Page 42 - Seniorstoday September-2023 Issue

The uncertainties and fears of the times The two families nourished and cherished
were testing times for Alok’s and Alia’s
ancestors. It had been heart rending and
devastating for them to be dis-housed
and displaced from their ancestral homes
in Lahore and Amritsar and forced to
flee across the border. Alok’s ancestors
were fortunate to be able to cross over to
Amritsar, while Alia’s ancestors could not
cross over to Lahore, stymied by impossible
hurdles and implacable hearts. Perhaps it
was destiny at play that both the families,
friends for long in the undivided India were
thrown together in Attari, a border town
mapped to India by the irrational Radcliffe
line and could continue to be friends for
longer and succour for each other in the
partitioned India.
The families had come a long way since
the harrowing refugee days of 1947.
Given their respective backgrounds,
though deprived of their roofs and meagre
belongings, their ancestors could manage
with decent government jobs in India and
eventually settled down in the culturally
rich and historic city of Lucknow. As past
residents of Lahore and Amritsar, several of
Lucknow’s features, cuisines and cultures
resonated well with Alok’s and Alia’s great
grandparents.
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their shared history and destiny and
ensured that their bond and friendship
permeated and strengthened down their
families’ generations with osmosis of
values and flowering of virtues. If the
horrors of the past were a catalyst, the
peace of the present was the cement
between the two families. Yes, the Supreme
had tested them pre partition, but also
rewarded them post partition. Life was
idyllic for the Murad and Mehra families,
each basking in the others’ glory. Little
wonder Alok and Alia felt the way they did.
Alok and Alia had excellent foundation
and education at Spring Dale School
and La Martiniere College and by happy
happenstance, were classmates through
their learning journey. The enriching
learning environs of these hallowed
institutions had a salutary impact on them
with both developing interests in literature
and philosophy as well languages like
Sanskrit and German, besides their own
mother tongues of Hindi and Urdu. They
could develop only passing interests in
sports and never could pursue any game
tenaciously or stay the course. The constant
companionship through family times and
learning journey and of course shared
interests soon became a matter of hearts
between them and eventually an actively
encouraged Murad and Mehra family
affair.
Alok and Alia, endowed as they were
academically and culturally, besides being
social active and networked, as a part of
their college project had to develop a portal
for counselling the youth in matters of
learning and loving, so that they could
become productive citizens with balanced
personalities. Over time, the counselling
portal, aptly named “GyanPyaar”, became