by Sonu Bhasin
It was a Monday afternoon in November 1964 and regular classes were going on in the college. The mob was unconcerned and, led by Sudipto, moved silently and menacingly to the table-tennis room. The silence made the group even more sinister. Kuldip realized that they were coming for him. While the other boys went into a mini-frenzy deciding what to do, how to call the seniors, maybe even the teachers, Kuldip decided to go out and meet them. ‘I know I have a temper and sometimes I act irrationally,’ muttered Kuldip as if to himself, as he looked into the distance, remembering the scene that had played out forty-five years ago.
As Kuldip walked out of the table-tennis room towards the mob, the body of goondas stopped. Kuldip walked up confidently to the group and asked them what the matter was. No one replied. He asked again. Instead of answering, the group shifted slowly as if trying to encircle Kuldip. Then one of them raised his hand to hit him.
‘I knew then that I was in real danger,’ said Kuldip. His face was screwed up and tense as he told me this. Sensing danger, he ran away from the mob. He was an athlete and this came in handy. He sprinted away, with the mob chasing him. The other boys from the table-tennis room also started running behind Kuldip and the mob.
‘You can imagine the scene—I was in front and everybody was running after me,’ said Kuldip. As he was running, his turban came loose. Not stopping even for a moment, he gathered the cloth and wrapped it around himself. As Kuldip and his chasers passed the classrooms, teachers stopped teaching and the students rushed to the windows to see what was happening.
‘Though I was really scared, I had the presence of mind to run towards the hostel,’ said Kuldip a little breathlessly as if speaking after a long run. His luck ran out after sometime and one of the goondas caught up with him and took hold of him. Within moments the rest of the mob gathered around Kuldip and his captor. The other boys of the college also gathered around but maintained their distance from the group.
Kuldip’s captor handed over his prisoner to the leader of the mob. The well-built Jat dragged Kuldip to the nearest tree and pushed him against the tree trunk. The leader beckoned a couple of his supporters and each one held an arm of Kuldip and stretched it out. ‘I was pinned to a tree, my arms outstretched. Each arm was held by a goonda. I felt like Jesus Christ on the crucifix. The goondas had surrounded me. Sudipto was standing in front of me with a brick in his hand, ready to hit me. I stared at him. I could not move. I was really scared. I could have been hurt very badly, maybe even killed,’ said Kuldip.
The leader picked up a brick and called Sudipto Sen up front. ‘We are holding him. He is yours,’ the leader said and handed the brick to Sudipto. Though Kuldip was scared he was also angry. But he was held captive and was helpless. The only part of the body he could move was his head but he kept that still, looking intently at Sudipto. He did not want to give Sudipto the pleasure of knowing how terrified he was.
‘Because of my hot head I behave rashly at times and have often got into trouble but God has always sent an angel to save me,’ said Kuldip sombrely.
The angel that day was the six-foot-three-inch Gyan Singh, a teacher at Khalsa College. As he did not have teacher’s accommodation at Khalsa, he stayed in the Hindu Hostel. ‘Gyan Singh was a handsome fellow in a rustic way. He was also a national swimmer,’ said Kuldip with respect in his voice. Gyan Singh had heard the commotion from his room and had stepped into the balcony of his first-floor room. He had seen Kuldip running, being chased by the mob and captured and then being pinned to the tree. He had also seen inaction by the other boys. Gyan Singh was angry.
‘Suddenly there was a streak, almost like a whoosh, like an arrow being shot,’ said Kuldip. The whoosh was Gyan Singh, who came charging down and cut through the mob and snatched the brick from Sudipto. The big built sardar looked ferocious and thundered, ‘Haramzaadon, yeh kya kar rahe ho? Kede haraamzaade di himmat hai jo isko haath vi lagaye. Sharam nahin aandi kutte de puttron? [You bastards, what are you doing? Which of you bastards dares to hit him? Aren’t you ashamed, you sons of dogs?]’ Gyan Singh swatted Sudipto and some of the others away as if they were pesky mosquitos.
A whisper went around, ‘Yeh teacher hai. Teacher hai [He is a professor].’ The boys holding Kuldip captive dropped his hands and the mob melted away. The boys who had been spectators so far gathered around Kuldip and Sudipto.
By now the principal had heard the noise and summoned Kuldip and Sudipto to his office. As they were walking, Kuldip took hold of his undone turban and tied it back. ‘I used to be very good at tying my turban. I did not even need a mirror to tie it well on my head,’ said Kuldip proudly. The two boys were escorted into the office of B.M. Bhatia, the principal. ‘We all used to call him Bum Bhatia,’ giggled Kuldip.
‘I told Bhatia that I had started the fight in the table-tennis room. Sudipto had called me a bastard—meri maa noo gaali di hai [he insulted my mother],’ said Kuldip. ‘It was a fight between us but Sudipto brought in outsiders, known goonda elements. Why did he have to do that?’
Bhatia agreed that there was no need to bring in notorious outside elements into the college. ‘He was livid and lashed out at Sudipto. “You are always bringing a bad name to our college,” he roared. He reminded Sudipto about the warning after the St Stephen’s incident. “I had told you that if you do anything like this again you would be out. Out!” he said. And then he added, “Tum Bungaali log to ladh nahin sakte ho. Ek Punjabi se ladhai kari hai . . . Dekha kya haal kara hai tera [You Bengali people cannot fight. You have picked up a fight with a Punjabi . . . See what he has done to you],”’ said Kuldip hunching his shoulders a bit and biting his tongue with his teeth. He realized that if such a statement was made in current times Bhatia would have got into much trouble himself for being politically incorrect!
Sudipto was told to pack his bags and move out of the hostel. He was also suspended from the college.
By now sanity and rationality had returned to the boys and emotions had calmed. Sudipto and Kuldip walked out of Bhatia’s office and went near the tennis courts—to the chabutra (dais) under a tree that was the hang-out for students. Several boys had gathered there already and each was telling the other, his version of the story. Kuldip and Sudipto walked towards them, both quiet, and Sudipto definitely downcast. His bravado and swagger were gone.
Friends of Kuldip guided both boys to the chabutra and made them sit down. Someone came with a glass of water for both. As they drank the water, Sudipto and Kuldip looked at each other and gave weak smiles. The small smiles dissipated the tension completely. Sudipto was upset about being suspended from college. ‘It is my last year and my father will be very angry,’ he complained to all.
Kuldip has a temper but he also has compassion. ‘People tell me that I am like a volcano. After the lava gushes out, there is calm,’ he said.
The calm returned to him and he told Sudipto that there was a way out of this mess. ‘Let’s go together to the principal and tell him that you’ve apologized to me and promised that you will behave yourself,’ Kuldip told Sudipto. ‘I am the victim and if I say that it is okay, hopefully Bhatia will take back his decision,’ Kuldip continued.
It was worth a try. Kuldip and Sudipto walked back to the principal’s office. Kuldip told Bhatia that Sudipto had apologized to him, again and again, in front of all the boys. ‘I told him, “Sir, I forgive Sudipto and my humble request to you is also to excuse him. He has promised that he will not do this again,”’ said Kuldip. ‘And it worked! Bhatia excused Sudipto,’ laughed Kuldip clapping.
The incident made Kuldip the undisputed leader of the college! ‘This incident happened in the first half of my first year and I became the king of the college! The rest of my years were fantastic. I was known as the person who was daadon-ka-dada [boss of bosses],’ Kuldip said pulling his shoulders back.
Not only was he known in his own college, his reputation as the dada-slayer spread to other colleges as well. ‘I used to go to Stephen’s to play table tennis. After this incid
ent, when I went there all the boys stopped playing. They came and thumped me on the back, shook my hands and thanked me,’ said Kuldip. The Stephanians were delighted that Kuldip had beaten Sudipto! ‘They came and thanked me for taking care of Sudipto and taking revenge on their behalf,’ he said.
Eleven
‘He Would Not Lose Even an Argument’
Kuldip’s friendship with Subhash and Kewal grew. But Kewal and Kuldip argued about everything. ‘Over a period of time I realized that Kuldip would ask me something and instinctively I would oppose it. It became a kind of habit—that I would oppose anything Kuldip said. We would argue and then Kuldip would turn out to be right,’ remembered Kewal. Kuldip, ever competitive, wanted a reward for being right. ‘So we started taking bets,’ added Kewal. Every time an argument ended, the one who was proved wrong had to treat the others to an ice cream.
‘I found myself paying for the ice creams every day,’ said Kewal, his forehead bunched up as he remembered taking out money from his wallet. ‘Mujhe laga ki [I felt that] something is not quite right,’ he laughed. ‘And then I found out that Kuldip came prepared for all the discussions,’ he said.
Kuldip would decide earlier in the day that he would discuss a specific topic with his friends in the evening. He would spend an hour or so researching the topic in the library. Once he had mastered the topic he would bring it up innocently in the evening.
‘The man was manipulating me! He would deliberately say something, knowing that I would oppose him. He would then pull out the facts from his memory and prove me wrong. He would not do anything without being prepared. That was a trait of his. And he does this even today,’ Kewal said.
Subhash added his own story. ‘Some of Kuldip’s business associates were coming from overseas and wanted a game of table tennis with him. He did not want to tell his business associates that he would not play with them,’ he said. However, he had not played for a long time and did not like to lose! So Kuldip requested a friend from college to play table tennis with him for two weeks. ‘Can you imagine, Kuldip played every evening with that college friend till he got his game back! And of course, the business associates were defeated convincingly!’ There was another friend, who remembered an incident which cemented his respect for Kuldip. Kuldip and his friend, Pradeep Bhagat, one day went to the college library where Kuldip found a magazine with Guru Nanak on the cover. He wanted to borrow the magazine but the librarian told him that only books could be issued to take out of the library. The magazines were only for in-library reading. Kuldip wanted to have his way. He tried his persuasive skills on the librarian but the gentle woman wasn’t won over. Pradeep wanted to do something for his friend. Furtively, he picked up the magazine and hid it under his T-shirt and walked out of the library gingerly. Kuldip did not know what Pradeep had done, so he walked back to the hostel with him. The two friends went into Pradeep’s room, where he lifted his T-shirt, pulled out the magazine and gave it to Kuldip.
‘I was so touched by this,’ said Kuldip. Since there were other friends waiting for them to play table tennis, he went to his room and kept the magazine on his table, under some books, and went away with Pradeep. ‘I thought I would read it when I had time at night,’ said Kuldip.
What the two didn’t know was that a peon in the library had seen Pradeep walking out with the magazine. The peon followed the boys, saw which room was Pradeep’s, went back to the librarian, and complained about Pradeep. He told the librarian that the boy had stolen the magazine. The librarian complained to the principal and Bhatia called the two boys. He asked the boys if Pradeep had stolen the magazine. Pradeep confessed and Bhatia told him that he was going to be suspended.
‘I was amazed,’ said Kuldip. ‘Inni chhoti si cheez aur inni vaddi punishment [such a small thing and such a big punishment].’ He thought that the principal was being unfair.
Kuldip pulled Pradeep to one side and faced the principal. ‘I told him that I was equally to blame for the theft. After all it was because I wanted to read the magazine that my friend had taken it away from the library,’ he said. Kuldip also argued that if Pradeep’s room had been searched they would not have found the magazine. ‘The stolen item is in my room, so how can you blame only him? If you are suspending Pradeep, you have to suspend me too,’ he said.
‘I cannot tolerate unfairness,’ Kudip said. ‘I take risks but mostly they are calculated risks. He smiled. His mind had worked out that the principal would not suspend two boys for one magazine!
The logic had worked and Bhatia had to take back his decision. The two boys were let off with a warning.
Twelve
‘Our Factory Was More of a Shed’
While Kuldip was in Delhi, the business in Amritsar continued to grow. By 1964, Sohan Singh had finally achieved his dream. He had started his factory.
‘We say it was a factory but really it was a shed,’ said Kuldip without any trace of hesitation. ‘We had no money to buy land so my brother had rented the small shed,’ added Gurbachan matter-of-factly. Unlike his grandfather, who had started with a big shop in the prime area of Amritsar, Sohan Singh rented a shed on the outskirts of Amritsar and set up a paint manufacturing unit. At that time no one could have dreamt that within thirty years this small 15 x 30-foot shed would grow into one of the largest paint companies of the world.
Sohan Singh called their unit UK Paints. ‘Did UK Paints have a British connection like British Paints?’ I asked Kuldip.
‘No, no, no, UK has nothing to do with Britain. It is Uttam Singh Kesar Singh!’ Kuldip said. The unit in Amritsar was named after Kuldip’s great-grandfather and grandfather.
Sohan Singh produced paint in his shed-factory and also sat at the shop to sell the paint. ‘We produced safeda, or white stiff paint, in the factory,’ remembered Gurbachan. The factory was on Batala Road and Diwan Singh, a machine maker, was called to make the machines for the factory. ‘There was a mixer and a roller. It used to be a granite triple and the machine had three rollers, each of which would go at a different speed,’
It is evident that Gurbachan’s love for machinery and manufacturing started early. He remembered each machine in the factory even after almost fifty years. ‘The different speeds enabled the grinding to be coarse and then fine and then even finer,’ he said.
The factory also produced varnish. ‘It used to be rosin varnish and would be made in open drums,’ continued Gurbachan. The material was packed in smaller packs and would be sold along with paste, which gave the paint the colour. ‘We produced paint for only wooden and metal surfaces. It was only much later that we started producing dry distemper that was used for walls,’ added Gurbachan.
All the material produced by the factory was sold through the two shops of the Dhingras. The shops also sold paints of other companies since the Dhingras were distributors of large companies like Jenson and Nicholson, Nerolac and Snowcem. Business ramped up nicely. One of the working partners was a good travelling salesman. He was given the responsibility of getting orders for their own paints from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and other parts of north India.
Gurbachan was in high school when Kuldip was at Hindu College. Sohan Singh needed an extra hand at the factory. The shops were being managed by the working partners. ‘Kuldip bhapa was in Delhi and Sohan bhapa needed help. So I used to go to the factory after school,’ said Gurbachan. He remembers cycling to the factory after school and spending time there. ‘My interest in the factory and R&D started at that age. Sohan bhapa taught me about the buildings, about load-bearing factors and about keeping the factory clean. He was a civil engineer after all,’ added Gurbachan.
Money remained tight as all funds went into the factory, for buying machinery and ingredients and packaging material. ‘I remember that there were times when there was no money to pay for my school fees. Sohan bhapa would say, “Wait for tomorrow and I will give you the fees from the sale money at the shop,”’ he continued. ‘And our clothes were hand-me-downs from the elder
s. Bade ke kapde chhota pehenega [the older lot gave their clothes to the younger ones],’ Gurbachan added.
Gurbachan had grown to like Amritsar in the five years he had spent in the city. ‘It used to be a vibrant city, with many artists there; the society was good,’ he said. Amritsar had a thriving business community. Many Punjabis who lived in Bombay got their daughters married into the Amritsari business families. ‘So even though we were a small city, the people were from Delhi and Bombay,’ said Gurbachan. ‘Those were good days. Once we stopped crying, we started enjoying our life there,’ said Gurbachan.
Kuldip also enjoyed coming back to Amritsar. During one of the visits from Delhi he asked Gurbachan if he had tasted beer. The teenager said he had not.
‘Would you like to taste it?’ asked Kuldip.
‘Of course, it looks very nice,’ said young Gurbachan.
Kuldip took out a warm flat beer, poured it into the glass and gave it to Gurbachan. ‘Le taste kar [taste it],’ said Kuldip as he put out the glass for his brother.
The younger brother eagerly took the glass and took a long sip, imitating those he had seen drink beer. The beer was flat and it was warm. ‘Chhi . . . yeh to kaudi hai! Thoooo . . . [Yuck, it is so bitter],’ said Gurbachan with a tight grimace. ‘I don’t want to drink it. Take it back,’ he complained.
Kuldip took the glass back and said seriously, ‘Aisi hi hoti hai [Beer tastes like this only]. Don’t drink it again.’
Gurbachan nodded, promising himself never to touch the vile liquid again. ‘That was my brother’s way of keeping me away from alcohol,’ laughed Gurbachan.