My First Snow
When I saw snow falling from the sky, for the first time in my life, I was thirty-two years old and was studying in Purdue University. I had lived in the flatlands of Punjab, India, where it never snowed. While growing up, I read about snow in books and wondered how it felt to have flakes of snow falling on your head. We do have snow on the Himalayan Mountains, but they’re far away from where I grew up. When I was twenty and working as an engineer in New Delhi, my friend, Mohan, was posted in Simla Hills, where they had frequent snow falls.This hill station, which served as the summer...
Read MoreMy Maturing Experience
When I first saw Amrit, she was sixteen. I was dazzled by her beauty. It was evident to me that God Brahma was in a relaxed, cheerful mood and had spent a long time to make such a perfect specimen. She was the only child of the Thati Village chief, and her parents adored her. She was tall and slim with light brown skin and large brown eyes which could charm a cobra in two seconds. When she sang hymns at the temple, the birds stopped chirping, flies and mosquitoes ended their buzzing, and the congregation froze in their seats. I was in the congregation. I was spellbound, and the hot weather...
Read MoreNarrow Escapes
Sixty years ago, I narrowly escaped a tortured death. Time, the great healer, has failed to eradicate its memory from my heart. Many times during the night, while I’m sleeping, my dreams flash back to the visions of that horrible scene, and I feel the scorching heat from the tongues of the flames which dance around me. The yells and screams of the Muslim mobs and the cries of our women and children pierce my heart. Drenched in sweat and shivering, I get up from my bed and try to divert my mind to pleasant thoughts and forget the past. However, this scene, etched in my subconscious...
Read More