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Rashmi Talwar, on a recent visit to Pakistan, meets Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s schoolmates in his ancestral village Gah and says they are eagerly waiting to give him a royal reception whenever he visits that country.
EVEN
as India and Pakistan struggle to achieve sustainable peace, it is
still not easy for the common man to get visa to each other’s
country — be it the PM’s childhood friend.... Raja Mohammed Ali
(75), a schoolmate friend of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from his
ancestral village Gah, the birthplace of the Prime Minister in
Pakistan, who is longing to meet his childhood friend but is awaiting
his visa for travel to India. Having studied with the Dr Manmohan
Singh from class I to IV, Mohammed is restless to convey his
desperation to meet his friend ever since they heard the first radio
announcement declaring him PM of India. Before that the villagers
never came to know the fate of the ‘Kohli’ family who had left the
village well before partition , says Mohammed, as he expresses his
ignorance over Dr Manmohan’s stint as finance minister. The first
words Mohammed uttered when he met this Amritsar resident—-a place
where Dr Manmohan Singh grew up — was sadey Mohney ney jutti pai
key nahi (Did Our Mohna wear the shoes or not) made me wonder what
he was talking about till he explained that he had sent a tilley
walli jutti as a present to PM who had a childhood nickname ‘Mohna’. Reminiscing
the celebration in the ancestral village when Dr Manmohan Singh became
the 17th PM of India, Mohammed says:" The whole
village was agog with cries of sada Mohna Hindustan da wazir-e-azam
ban gaya ..... The same year the blessings continued as the
village was declared a model village by the Hiding his overwhelming joy and nervousness
Mohammed, almost six feet tall, turned-out in his best wasket
and salwar kameez complete with a turban, shyly says: "I
had especially come to meet the Indian jatha that arrived in Katasraj
with help from the only Hindu member of Zila council of Chakwal
district, Pakistan, Mr. Ravinder Kumar Chibber", and added,
"I was hoping to meet someone from Amritsar, the hometown of
PM". Recalling the time when he sent a tilley wali Jutti
to the PM with the 29-member delegation of Pakistan local council that
crossed over to India in August 2004, Mohammed said joyfully, "I
had made the estimate of his (PM’s) foot-size from his television
appearances that we collected together to watch in houses of friends
and relatives in adjoining townships". Mohammed, who lived
merely 100 yards from ‘Mohna’s’ house, says after he became PM
he (PM) wrote to him asking about their "only girl"
classmate Baqt Bano. She was the only daughter of her parents and
since there were no sons to send to school, therefore, her father had
enrolled her in school where she became ‘special’ with all boy
classmates, recalled Mohammed shyly. "I was distraught to tell
the PM that she had died years ago and was married to one Khizar
Hayat. And it was touching to note that ‘Mohna’ wrote back to the
aggrieved family, expressing his condolences on the demise of ‘Bano’.
Mohna called me ‘Ali’ and we were zamidaars while Mohna’s family
were dry fruit agents in Gallah mandi... "Mohna was very fond of
marbles, gulli danda and often we used to play kabbadi",
recalls Mohammed. Ravinder Kumar, who had accompanied Mohammed and
claims to be from the family of Bhai Mati Das of Delhi who was
beheaded with an ‘arra’ as he defied Aurangzeb and fearlessly
propagated Sikhism, said the village Gah that falls in his district
declared model village was now being inter-chained with the main
motorway to Islamabad . The school at which the PM studied was being
renamed as "Manmohan Singh High School". He further informed
that the Kohli family’s kachcha house was washed away. The
remaining structure is being renovated." The only girls’ school
is being upgraded. Also a guest house and rural health centre have
been established while the roads of the village have been
metalled", he added. Interestingly, the schoolmate has also
kept a carefully laminated photocopy of the primary village school
register in which the name of Dr Manmohan Singh is written in Urdu,
son of Mr Gurmukh Singh. His admission in class I was recorded in
1937. The date of birth is registered as February 4, 1932 (4-2-1932),
and the admission date is March 31, 1941 (31-3-1941). Mohammed said
that along with him there were three other classmates of Manmohan
Singh — Ghulam Mohammed , Shah Wali Khan and Mohammed Ashraf—-and
all were eagerly awaiting his arrival in their village to give him a
"King’s welcome".
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