A Visit to Sukkurpur - a suburb of Karachi

This is an incident that happened before 1947 when my dad was settled in Karachi. One of those days he decided to take us to Sukkurpur a suburb of this city. I had been eight years old at that time. My dad had a car and he could drive us to that place. He did not want my second elder brother Satya Paul to come and told him to stay home as he was a very naughty boy who would run away far and become a nuisance. We all remained quiet and could not express any remonstrance.

“Bauji this is not fair you are ignoring me and show favour to your other sons! “ He got a slap and father told him to go inside and he need not show his face for the whole day. “You are most misbehaving fellow to slap your elder sister Krishna today morning and this is the punishment to you for your misconduct.”

 Tola-ram had brought a taxi too so that his family too could join us. We were all twelve together .We soon left for Sukkurpur It was a long driving quite parallel to the sea port of Karachi The caressing sharp slaps of the sea waves and winds even barged into the cars. Father did not want the windows of the cars to be closed. He did not want his children to become like delicate dolls. Tola-ram followed the instructions of my father most meticulously. There were some small villages and also a military cantonment on the way.

When we reached Sukkurpur father asked all to come out as they would have our lunch in a punjabi dhaba. It was exactly one o clock afternoon. Tola-ram had brought paper napkins, Vimto and orange squash bottles and also chocolates. He could bring these items easily as these were items my father dealt with. When Tola-ram opened the dicky out jumped Satya Paul and father were just taken aback.

“Beshram tu kyon aah gaya mana kita si” ‘why have you come I had forbidden you’ “baujee tusi mainu chod ke nahin aah sekte” ‘ father you cannot leave me alone’ So this was my brother who was an obstinate boy from his very beginning. This incident shows what sort of young man he was going to be shaped.

           At later stage of his life around nineteen seventies he changed his name officially to ‘Manoj Kumar. In 1991 two years after the demise of our father we all four of the brothers approached him to settle the property of our father in an amicable manner. We objected to the second will which was mostly in his favour as 9A was only his sole property. Ravinder Goyal and Ajay Malhotra being the witnesses who were his close friends. He shouted at all of us and said: “Get lost all of you. Not even one brick of 9 A can be given to any one of you. 9 A/52 is only mine. I would if need arises would sell even my under west that I am wearing but nothing not even an inch of this building is for you. Go away the sooner the better

The old incident of 1944 when I was eight and he was ten jumping out of the car has a great correlation with 1991 incident when he was fifty-seven.