Have Guts...!!

Jaswin Jassi

Description

Jaswin Jassi says that no one connects better with the common man than a commoner. By writing his life story, he has not only dared to substantiate his interesting claim but has also hoped to inspire narrative of lives less ordinary. The "ordinary" people of South Asia and especially those with Punjabi backgrounds would find echoes of their lives in this life story. The honesty with which Jassi effortlessly pens down the contradictions of every day life is admirable. How often do we find that some one describes himself as a God fearing person and a devoted husband and simultaneously relishes his numerous extra-marital exploits? This book also gives a rare peep into the world of audio-visual media controlled by the central government in India before the era of liberalisation. The social historian would find interesting materials in this self-narrative for mapping a story of upward mobility of Punjabi middle classes in post-independent India's capital.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Diamond Books
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788128822179
• Langue: English

Extrait

Have Guts…!!
The Untiring Truth
 

 
eISBN: 978-81-2882-217-9
© Author
Publisher: Diamond Pocket Books (P) Ltd .
X-30, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II New Delhi-110020
Phone: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]
Website: www.diamondbook.in
Edition: 2008
Have Guts…!! The Untiring Truth
By: Jaswin Jassi
Preface
L et me begin by dedicating this book to my family. My wife Kiran for being my soul mate. My two kids, who aren’t kids anymore, Aditya and Pallavi, for teaching me a few things about life per se - Child indeed is the parent of man. Thank you all, for the joy and sorry for the cries.
Nevertheless, most importantly, this book is dedicated to my siblings. Read it, you’ll know why.
An honest thanks to mom and dad, for giving me a life so firm yet adventurous, for your morals inculcated in me. May your souls rest in peace. My mother-in-law for bringing up my kids with ethics that made us proud parents. And to all the people who’ve made special appearances in my life, at some stage or the other.
Being an honest man, I have to admit that I’ve never read a book my entire life, so writing one was completely out of question. Or so I thought. It so happened that an ordinary lunch meeting with friends turned into an extraordinary affair. To kill time, I decided to let them in on a few incidents that happened in my life. Kind of like a story telling session, just that the stories they were hearing, were all true. I was talking about my life after all.
After some persuasion and a few nudges from friends and a whole lot of liquor, I decided on giving it a shot. On came a man, I have nothing but highest regards and respect for, Mr. S. Balwant. His efforts, enthusiasm and involvement in my book have been remarkable. During the making of this book, the bond we share has only grown stronger. A special thanks to Mr. Pradyot Lal and Sant Kumar Sharma.
I am grateful to my son Aditya, who edited and polished the book and made it readable.
So here I am with my life, part of it, of course. The joy, the sorrow, the hardship, the hard work, all of it, indeed make for a good read.
I’m not anybody so famous that one would be interested in reading about my life or what I went through, but what I am is an ambitious, self- made, common man. And no one connects better with the common man, than a commoner. And that is the idea. It is simple - never bow down to adversity. Face it head on. Believe me, you will win - the accolades, the fight, but most importantly, the respect.
If I manage to connect with even one of my readers, if I manage to guide some to a life less ordinary or make them realise that all’s never lost, all the effort will be worth it.
So follow your dreams, irrespective of the frailties, the danger and the likes because, we all die young.
Jaswin Jassi [e-mail]
Introduction
T his straight from the heart tale captures the essence of a man who confesses that he has made necessary compromises to reach the level that he has attained; it has been a journey with pitfalls, ideals and idols retained. At the same time, the market forces that have governed the system have taken the better of the man who self-confessedly started with pitfalls galore but the manner in which he has carved his niche in a competitive zone makes for a story, to be retold.
Largely anecdotal, the book shows the author’s competitive spirit, to succeed, but at the same time, his attempts to protect his progeny from the mistakes, compromises that he may have himself committed.
The story will interest all those who believe in the essential strength of a self-made man, who did everything, from being ambitious but at the same time hampered by social circumstances beyond his control. The story, told largely in first person singular, gives the reader a fair idea of how life has progressed for a man who loves the good things in life and is willing to share the occasional swipe at the establishment, but at the same time, retaining a sense of values that has saved him from becoming a mercenary.
The articulate intricacies that sustain the narrative may interest all those who are interested in knowing the profile of a man who has avoided being an upstart and has had trysts with destiny. There are narratives that may sound self-deprecatory - details of rail, road travel; the agony and ecstasy of all that has accompanied it. They have been sharply etched out in a strutting narrative which may satisfy even a literary purist.
In the story, successful attempts have been made to describe the journey of an individual overcoming the odds to emerge from the fledglings into the main arena. The story has an element of self-indulgence. But that is essentially a function of an ethos that has been governed by a world that was already there - you had to accept it, with whatever it brought. A middle class family, thrown into the tumult of the time, produced this particular character willing to share his life, warts and all.
Anil Maheshwari Neeraj Bhushan Singh
Contents One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen
One
I t all began a little over five decades ago, on a humid, dewy night. It was July 30 when a newborn’s naive cries enveloped a decrepit corner of Old Delhi.
“ Congratulations! It’s a boy ,” declared the daaee (midwife) in her characteristic inarticulate manner to my ever so elated father, who by now had become a veteran of sorts in his display of emotional outbursts at the birth of his child. What with four kids already, it wasn’t a surprise. They were ecstatic. After all, greatness was here. I was born.
Although the youngest of Mr. Niranjan Lal Abbott’s five children, I was seldom pampered and my schooling was dictated by our family’s monetary contentment - just like the rest of the heap at home… a government school it was. I had heard that my parents were financially quite established up until their first baby, but I personally had never seen a penny that I could’ve spent on my own - till I was 10. Pocket money seemed more like a distant dream; kind of like the whole princess and her knight in shining armour crap… you know… a far-fetched fantasy.
Neither did I have the money to feed my pocket, nor did I have a pocket to be fed. Ah! The ever-growing quandary of the impressionable mind! Quite a dilemma! Isn’t it? Small hera-pheri (swindling) in the family and petty theft in buying ghee (butter oil), oil, soap etc. became a part of my pocket money. Also, a part of my growing up was thrashings whenever caught.
Speaking of dilemmas and my state of bewilderment now would be the precise time to discuss a bit about my family. My mother hailed from a family of Patwaris of Pindigheb , now in Pakistan, and my father from a healthy ancestral business family of Ikhlas , also in Pakistan. Mom wasn’t very literate whereas, my Dad was a first class scholar - a fine example of opposites attracting.
She got married at an early age, may be when she was 12, but became a mother only after 14 years of marriage. She was first blessed with a girl. This happened when the trio visited the cave of Baba Amarnath in Kashmir. Yes, T-R-I-O - my father, mother and my bua (paternal aunt), who now is my eldest sister. She was two-year-old when my parents adopted her, since, till then, they were unable to conceive. Anyway, Baba Amarnath finally blessed my parents and bestowed upon them the love of four children - my sister, a brother, another sister and finally me. So with five children, my parents made a small house at Khari Baoli, Chandni Chowk, in Old Delhi, their home.
My school days are quite a blur, although I do remember that I’d be itching to get promoted to the sixth grade, as it was there that we’d be taught English. It was the Big League. We were taught alphabets, spellings, enunciations et al. We knew R-A-T was RAT and C-A-T was CAT as I belonged to a family of scholars. All in the gems, my friend. All in the gems.
One sunny morning, my 10-year-old Einstein-esque brain was startled. Actually, I was more enlightened than startled at the family’s bickering. The topic - food, or the lack of it. Apparently, there was a tasty, gastronomical delight of zilch for lunch and dinner. We had officially run out of food. We weren’t asking for a lavish, sumptuous Italian spread, but a simple dal-roti , then, could’ve done wonders for us. Sadly, we had run out of our tasty, finger-licking portions.
My brother was four years older than me and a champ at creating nuisance. He fought, then bailed out and left us to ponder over our predicament. Soon, a round table conference was called for, and a new business proposition came about. It was decided that we should sell the stock of Australian flashlights and combs which was accumulating all of Khari Baoli’s dust, and had been sitting in one corner of the house since World War II.
I did mention about my father’s princely way of living till the birth of their first child. It so happened that my Dad invested every bit of his earnings, including my mother’s jewellery, in importing three shiploads of general merchandise items from Australia. His business acumen led him to believe that since World War II was on the cards, he’d earn ten times more than he had invested. And it almost happened. Almost. The consignment reached the Bombay port. Dad went all the way to Bombay to collect it when suddenly, the War began. Everything that possibly could go wrong went wrong. The three shiploads were bombed. All we could manage were a few thousand pieces of flashlights, combs and cosmetics, which were later dumped in one solitary corner of our house.
Things just fell apart. Things just fell astray. Things just changed.
***
I was old enough, though still a 12-year-old kid, to understand the finer nuances of business, so I jumped at the thought of selling these stocked articles on the long and winding roads of Delhi’s evergreen Sadar