My father Durga Charan was born in Nainital to Pundit Laxmi Dutt and Kunti on 15 Dec 1922,
The lake town was happily developed, inhabited and ruled by the British
till they began to feel unwanted in 1942.

My grandfather being a clerk in the education department
who could capitalize on the encouragement the Government schools then
gave Brahmin lads to earn a modern scientific education,
We can now realize that it was not Babus,
but scholars and professionals they were aiming for ours i.e.the succeeding generations.

A little apartheid, a shade like our own caste system existed in the lake town those days.
With the Mall Avenue reserved for the rulers,
while the natives had to share with horsemen their walking ways.

I gather there was much cleanliness, fun, adventure and that law and order was in abundance,
The British administrator knew his subject and subjects and was a man of substance.

My father related that once when a Tommy hit and brought to tears a maize seller
when he asked for his 2 paise,
A well dressed short Englishman who was passing by slapped the soldier,
in the manner of an outlaw being punished by a posse.

“Who be you?”, yelled the tall Tommy,
“The Collector!”,snapped back the Englishman smaller in size,
The boat of the law as always got sometimes rocked
but unlike these days, it never did fully capsize.

Many a great tale has Jim Corbett about our land Kumaon told,
Of a shared love and service rendered by a naturalist and a soldier bold.

The next era of my father’s life was in Shah Jahan’s Agra,
I’ll write next on that, for us a mind broadening era.