Col Vinod Joshi, SSP Om Joshi and Capt Sumit Joshi (from L to R). Photo: Parvesh Chauhan

I want to be like my dad when I grow up. As kids we hero-worship our fathers and want to inherit their gifts, be it professional or physical. However, as we grow up, we decide to script our own career story. But there are some who do follow in their dad’s footsteps. On Father’s Day, Lifestyle highlights offspring who love to do what their fathers did.

Artists’ abode

In this Kapoor household, it’s the fourth generation that is taking the cause of art further. D S Kapoor, a senior faculty member at Govt College of Art-11, says he was inspired to become an artist after seeing his father Sujan Singh and grandfather Sardar Sunder Singh. “While my grandfather was one of the founder members of Mayo School of Art at Lahore, my dad played a key role in setting up Government College of Art after partition in India,” beams Kapoor. “The love for art runs in our bloodstream. The only difference between us is the mode we chose to unleash creativity. While my father and grandfather were metal artists, I chose computer graphics. And now my son Charandeep Singh is into product design,” he adds. The belief that art has a universal language has kept the family’s bond with the profession intact. “In earlier times, the rajas and maharajas used to patronise art as they understood its value. It’s high time that government also pays some attention towards art and its various forms,” feels the artist who stays in Sector 50.

Legal eagles

Legally yours is an apt one-liner to describe Chopras of Sector 11. This lawyer family has been in business for the past five generations. “My great grandfather Bishambar Das Chopra was a ‘pairokar’ in late 1880s. My great grandfather Dhan Raj followed in his father’s footsteps. But it was my grandfather Taraqi Lal Chopra, who set the bar high after graduating from Aligarh Muslim University with 89.9 per cent marks. After my father took a plunge into the family profession, it didn’t take long for me and my brother to decide what would we be when we grow up. The writing on the wall was clear,” says Rakesh Chopra. “We practically grew up amidst case files. It was truly motivating,” he adds. And what binds him to the profession? “The very sense of satisfaction you get by standing up for a person who is aggrieved or has suffered keeps us going,” he quips.

Uniform love

Patriotism is the favoured flavour of the Joshi family in Sector 35. From being in khaki to donning olive green, these folks are absolutely in love with their motherland. “I was fascinated by my grandfather Nathu Ram Joshi and father Om Joshi, who were in the police department. As I grew up, my love for the uniform got stronger and I decided to join the Army. When my son Sumit was growing up, he would don my combat dress and ask, ‘How do I look, dad?” I used to tell him that he would do great as a Fauji,” says Col Vinod Joshi, deputy commander TA Group headquarters, Western Command. His son is now a Captain in the Indian Army. “I vividly remember my father taking me to Sainik School, Kapurthala, where my cousin was studying. Every visit would fuel the desire to be an Army officer further. Youngsters are today opting for professions which offer more financial gains and are less risky. But if everyone starts thinking the same, there would be no one left to guard the frontiers,” he maintains.

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Lakshya Suri, a student of MBA from the city is confused with the latest upcoming, which of course is already a trend with the city. 'Now, what do I gift daddy on Fathers Day,' he asks his sister. Lakshya unknowingly points towards the increase in the number of D-days in India. All the same, it’s not about showering gifts or scribbling beautiful notes on a card, and it is certainly not about emoting feelings. These days, like the Rose Day, Chocolate Day, Mothers Day; Fathers Day is about saying it in a quiet manner that you really mean what you feel. Fathers Day brings out the subdued emotions of the kids, the rebellious and the mellow ones- for their strong dad. And guess what, they have planned a surprise or two too.

Adds Lakshya, "You don't have to pack feelings in an expensive bottle of wine.” He didn't need coaxing to reveal the surprise he has planned for his father. Laughs Lakshya, "I’ve located the phone numbers of two of my fathers' school time friends, and asked them to call him today. By the time, my father reads this news, I bet they would have already called."

Like Lakshya, there are others who want to thank their dad for all the strength, the ideals, the knowledge, and love they've got from them. They want to take out time to thank him for the spat they got when they couldn't score in Maths, or when he balantly refused permission for a late night party. Poonam Singh, a homemaker from Manimajra has got her fathers first formal suit dry-cleaned, packed and will be gifting it with a picture frame, which has her father's old school time picture. Expression knows no language.

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So here’s the story. Actor (Shiney Ahuja) rapes maid when wife and kid are out of town…Gross! But then what’s new? It’s not for the first time that something so disgusting has happened, a man of the creamy layer exploiting a member of the under-privileged. And now, when everyone is busy guessing whether Shiney is ‘guilty’ or not, we rewind a little in the home turf to the still un-settled Nari Niketan case. The victim is still awaiting justice though the recent news report says, ‘Maya the nurse cum attendant has been arrested for allegedly destroying records pertaining to the menstrual cycles of the inmates’. It may sound a little cynical but if the victim were an influential person, the case would have been solved by now. So, its time to ponder again — is justice strata biased?

Says Amar Singh Chahl, lawyer, district courts, “I cannot deny the fact that whenever an accused is powerful or holds a high position or has money, he or she is able to influence the system. There have been a number of cases even against police personnels and nothing has happened so far. Though we cannot say in general that poor people do not get justice, but sometimes it hangs on forever.” He adds, “The problem is with the system, we need to work as a whole and give importance to all, otherwise justice would lose its meaning.”

That’s right. But haven’t we seen umpteen cases where the privileged people were acquitted; for no evidence was found against them, victim turned hostile or quite common, the case wasn’t followed persistently. Remember the Priyadarshini Mattoo case — the girl was raped and murdered at her house in New Delhi on January 23, 1996. Santosh Kumar Singh, the son of a police inspector-general, was accused and later acquitted by a trial court in 1999. But thanks to the media glare and public protest that the Delhi High Court on October 17, 2006, found Santosh Kumar Singh guilty on both counts of rape and murder and on October 30 of the same year was sentenced to death. Widely perceived in India as a landmark victory for the poor as well as for the media, the case is one of the several in India that highlighted the ineffectiveness of traditional criminal law system, especially when it comes to high profile perpetrators.

On this we ask, do high ranks in the society give you the freedom to take law in one’s hand? Says Kanchan Bhasin, president, Inner-Wheel Club and also a member of the advisory board of Nari Niketan, “It’s the other way round, whenever something happens where a high-rank or a known person is involved, the case is highlighted more.” Talk of the Shiney Ahuja case and she says, “Why would a man of high reputation, about whom we have not even read a tittle-tattle, rape his maid?” To which we say, crime cannot be justified. About strata-bias, she says, “I don’t agree on this, because these day we’ve seen so many cases where these helpers frame their rich employers just to extract money. And about this case I would say, the police need to expedite the trial and what I would like to see is an honest and speedy investigation,” she concluded.

Well, that’s what everyone desires, but unfortunately this is not the case always. We have examples. Aditya Pancholi was accused of raping his 15- year-old maid some 20-year ago. It hit the headlines too, but the dust settled on the case and the man is free. Yesteryear’s actor Rajesh Khanna was accused of lewd conduct on the sets of Anokha Rishta or A Unique Relationship! Eventually nothing came out of the allegations and finally all was forgotten. Young Tabu accused Jackie Shroff of molestation but nothing happened. Well, she was a newcomer in the industry at that time.

And who can forget the infamous Bollywood sting operation that indicted Shakti Kapoor of asking sexual favours from an aspiring actor. And shamelessly the actor later said, “She… sweet-talked me into meeting her. Any man would fall for that!”

“The cases like these are galore, but what embarrasses is people who have been accused face the shame late or never. We may say whatever but in our country people of high ranks get a preferential treatment,” says a retired Punjab DGP. He adds, “Being an officer, I tried my best to give justice to the underdog, but we work in a system and a person alone cannot do anything.” That’s true!

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Writers are born and not made ” and those who disagree to agree to the fact may kindly meet Baldev Singh Sadaknama, once a full time truck driver and now an eminent Punjabi litterateur of over fifty literary creations in poetry, novel, drama and short stories. What a versatile and wonderful transformation for Baldev Singh hailing from a sleepy village of Chandnavan near Moga. Though later he secured masters degree in Punjabi literature and took to teaching which somehow could not fire his imagination. As ordained the urge to do something exceptional drove him to Calcutta where started plying taxi and later trucks as a driver and succeeded in owing a good fleet. During his voyage the sensitive mind in him kept capturing those touching incidents, problems of masses, their aspirations and ordeals which he penned in a novel Sadaknama. Such was the depiction of the harsh and sordid realities of life that it reached the inner recess of readers mind set and this venture earned him the literary title of Sadaknama.

In city, for a face to face programme at Uttam complex here on the invitation of Writers Club he shared his views on the transitional phase of Punjabi literature with reference to his latest novel Dhanwan Dilli De Keengre. There has been an encouraging increase in the readership of Punjabi novels during the decade, he claimed. “ Novel is not only a romantic fictional prose but also an art to depict the life with its myriad shades. I have attempted successfully to enliven the historical heros like Bhagat Singh, Dulla Bhatti in my novels,” claims he. I have invested my best efforts to infuse realism and bring alive the saga of valour and compassion of rebel Dulla Bhatti, I visited the Hero’s village Pindi Bhattiyan in Pakistan twice before sculpting the novel, he added.

Chandigarh is hung up on name brands. People in our city are willing to shell out a lot of money to display a Nike or Nautica logo. Name brand is an ingenious piece of marketing strategy, which enables a cheap fabric to turn into something that people will pay dearly for. I always thought the Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts would only survive one wash before those start looking like mopping rags. However, Chandigarh is relentless when it comes to name brands, specially if it has any links to sporting activity, outdoor vacation, sunglasses, handbags and of course, shoes.  

The city now brandishes a huge number of fancy name brand shops charging prices that far supersede what those items would cost in the parent country, mostly USA. My friends from the USA are shocked to discover how much more the same Nike running shoes cost here. While the name brand business is flourishing here, we have a parallel economy in fake name brands and very handsome replicas that too. I had gone to pick up a friend from the Sector 17 bus station the other day and on our way out both stopped at the sight of name brand soccer jerseys and t-shirts hanging at one of those bus station stalls. They looked so much like the real articles that we felt tempted to stop and ask the prices. If we weren’t in a terrible rush to get out for we had a flight to catch, we would have come home with an armload of fake designer t-shirts. 

On my recent visit to Mashobra – there hung in a small village shop a Jansport backpack. During my college days as a poor graduate student subsisting on departmental scholarship we would save up to buy a Jansport backpack for Jansport evoked this vision of adventure sports, people trudging over snow capped peaks, African Safaris and even Jim Morrison look alikes on a Harley Davidson. Much intrigued, I went inside the shop to inspect the backpack and was stunned to see that it was as an imitation and a really good one. The shopkeeper came out and greeted me and quoted a price that was really cheap even for a fake bag. Sensing my interest he further revealed that they could even tailor it to order as per my preferred colour. Although, it was a charming looking backpack I felt bound by some kind of old-guard honour and desisted from buying it.  

I see name brand look-alikes in many places. It would be a losing battle for the brand companies if people were not brainwashed to think that when you buy the brand and pay abnormal prices, something extra is stuck to your body as well as your soul and the way the world perceives you. That is the magic of brand. And we in this city simply love it.

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The poems would evoke a sense of empathy in readers as all I have written is just truth and truth is common to us all,” says Sushil Bansal Sheel, who released her books, Ahsaas Ke Pal and Anmol Pal at Central and State library, 17 in collaboration with the American Council. Ahsaas Ke Pal is a compilation of 90 verses that are based on her life experiences. “Life is the most influential teacher in itself. All that I have gone through, good or bad, have been penned down in form of poems in the book. Also, some poems are based on the compulsive social norms that we follow in the society,” says Sheel, now based in the US. She is an interior decorator by profession.

Her second book, Anmol Pal comprises several short stories. Letting us know more about her stories, she says, “All the 201 stories depict my life story. I didn’t want to lose account of several things that have inspired me and have touched my heart and so wrote them in the form of stories.” According to her what makes her stories a worth reading is their simplicity. “There are no hidden meanings and the messages I am trying to convey will reach everybody.” —Ashima Sehajpal

Who says you can’t look gorgeous without digging hole in the pocket. The launch of Aura- lifestyle fashionode, by Panchkula- based designer Gunjan Nagpal offers a variety, which is elegant, stylish, traditional and modern at the sane time.

Put up at hotel Piccadily-22, Aura has a traditional section that offers stitched suits in cotton, crepe, and georgette with appliqué work, patchwork, motifs, and laces. Says Gunjan, who took almost 4-5 months to complete the vast collection, “I have used a lot of cotton fabric and I have tried to enhance the look with an additional work of motifs or patchwork .” Gunjan, has used pink, blue, green, beige for her collection. Starting at Rs 4000, Gunjan’s collection also houses western outfits (Rs 1,000-3,000), dresses and a range of trousseau as well. On till June 22.

After playing a rustic villain in Omkara, Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan is now playing a Sikh in his forthcoming film Love Aaj Kal and took Punjabi classes to get the right accent for the role.

“Saif plays a Punjabi in Love Aaj Kal. But he didn’t have the accent of a Sikh guy. So Saif mastered it by taking training for Punjabi diction. Saif got himself a tutor to train him to speak the language,” a source said. In Love Aaj Kal Saif has teamed up with Deepika Padukone. It is Saif’s debut production and is directed by Imtiaz Ali of Jab We Met fame. — IANS