Gian Chand Khanna

Shri Gian Chand Khanna

GC, as his colleagues called Daddy, was known for his integrity, hard work, diligence, intelligence, and for being very straightforward, simple as in uncomplicated and a stickler on principles. Compromise rather than confrontation was his preferred style, mild mannered and hence easy to get along with. It is alleged that he was one of his father, bade bauji’s favourites, and his “gau puttar”. A gold medallist in school, he graduated from the Government College Lahore, and then qualified as a civil engineer from the prestigious Roorkee College of Engineering. He started his career in Calcutta with Bird & Co. a leading civil engineering firm and shortly thereafter switched to the Public Works Department of the Punjab engineering service.

His specialty was Bridges, Building and Roads and he rose through dint of hard work and merit to the rank of Chief Engineer PWD, B & R, Punjab (including Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) and President of the Indian Road Congress and of Institution of Engineers, Punjab cadre. In 1946 the Government selected him to visit Germany, UK and the USA for a study tour. From 1952 onwards he was one of the key engineers working with Le Corbusieur, the designer of the Chandigarh master plan; Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew & Jenneret and other renowned architects, for construction of the now famous town. As Chandigarh was a showpiece township, he was at the center of visits by foreign delegations, including Chinese, Russian headed by PM’s, President’s and other dignitaries. On the visit of Marshal Tito, young Vinay featured prominently in his Nursery School.

Later he also served as the Principal of the Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh. On retirement he was appointed as the Principal of the Thapar Engineering College Patiala.

Another distinguished post my father held was as the first Administrator of Faridabad, a new colony then being set up for refugees. For his good work under very trying conditions, Prime Minister Nehru commended him during his visit to the nascent township.

As Chief Engineer B&R he, in conjunction with the Army Corp of Engineers, was responsible for opening up the Lahaul & Spiti Valley by a land route over the Rohtang Pass (14,500 ft) in1961-62

In Dec 1963 he was, because of his experience at Chandigarh, a key team member of Engineers visiting Lahore, at the invitation of the Government of Pakistan, to exchange ideas for construction of their capital, Islamabad. Our mother, too, was invited along with Vinay. Mother, fondly and with nostalgia narrates how well they were looked after and the joy of meeting a few of my father’s old colleagues.

In the summer of 1964 a Pakistani delegation of Engineers visited Patiala and Chandigarh on a reciprocal visit. Gen. Yahya Khan, then Minister in charge of the Islamabad Project, and later president of Pakistan, led the delegation. They were hosted to lunch by our parents at their residence in Patiala.

His short tenure with Bird & Co. was central to his entire life. His senior boss a Rai Sahib Hari Chand Anand had taken quite a fancy to this intelligent and bright engineer. So much so that he arranged a marriage between his daughter Sarla, and the young engineer. They had four children, Kanti, (the author) Meena, Vinod and Vinay

My mother narrates stories of those early days. Simple life styles, they had to be at a princely salary of Rs. 325/= per month, of which my father sent Rs. 50/= to his father, as did some of his other brothers. Those were the days of the Depression in the mid 1930’s when businesses’, including bauji’s, failed. Later in better times bauji recompensed his sons for their help. The Britannia shares held by most family members were seeded by bauji. Incidentally this fine sense of duty, of assisting one another, continues by and large to this day, in the family.

They lived in Rohtak, Hissar, famous for its ghee from cow’s milk at Rs. 16/= per maund. Sarghoda was known for it’s blood red maltas, a sack of 100 cost Rs. 2/= whereas the ordinary were Rs. 1. 8 annas per sack. The ghee and maltas were also much in demand by his elder brother Amir Chand, and by bauji in Amritsar and were frequently sent or taken there.

In later years, my father, often used to compare and comment that they ate better quality and more wholesome food in those days than we do in our times. He, however, readily conceded that their life styles were simpler and there were fewer social demands compared to ours.

Mummy was and remains the driving force in the family. She has dynamism and had a strong desire that her children to do well in life. She was, and by God’s grace, still is house-proud. Our home was looked upon as an example of how a house should be kept: orderly, clean, tidy and well decorated. Unusual for ladies of that generation, she had done her diploma in Home Science from Lady Irwin College, Delhi. Her early schooling was in Annie Besant’s Theosophical School in Benaras and she did her Matriculation from the Benaras Hindu University. She too came from a large family and is from a good-looking stock.

My nana had 11 children from his first wife; Mummy was number 9; and 9 from his second. Daddy was number 6 from ten of his sibling. Talk of family planning! A colleague of Daddy’s, Sardar Hukam Singh, also married into a large family, used to joke that the only time he ever lowered his mustache and saluted is whenever he meet GC! Mummy recalls being cautioned, at the time of her marriage, about the Amritsari sharp tongue and their rather direct manners. Initially she found the new family to be so, but also observed them to be affectionate and a caring family. She also saw that they were jovial and boisterous. In a family dispute, Bauji always sided with his daughters-in-law even when they were wrong! Bauji often commented that Mummy was his smartest daughter-in-law. He complimented and blessed her on the brisk manner she went about in running an orderly home. Even I recollect from the earliest days her systematic and methodical ways.

Her family came from Jallander, and hence she was a “doaban”, from the land of the two rivers, Sutlej and Beas.

There was some teasing between my parents on how certain dals and alu gobi were cooked better their respective ways, and the other did not know about good eating!!

She was very active in social work and in Chandigarh received an award from the Governor for her contribution. She is an active member of the Panch Shila Medical dispensary, which she and Daddy helped set up, of the Panch Shila Ladies Welfare association and is much sought after for the Panch Shila club affairs.

She played an important role in water harvesting and recently, in 2002, in creating a much admired park for the Panch Shila colony, visited by the Chief Minister, where Ma being a prominent participant, was asked to deliver a speech.

Mummy’s first trip to the West was in 1974 to us in New York. It was a pleasure for Gita and Bindiya and me to welcome them both and show them around the US. Mummy loved the sights and the high-rise marvels. On their way back they stopped over in London to be with Vinay, who was then serving articles.

During the last years of my father’s life she took especially good care of him, so much so that an Australian camera team filmed them at home. The subject of the film was about home care for geriatrics as opposed to hospitalisation or institutionalisation.

Mummy reminisced with me that amongst their happiest occasions were; the birth of their first born, a son, Daddy’s promotion as Chief Engineer, and the receipt of my telegram from London announcing my successful result in the Final CA examination. The saddest memory was the demise of Vinod and Rashmi’s eldest son, Aditya. The tensest time they had was the 18 days in 1965 when Vinod was on and beyond the border in the war against Pakistan with no news of or from him.

Daddy enjoyed club life in the evenings, a game of tennis in his younger days and the card game bridge. He indulged in golf on occasion and introduced me to the game in Ambala. He was an avid Reader’s Digest fan, and enjoyed light reading. He delighted in Mulk Raj Anand’s usage of literal translations of Punjabi expressions including cuss words into English in his novels. He was fond of Urdu poetry and enjoyed listening to gazals. He would welcome an opportunity to recite a few couplets and the Engineering College students would keenly await his recitation, whenever he had occasion to address them. At his chautha, we asked for Kabir dohas to be recited in his honour.

I recall that my parents and his colleagues enjoyed picnics and outings with their families. A few such spectacular outings with him stand out in my memory.

One was trip to Panjnad, the junction of the 5 rivers of the Punjab: Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas. It was a train journey from Multan where has was posted to the Head Works across the mighty river. From this point on the Panjnad journeyed south and joined the Indus, the mighty river having been joined by all the five rivers of the Punjab, flowing majestically into the sea.

Staying in Dak bungalows, serving uniformly standard food was routine, when travelling with Daddy.

There were many other tours with him; three others I have spectacular memories of. One was to Fort Munro, a picturesque town with a lake in the North Western Provinces. A fierce looking Pathan with a sword near my father scarred me as a boy. The poor chap was only trying to sell the sword to my father.

Another trip was to Dera Ismail Khan, from Sargodha, I think along the river Indus. This was a desert area and we had to cross the river on boats. To my utter astonishment our car was driven onto the swaying boat, then a whole lot of camels and sheep were loaded into it. Thereafter some passengers walked on and last were the Engineer sahib and his family. Special deck chairs were laid out; tea, sherbet and snacks were served to us. A burly Pathan crewman honoured me by inviting me to blow the ship’s horn, by pulling on a string.

An eventful and forgettable trip in 1945/46 was to Kulu and Manali, during the monsoons. The roads and bridges had been washed away and it was his responsibility to supervise reconstruction. There were frightening moments on this particular journey. Once the car hung on the precipitous edge of the road with the swollen Sutlej rushing by in the gorge below us. Later that evening the car turned turtle at the rest house in Manali, fortunately after the family had got out. Daddy was tired after the strenuous drive and had asked the driver to bring the car up a small slope. Fortunately, there was no serious damage to the vehicle or the driver. That day providence was very kind to my father and his family.

It was the excellent work of reconstructing the roads and bridges at this time that his boss Mr. Trevor Jones recognized his effort and selected him for the trip to the USA and Europe in 1946

One of the best holidays we had as a family was in 1956 in Kashmir, living on a houseboat on Dal Lake, and staying in Pahalgam. This was just before I went in 1957 to the UK for my CA.

1962 was quite an eventful year for our family. Vinod got his Commission into the Army, Meena married Brij in October and in November that year I sat my Final CA examination, with success, in London.

We lived in very nice houses in Multan, in Dharamsla above Kanchimor and in Simla, in the Benmore estate and on Park road where we first moved from Lahore. The best home was in Chandigarh when we moved to Sector 16.

In Simla the brothers DC, GC and PC were posted together, the annual summer visits by uncles, aunts and children from Delhi and Amritsar were looked forward to. Children’s inter city sports competitions were a grand success – the Simla crowd were the obvious winners, according to Vinod!

What has to go down in history is our midnight flight from Lahore on August 12/13, 1947. The British had partitioned the country, a most traumatic decision for the people of the subcontinent. It was one of the great historical blunders by the British. Necessitating uprooting of millions of people, migrating from their homes and resulting in senseless killing of hundreds of thousands.

My father was deputed by the Government to stay back in Lahore to ensure an equitable distribution of the spoils for the PWD.

Most families had left Lahore earlier, my mother would not leave him alone and hence we all stayed back. Things were getting very turbulent in and around Lahore. He knew we would very soon have to leave.

At that time in 1946/47, we lived on Wazir Ali Road, across the canal in Lahore, in a bungalow shared with an English couple. I vividly recall watching huge fires from our rooftop at night and my parents saying Shahlmi, a Hindu colony, was on fire. A few days later, one early evening a couple of young army officers, friends of my parents, came to visit and said they too were moving out. They wanted to a take a last drive around Lahore and my mother suggested they take me with them in their car. We had not driven 15 minutes when we came across mobs of people across the road. I recall one of the officers asking the other to check the guns and I saw that each revolver was fully loaded. As there was unrest and mobs on the roadside, the officers decided not to venture further and turned back.

My father returned home one evening from a meeting at the commissioner’s house and quietly announced that the last official convoy was leaving that midnight and we were to assemble at the commissioner’s bungalow late that evening.

It was a convoy of about 10/12 cars. Ours was the last vehicle and had been provided a gunman escort. It was a tense and fearful drive through the night, with mobs of people and carnage at regular intervals on either side of the road. It took interminably long to get to Amritsar, on reaching Amritsar my father called bauji and family to tell them of our safe arrival from Lahore. He did not accept the suggestion of breaking journey and we drove on to Simla, though cautioned that the roads were not safe till beyond Jullunder.

In his lifetime he witnessed the introduction of street lighting in their locality in Logarh and told me how, as kids, they would excitedly run to the rooftop of their home in Amritsar to marvel at the entire street being lit at the throw of one switch. He also recollected that in college hostels there were separate Hindu and Muslim kitchens and though friends neither community would partake from the others kitchen. Radio, bioscopes (movies), and then talkies were introduced during his lifetime, then a thing of marvel.

He would narrate an incident of how excited he and his English boss were, in the early days, on hearing the chimes of Big Ben, on their radio and catching snippets of news, over the static, from London, whilst on a tour camped in the wilderness. His generation loved Charlie Chaplin, Marx brothers and their slapstick humour, and they all adored and admired the actress Devika rani.

My parents built a nice home in 1969/70 in Panch Shila Park, New Delhi where he lived with our mother till his demise on December 25, 1990 at the age of 82. The house has now been extended, through the grit and hard work of our Mother with strong support from Meena and Gogo, to have three floors on top of the ground floor, one for each of their children; Ma lives on the ground floor.

Daddy was family oriented and concerned about everyone’s well being. So much so that on his return from the European and US visit he had a gift for each member of the family. He was quite an Amritsari at heart insofar as food habits were concerned, he enjoyed vadis and papars; and had a sweet tooth to be satiated by a barfi or bhuga in winter spent by bauji.

During the time of Pratap Singh Kairon, as Chief Minister Punjab, the 3 brothers ie. DC , GC and PC were the heads of 3 different Departments ie Public Works ; Building & Roads ; and Town Planning. Known as "trimurti" . I doubt if this record has ever been equaled.

It was his commitment and interest in the family that is largely responsible for this family tome that he initiated, and now being continued by his nephews Gokul, Nirmal and partially his son me.

Over the years friends and acquaintances have often wondered and inquired how the Khanna family invariably get along happily and contentedly with each other. Whatever the reasons, I hope the younger generations continue this enviable and admirable tradition.

Kanti

with contributions by Meena, Vinod and Vinay