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THE office of the Defence Pension Disbursing Officer has been functioning at Palampur for the last 15 years. This office is being shifted to Thakurdwara, a village nearly 6 km from Palampur. There are about 15,000 pensioners of the Army who will be put to great distress. Palampur is a central place and is connected by road from all sides. The aged and disabled pensioners who have to come to this office from time to time will be hard hit. All the CSD canteens and other civil offices and the military hospital are located at Palampur. Pensioners coming to the DPDO office can also visit CSD canteens and the hospital to which they are attached and can go home comfortably. Even the old women pensioners will also face these problems on shifting this office from its present location.

It appears that some employees of the DPDO who live near Thakurdwara have masterminded this shifting for their own interest which is worth probing. How this office is being taken out from the municipal limits of Palampur is rather baffling.

We would request the honourable Defence Minister to come to the rescue of these 15,000 defence pensioners who once guarded the country’s frontiers. The office of the DPDO should remain at Palampur.

Always late

I AM a regular traveller by the Shatabdi Express plying between New Delhi and Chandigarh. My experiences are not very pleasant considering the amount one has to shell out towards the cost of the ticket.

The trains are late almost every day, especially the Shatabdi scheduled to reach Chandigarh at 10.30 a.m. Although they religiously play a tape informing the passengers about the time of arrival at Ambala Cantt. and Chandigarh when starting from New Delhi, no information, whatsoever, is given about the delay. I really find it hard to believe that a train of such importance cannot cover even 270 km in the scheduled time.

I happened to travel on June 23 by 2011 Shatabdi Express from New Delhi to Chandigarh (Seat No 5, Coach No C-6). We were served breakfast (as promised in the recorded tape as the train left New Delhi). A very large plastic packet contained one sachet each of “Catch” salt and pepper and a sachet of mouth freshener “Pass Pass”, which is a new addition.

I was very curious and started looking at the packet from all possible angles. I noticed a small caption describing the best period to use the item. It read “Best before: Within 6 months from the pkd.date”. I tried to find out the date of packing which was nowhere to be seen. I did not open the sachet as I was not sure about the expiry date. I wonder whether there is a quality check on the items procured by the Railway authorities.

RUPAM BHATTACHARYA
Chandigarh

As mentioned in the feature “A decaying heritage” (Arts Tribune, June 18), “Ghalib’s haveli is almost converted into a commercial set-up...”.

Mirza Ghalib was a peerless poet. His couplet — Hain aur bhi duniya mein sukhanvar bahut achchhey/Kaihtey hain ke Ghalib ka hai andaaz-e-bayaan aur — was not just a product of sportive fancy, but a positive declaration of his style of writing being unique. He gave a new direction to the Urdu ghazal. He claimed divine inspiration when he declared: Aatey hai ghaib sey ye mazaameen khayaal mein/Ghalib sareer-e-khaamah nava-e-sarosh hai (O’ Ghalib! These lofty and graceful ideas come to my mind from the invisible world. The scratching sound of my pen is the voice of prophecy).

The “haveli”, in which he lived during the last years of his life, was situated behind a mosque. He said with great humility: Masjid key zer-e-saayah ik ghar bana liya hai/Ye banda-e-kameenah hamsaaya-e-khuda hai.

Once the area was inundated as a result of torrential rains. In a letter to his favourite pupil, Hargopal Taftah, he likened the “haveli” to kashti-e-Nooh, i.e., the Ark in which Noah and his family were preserved during the Deluge. Yet he refused to shift to another house mentioned by one of his friends.

He was proud of having his abode in Delhi and declared: Manam ze khaak-nasheenaan-e-aan diyaar yakey (I am one of the humble inhabitants of that city — Delhi). It is a pity that in the same Delhi, which he intensely loved, his “haveli”, which he liked so much, has not been maintained as a part of cultural heritage of our country. Despite the Delhi High Court’s direction no concrete steps have been taken to preserve the structures in their original form. The Director, Archaeological Survey of India, wants that some public authority should protect the “haveli” under the Central Protection Act. Has he not abdicated his responsibility in the matter? Is there no literary society to preserve it?

	M A I L B A G	Saturday, July 3, 1999
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