The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous Read Free Page B

Punjab chief minister and whomever else I could think of. The response was heartening. More money began to flow into the Pingalwara.
    Thereafter, whenever Bhagatji came to Delhi, he dropped in to see me. I did not chide him for coming in a taxi but made a token offering, which he accepted without counting the notes. A receipt followed some days later.
    Bhagatji’s work began to receive wider recognition. People began to make donations on a regular basis. Conditions in the Pingalwara improved and its activities expanded. No discrimination was ever made on grounds of religion or caste: the inmates included Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims; there were Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras and Harijans. Suffering knows no caste.
    The last time I met Bhagatji was a few weeks after Operation Blue Star, which had taken a heavy toll of lives and caused extensive damage to sacred property. My reaction was immediate. Within twenty-four hours of the army assault on the Golden Temple, I had returned my Padma Bhushan to President Giani Zail Singh as a mark of protest. Bhagatji asked me if he should do the same with the Padma Shri he had been awarded in 1979; a week later, he relinquished the honour bestowed on him.
    When Bhagatji died, I paid a tearful tribute to him in my columns. A few years later, I persuaded my brothers and sister to make a substantial donation on behalf of the Sir Shobha Singh Charitable Trust to the Pingalwara. It was graciously accepted by Dr Inderjit Kaur, who had taken over its management. Some months later, Dr Manmohan Singh, then minister of finance, accompanied our family to Amritsar to inaugurate a new block for patients in the Pingalwara.
    It was impossible to meet Bhagatji and not feel inspired to contribute towards his mission in some manner, however modest—and his legacy of dedicated service to suffering humanity must be kept alive for generations to come. In living memory, Punjab has not produced as great a man as Bhagat Puran Singh.

CHETAN ANAND
(1921–1997)
    During the years I spent at Government College, Lahore, in the early 1930s, I got to know a lot of people who later made it to the top—or near the top—in the film industry. Two years senior to me was Balraj Sahni; his younger brother Bhisham, B.R. Chopra and Chetan Anand were in the same class as me. Of them, closest to me was Chetan, who was quite a character.
    Chetan was a pretty boy with curly hair and soulful eyes. He was much sought after by tough lads who fancied effeminate males; Chetan avoided them like the plague and attached himself to me. We walked from our hostel to the college together, sat side by side in our classes, played tennis and went to the pictures. Although tongues wagged, there was nothing homosexual about our relationship. Like me, Chetan too aspired to get into the ICS and came to England to sit for the exams. Neither of us made the grade. I returned to Lahore with a law degree; he had no more than the BA he had taken from Punjab University. Desperately looking for a job, Chetan spent a summer at my apartment. It was then that I saw another side to him.
    Women found Chetan very attractive, and he had a unique method of ingratiating himself with them. On the hottest days in June, he would go out wearing his overcoat; with a stubble on his chin and a single flower in his hand, he would call on his lady friends. Inevitably, the dialogue would open with the young lady asking him why he was wearing an overcoat. ‘This is all I possess in the world,’ Chetan would reply as he presented her with the flower. He had phenomenal success with this approach.
    In due course, Chetan succeeded in winning the heart of the most sought-after girl at the university, Uma Chatterji—though she was a Christian, she defied her parents and agreed to marry a Hindu boy who had no job. I threw a large party to celebrate their engagement, and discovered the fickleness in Chetan’s character: he flirted outrageously with all the other girls at