Dr. Anand - an unholy person born in 1932 in the holy town of Nankana Sahib, central Punjab. A lawyer father, a doctor mother. Peripatetic childhood - almost gypsy style. Many schools. Many friends, ranging from a cobbler's son (poorly shod as the proverb goes) to a judge's son. MB From Glancy (now Government) Medical College Amritsar, 1958. Comet 4 to Heathrow, 1960.
Long retired. Widower. A son and a daughter, their spouses, five grandchildren, two hens (impartially, one black, one white) keeping an eye on me as I stand still and the world goes by.
1942. A little town called Muktsar, located in what was Ferozepur district at that time (now in Sri Muktsar Sahib district, created by splitting Ferozepur). In the Punjab, not far from today's Pakistan.
My mother was posted as a doctor in the government hospital in Muktsar - the only woman doctor for miles and miles. A slow train would pass through countryside, where wind would whip up sandstorms, and whirl up and move sand hillocks. Sometimes the sand, suspended in the atmosphere, would leave the sun shooting its rays in to the sand, producing intense heat but not too much light.
My father was a lawyer, practising in Shahdara, near Lahore, at that time. Instead of dismantling his practice there and starting from scratch in Muktsar, he maintained a flat in Lahore, and travelled down to Muktsar for the weekend.
