Some more Family Members

Other Family Members

After the set backs in Faridkot, it was decided to for the fily to look for settling down. All of my Mom's three elder sisters had been settled down in Delhi. The eldest of them all, Smt Shakuntla Devi ( popularly known as Bai Ji) along wih her five of the six children, was living in Lodhi Colony as her husband (Subedar Jagat Narain Kapoor) was in those days posted in New Delhi.

It was a palatial bungalow supported by a separate dwelling room at Barsati was allotted by the Government to uncle Jagat Naran Kapoor. Hence two of my Mom's sisters Smt Hari Devi and Smt Lachchami (Lakshmi) Devi along with their family and about half a dozen children also came along to live with them. My grandmother Smt Kesar Bai also moved to live with her daughter here.

Sh Harish Chander eldest son of Sh Dharam Chander also came down to live with them in Lodhi Room. After a few days, Sh Harish Chander rented a separate servant quarter to live with his maternal grandmother in the same neighborhood in Lodhi Colony. It is here that he prepared for his IAS examination.

In mean time my older maternal uncle Sh Dharam Chander Khanna got himself transferred from Multan to Simla in the office of Inspector Heneral of Police. The younger uncle Sh Jai Singh got a clerical job with Financial Commissioner office of Punjab that too in Simla. 

Slowly, my aunts families moved to live in rented places across each other in Ali Ganj, (a government colony near Lodhi Road) earmarked for allotment to Class IV employees. While Sh Harish Chander Khanna along with his maternal grandmother moved to one of those servant quarters. 

As Sh Harish Chander Khanna was highly educated and ambitious, prepared for IAS exams here, while working as a Programme Executive with All India Radio. He finally cleared IAS exam and opted for Punjab. Later he was allocated to Haryana and during his career he served Also in the central Governments at various high levels. He retired as Additional Secretary to the Government of India. His last posting was as Director General of Doordarshan at New Delhi. Harish Khanna was the brightest son born in the family and was responsible for uplifting his remaining three brothers and four sisters. He was mainly responsible for helping another cousin of mine Sh Joginder Lal Kapoor(Goga) who was falsely implicated in a long fraud court case. He was very friendly to me although older to me and being of my Mom's age. He often crossed me in the various governmental places in Chandigarh, Nirman Bhawan, Shastry Bhawan and other offices. Being in the Power Industry I often met him frequently as he being the Chairman of Haryana State electricity Board while I served as a Deputy Director with Ministry of Power in New Delhi.

Although very powerful and influential Sh Harish Khanna was, he still picked me up to make arrangements for "kirtan" at the last ceremony at the death of My uncle sh Dharam Chander Khanna.

Sh Inder Jit Singh's wife and my aunt Smt Prem Kaur was also the elder daughter of Sh Dharam Chand Khann a my maternal uncle. It was quite common to have interwoven families in earlier days. So my sh Inder Jit Singh wrote many letters to his known friends and relatives for getting some or the other jobs. As the luck would have it, he got a response from Sh Jai Singh my other uncle that he had some opening for a job in the Financial Commissioner Office in Simla. As his father -in law was also posted in Simla, it was decided that sh Inder Jit singh along with his family should try out the Simla Job. Fortunately one day my father received a good news that Sh Inder Jit Singh had joined the F/C office at Simla. The things started going well now onwards. The bothers had Rs 8000/ lying in the bank which could be sufficient for many years to survive without job. My uncle Sh Inder Jit Singh assured my father that there were a lot of openings in the government and he will be able to get him also there.

So we started living peacefully and my father had a great job. Since many any people will start coming to our house to have his advice/favor for getting the ration which was scarce. so he became very popular and known among the neigborhood and community. We did not have light, now watter supply and no lavatory or bath room.

To be continued and edited...

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