Harish Malhotra, MD, is a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Rutgers Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. He is the past chair of department of psychiatry of Overlook hospital, Summit. He has been practicing psychiatry since 1977. His book Metaphors of Healing is available from Amazon and Barnes and Nobles, including Kindle and Nook\; see below for an excerpt from this book.

My father always brought his family with him to whichever city he was assigned by his employer, Central Bank of India. When we moved from Patiala to Meerut, I was admitted in the Government High School there.

As I stepped into sixth grade, the class teacher, Mr. Mathura Prasad, took an instant liking on this "transferee." He made me the class monitor .As I was thinking about the "leadership status" that Mr. Prasad tossed me into, I think that he liked me because I was one of the better-dressed students. My father was a bank manager, and I belonged to the upper-middle class. My classmates were children of labourers, peons, or clerks. There was noticeable contrast between the quality of their clothing between mine.

Dr. Juginder Luthra completed his MBBS from Medical College, Amritsar in 1966, and his MS in Ophthalmology from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh in 1970. He moved to Nottingham, UK along with his wife, Dolly — a dentist from the Amritsar Dental College — and a daughter, Namita. They were blessed with twin daughters, Rohini and Rashmi, in May 1975. The family moved to Weirton, West Virginia in June 1975. Now their three loving daughters are married to wonderful sons-in-law, and Dolly and Juginder are blessed with six grandchildren.

There was a flurry of activities all over the house.

"Is the suitcase ready, did you pack enough mango pickle and praanthe with cooked dry potatoes placed between them? Are your shoes polished, do you have enough money for the journey? Do you have Dr. Chitkara's (Pitaji's cousin) address, at whose house you will be staying for the first 3 or 4 days?"

The last one was planned to avoid the notorious, scary ritual of ragging which every new student received from the seniors.

"Make sure your shoes match\; one black and one brown will look really funny. Don't stick your head out of the moving train, you will get a coal particle fly into your eye. Above all, no more mischief\; you are a big boy now."

Dr. Juginder Luthra completed his MBBS from Medical College, Amritsar in 1966, and his MS in Ophthalmology from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh in 1970. He moved to Nottingham, UK along with his wife, Dolly — a dentist from the Amritsar Dental College — and a daughter, Namita. They were blessed with twin daughters, Rohini and Rashmi, in May 1975. The family moved to Weirton, West Virginia in June 1975. Now their three loving daughters are married to wonderful sons-in-law, and Dolly and Juginder are blessed with six grandchildren.

When I was growing up, in the 1950s, summers were extremely hot in Panipat.

At that time, Panipat was a Tehsil in district Karnal, Punjab, and is now a district by itself in Haryana, India. The deep chill in December and January made us all pray for warmer weather. Be careful what you ask for! It would start warming up in February\; by May and June, the temperature would reach 100 degrees F and stay there, with bright sunshine glaring down every day.

Dr. Juginder Luthra completed his MBBS from Medical College, Amritsar in 1966, and his MS in Ophthalmology from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh in 1970. He moved to Nottingham, UK along with his wife, Dolly — a dentist from the Amritsar Dental College — and a daughter, Namita. They were blessed with twin daughters, Rohini and Rashmi, in May 1975. The family moved to Weirton, West Virginia in June 1975. Now their three loving daughters are married to wonderful sons-in-law, and Dolly and Juginder are blessed with six grandchildren.

I grew up surrounded by sights, smells, and sounds of Panipat from 1947 to 1959, when pursuit of higher education took me to Government College, Rupar, Punjab.

Partition and its aftermath

"Khuda ka vaasta tumhen. Aap ko apne bachchon ki kasam. (For God's sake. Swear upon your children). Please put your sword back. I have two wives and five small children to take care of," stuttered the man, wearing a round white cap, pleading for his life. His trembling body, the betrayed fear of imminent death in his eyes, the hands clinging to the feet of a man with three white lines painted across his forehead, begging for mercy.

Born in 1941, Vinod was brought up and educated in Amritsar. He attended Government Medical College, and subsequently trained as a surgeon at PGI, Chandigarh. He left for USA in 1969, and retired in 2003 as Director of Critical Care Services at a teaching hospital in Michigan. Married with two grown sons, he continues to visit India at least once a year.

Apology- I wish I could apologize to him! How to apologize for something that happened sixty five years ago?.

That means I was not more than eight or nine years old when I committed a horrible act of extortion. But the fact that I think about it and have thought about it for years – that has to mean something, right? And I seem to remember most of the events related to the incident as if they were happening on a television screen now. Let it be known that there is no way for me to apologize to the person who would be now my age, and unknown to me for the last sixty five years.

Journey to Valsura -1

1942 - 1946

Extracts from the diary of the late

Commander MFB Ward, Royal Navy (1901 - 1978)

The First Commanding Officer of I.N.S. VALSURA 1942 - 1946

Commander Ward

Edited by his son, Colonel Robert Ward, to mark the occasion of his visit to I.N.S VALSURA on 25th October 2012

Foreword

My father often talked about India warmly, particularly his time as the First Commanding Officer of I.N.S. VALSURA from his arrival in March 1942 until 1946. He had narrowly avoided death on 14th September 1939 when H.M.S. ROYAL OAK was sunk in Scapa Flow just after the start of World War II. This was one of the Royal Navy's biggest ever losses of life from a single ship. He suffered from smoke and oil inhalation to his lungs and via his stomach and took some time to recover.

E. S. Ramanath specialised in sericulture and ericulture. In 1933, the Government of the Princely State of Mysore sent him to Japan to study the rearing of silk worms. He sailed in Tango Maru from Colombo in Sri Lanka to Tokyo - a journey of nearly a month. He worked primarily in Yokohama, Kyoto, and Nagasaki. Upon his return in 1935, he worked in Mysore State, where he was in charge of silk farms in in Kolar, Channapatna, Sidlaghatta, and Kunigal during different periods. The Government of the British-ruled Bombay Province availed of his expertise in the the rearing of silkworms, and funded a study, which is presented in the book below. E. S. Ramanath passed away in February, 1943, before he could truly see the fruits of his labour in the nascent silk industry in Bombay and Mysore States.

E. R. Ramachandran writes:

Dr. Juginder Luthra completed his MBBS from Medical College, Amritsar in 1966, and his MS in Ophthalmology from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI), Chandigarh in 1970. He moved to Nottingham, UK along with his wife, Dolly — a dentist from the Amritsar Dental College — and a daughter, Namita. They were blessed with twin daughters, Rohini and Rashmi, in May 1975. The family moved to Weirton, West Virginia in June 1975. Now their three loving daughters are married to wonderful sons-in-law, and Dolly and Juginder are blessed with six grandchildren.

Once you have lived in the U.S. for many years, as I have, silence is the first thing that hits when you return from India.

The orchestra of sounds created by dogs, birds and human vocal cords, along with a variety of man-made machines and amplifiers suddenly vanishes, making you wonder if you are losing your sense of hearing. No wonder it is sometimes called deafening silence.

This is particularly true of the era long gone, of the years I spent in Panipat in the 1950s. The years when the flower of life, as I know, started blooming and absorbed the panorama of the world around me. Times change but the memories of those days, somewhat faded, still linger.

Among the constant background sounds, one of the things that I miss most is the periodic yelps of numerous vendors and hawkers selling products in the trains, buses, on the streets and roads.

Shenoi, a civil engineer and MBA, rose to the rank of Deputy Director-General of Works in the Indian Defence Service of Engineers. He has also been a member of HUDCO’s advisory board and of the planning team for Navi Mumbai. After retirement he has been helping NGOs in employment-oriented training, writing articles related to all aspects of housing, urban settlements, infrastructure, project and facility management and advising several companies on these issues. His email id is mpvshanoi@gmail.com.

This website provides the impressions and opinions of many educated, elite persons. Some of them worked in bureaucracy, some of them were private individuals/men of standing. They have written about the historic transition of our country from a British colony to a free democracy and its governance during that period.

This story is about a person who served one wing of the government at the grass root level. He was not particularly articulate, but he sometimes spontaneously gave out his opinion in his own way, without any concern about style.

It was July 1958 when I received the posting order from Engineer in Chiefs Branch, Army Head Quarters, and New Delhi. I was eagerly waiting for the letter - I had passed the required UPSC examination nearly three years ago.