Travelling back in time - The Patiala Re-union

Einstein’s theory of relativity postulates that no body can travel faster than the speed of light. However the human mind defies all logic and allows one to travel back and forth in time in split seconds. Recently I undertook such a journey, some thirty years back in time, at the behest of Dr Arvinder Singh Chawla, the Director of The Punjab School of Management Studies, my alma mater, to attend a re-union in the thirtieth year since we passed out in 1979, from what was then called The Department of Business Management, Punjabi University, Patiala.

The ball was set rolling when Dr Chawla sent the invitation in early January. Since I did not wish to be alone in such a gathering, I went about the pleasurable ordeal of re-connecting with all old batchmates, spread across the globe. I came to know that Rahul Sharma & Resham Singh had died in the interregnum. Of the twentyone alive, I was in touch with only one, RVS Minhas who happens to live close by in New Delhi. I had no clue about the others. However to my pleasant surprise it just took a few long distance calls, a few searches on Orkut, Facebook and LinkedIn, help from some really nice people in some company offices and some emails to re-establish the network.

A chance encounter with Somnath Walia while strolling in Connaught Place one lazy afternoon in January 2009 led to Rajinder Bhandari and Rakesh Singla, who in turn led me to Ms Sadhna Saini (now Sood) and Sanjiv Sachdev, who mentioned that Jagdish Chandra Sodhi was in JCT, Phagwara and Hazari Lal Singla till 2002 was with Fujitsu which led to another round of emails and telephone calls ending with success in locating JCS & HLS. A lucky break led me to Rajendra Prasad Pandove (Pikka), the younger brother of BCCI and Punjab Cricket boss M P Pandove. Pikka by chance mentioned that Iqbal Singh was in PRTC till a few years ago. This prompted another series of telephone calls and web searches culminating in Bhatinda where Iqbal is curently located.

LinkedIn opened the gates to Gurcharan Singh Woodwal, now a solicitor in Canada and Rakesh Chawla, now in the US, who offered me Harinder Singh Sahota’s contact details. “Red Skeleton”, the decades old tailoring shop in Patiala provided Rajinder Singh Nagi’s whereabouts in New Jersey, US where he owns convenience stores. A lead from Rajinder Bhandari about Narinder Kumar Saini led to another chain of telephone calls to Vikram Cements offices in Neemuch (MP), Delhi, Chandigarh, Gurgaon and Bhatinda but with no trace of NK. However seeing my enthusiasm Bhandari deputed someone to go to Balachaur, NK’s village and obtain his contact details.

Iqbal mentioned that Kulwant Singh was last in Jalandhar with the Punjab Co-operative Department and Suresh Kumar Agarwal in Haryana Financial Corporation, Chandigarh. From there it took was some persuasiveness on the telephone to contact Kulwant and Suresh. It’s a wonder that they manage without an email ID in these days and Suresh doesn’t even need a cell phone. It must rank as the eighth wonder of the world.

A visit by Deen Dayalji, a good friend to R-9, Rajouri Garden, the one-time residence of Rajesh Sethi in Delhi led to his brother and then to Rajesh’s wife, Bindu who provided Sethi’s contact details in Thailand. About Harjinder Singh Goodwal I always knew he was from Jagson Paul Pharma, the makers of the famous ointment ‘Ringcutter’. A search on the internet yielded their office address in Hauz Khas, which led to their new office in Okhla where a telephone operator told me he had left ages ago and joined AIMIL Pharma in Gurgaon. Another web search and telephone call ensued. The guys at this place told me he had quit ages ago and started business but gave me his number. This led to an extremely surprised Harjinder on the phone when I called. He is at present recuperating from major surgery.

When I called up all these guys they were surely surprised but I am sure they were as glad to re-connect as I was. Regrettably no amount of research so far has yielded any information on Amrik Singh, the tall and lanky beared boxer, who I gather is settled in Canada. I haven’t stopped trying though. NK has assured me that he would help locate Amrik.

The journey to Patiala with RVS Minhas on the wheel on the beautifully laid out National Highway took around five hours on Saturday morning, but the mind had already raced back three decades to that day when I first landed at the university gate with my bags in tow. The neighbourhood of the university, be it Bahadurgarh, where one used to go to fetch the occasional bottle of booze for some celebration or the other or the tea shop at the main gate brought back many memories of those youthful days of recklessness.

The venue, ‘Kala Bhawan’ is a new addition to the campus. Tea and sandwiches started as soon as we arrived, on dot, at the appointed hour of 10:30 AM. Seeing RVS Minhas, Somnath Walia (with wife Sangeeta), Rakesh Singla, Rajinder Bhandari, RP Pandove, JC Sodhi, Iqbal Singh and HL Singla after ages was really heart-warming.

The function which started around 11:30 was an energetic song and dance affair with a large number of boys and girls chipping in with their efforts to welcome us all. What pleased us all was that the present batch strength of 140 has almost an equal number of boys and girls, a situation far removed from our times when a group of twenty three had only one girl student in Sadhna. Was it any surprise then, that we were always chasing after the girls from the English Department?

Lunch had to be in the town since alcohol can not be served on the campus. But in any case who was interested in eating. Guys just want to soak it in. So ‘100 Pipers’ played along as we went on this delightful journey back in time. Iqbal still can't resist singing if there is an opportunity and he enthralled us all with his excellent Punjabi Sufi renditions.

Meeting Dr B S Bhatia, Prof U C Singh, Dr R K Sehgal and Dr S K Bansal brought a torrent of fond memories and a few eyes were left moist. We also came to know of Dr P K Kapoor and Prof K C Singhal’s passing away in the intervening period. We reluctantly departed from there around 6:00 PM after assuring Dr Arvinder Chawla that we would return to our alma mater as and when called.

The party however carried on at the Punjab State Electricity Board’s VIP Guest House in Power Colony in Patiala which was arranged by Pikka, who is the PSEB's PR Boss. This was only for the 1979 batch. The day finally got over at around midnight. HL Singla’s wife Saroj, his daughter Rashi and Pikka’s wife Sangeeta joined us for breakfast on Sunday. After a liesurely round of stuffed paranthas and endless cups of steaming hot tea, we went over to Pikka’s house to meet his lovely children. It was my pleasure to get to meet Divya, Tanya and Akul. The family photograph of the Pandove family in their front lawn on that sunny Sunday afternoon shall continue to remind me of our re-union at Patiala for the rest of my life.