” Dr Dwivedi recalled, her eyes moist.