My Father's 100th

My father was a pathbreaker, walking to a different drumbeat! As early as in his very young childhood, he asked his parents to let him learn the 'tabla' when his siblings learned some musical instrument, he was the only one who learned this intricate Indian percussion instrument! My grandparents were able to find a 'raagi' from the local Gurudwara, to teach my father and with determination, diligence and discipline my father mastered the skill of playing the 'tabla'.  Papa was a left-hander and as a child they tried very hard to make him a right-hander, but he played cricket as a left hander!  He excelled in cricket at school even to the neglecting of his studies!  But he became the school cricket captain at Khalsa School, Tarn Taran and also at the Khalsa College in Amritsar.

Dr. Andrew Prabhu Das & Mrs. Sarah Das and their children in Tarn Taran.  My father, Eric is seated below in the centre.

Shortly after college, Papa took another unique decision, that of leaving his home town and travelling to Yangon (Rangoon) in Mynamar (Burma), to teach Botany at Judson College, the forerunner of the University of Yangon.  He was too squeamish to study medicine to be a doctor like his father and grandfather, so he opted for Botany.  Whilst there, Burma got entangled in the second world war and Papa had to walk back in perilous and dangerous times to return to India.  Many who started with him couldn't make it back and he 'went a boy and returned a seasoned man', in his own words!

Captain Eric Das 

Then, my father, as individualistic as ever,  joined the army and returned back to the place he had fled from, to fight in the same region, and rose to be a captain in the army.  After the war, he chose to join the newly formed Indian government in its forest department, when all his well-wishers told him to remain in the army and that he would rise to be a general! He opted for the forests instead!

Marriage in Tarn Taran of Eric & Shuniela on September 12, 1949

My mother - Shuniela Das

When he chose his bride, she was much younger to him, about eleven years, whose mother didn't agree with allowing her, not yet graduated daughter, to marry. But Papa was persuasive and promised to help Mama complete her graduation, which he did after they had five children together!

Family of Eric & Shuniela at their marriage

The Five Children of Eric & Shuniela -
Rohini, Shalini, Damini, Sushant, Proshant

Papa had an exciting life whilst going around the forests of Punjab when he was posted there.  At that time Punjab included Haryana and Himachal Pradesh and when in 1966, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh became separate states, Papa was allotted Himachal Pradesh.  When we, his children, were small, Papa used to take us on tour with him on occasion.

With his colleagues in his early days of being in the Forest Department

Climbing on to unchartered mountains along with his team
and taking his newly wedded wife with him

Travelling the forests with his
family

He would climb mountains and cross rivers and take the Willys Jeeps into unchartered areas where there were no roads, with Jhabey Ram, an equally intrepid driver of the forest department!

A US 1958 Willys Jeep - such jeeps were used by the
Forest Department in the 1950s & 60s

Jhabey Ram the driver, a forest guard, Papa
and the local people in Himachal Pradesh   

Papa taking the salute with the forest guards

As the Zonal Coordinator of the Pre-Investment
Survey of India with his team - Mr. Singhal,
Mr. Sadasivaiah, Mr. Kapoor & Mr. R.P. Bahadur

As mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, Papa climbed the Shrikhand Mahadev mountain peak in Himachal Pradesh without the aid of oxygen, which stands at 17150 ft. and is one of the toughest mountains to climb.  This was in the fifties, way before this became a tourist and religious trek.

Shrikhand Mahadev mountain at 17150 ft.

Lambretta Scooters came into India in the fifties and sure enough Papa was one of the first to buy one in Chandigarh and tool around the city on it!  He really had a thrill to be one of the first to try out a new thing!  This, when he chose to build his house in the new city of Chandigarh which came into being in 1955.

Papa had been the DFO in Kulu outer Seraj area with the Punjab government enjoying his personal rapport with Pratap Singh Kairon, the chief minister, a man of vision and the builder of post independent Punjab under whom the city of Chandigarh was built.  Kairon was assassinated in the early part of 1965 after he had stepped down from the office of chief ministership.  Around 1965 the government of India began the Preinvestment Survey of India with sponsorship from FAO and the UNDP which had to identify the unsurveyed forests of India which were potentially rich in timber resources.  Papa was selected to be the Zonal Coordinator of the northern region.  This took him to Scandinavia and Germany for three months.  He successfully made the report for the UNDP.  Whilst there he saw the technologically rich society.  He returned with a Braun mixie for Mama.

The Braun Mixie

Papa with his Scandinavian colleague

Papa with his host's daughter

That was the beginning of our family's gastronomic experience.  This kitchen machine in Simla was used for everything it could do in the sixties...Papa would make delicious Chinese food and Mama would make home made mayonnaise in the time when it was not available in India....it ground, chopped, mixed, blended and made mince meat of all the meat that came its way!  A new world had opened to us!!  It was literally "khul ja sim sim"!!!

As Zonal Coordinator (Northern Zone) of the Pre-investment Survey of India, Papa had to travel to various forest regions in north India.  His three younger children accompanied him for this long trip from Simla through to Delhi and on the Grand Trunk Road as it was known then, all the way to Jamshedpur.  This was in the early seventies and for this trip Papa got a special fifteen seater van custom made (this was before Swaraj Mazda and Tempo Traveller vans came into the market).  My brother Proshant told me that he custom made this van in the industrial area of Mayapuri around about 1970 in a workshop owned by Air Marshal Arjan Singh.  We travelled and had exciting moments in that van.  One time, during our winter vacation, we were travelling through Meerut and onwards to Kanpur and it was night time, we were stopped and collected in a convoy because we were crossing dacoit territory.  The convoy made the trip safely but just the line of ten cars or so with the van somewhere in between, was a thrilling moment!  Another time, we were in Daltonganj and Papa had to inspect the Daltonganj Hill Forest area.  We were going on this dirt track in a hilly area when a herd of wild elephants were stampeding through the forest towards our van.  The driver, skilfully turned around in that narrow dirt track road and dashed back speedily, just missing those wild elephants by a few feet.  The next morning we heard that the wild elephants had destroyed a resort nearby.  Papa had to travel to Delhi a lot, to attend conferences and meetings.

Papa at a Conference in Delhi

Way before computers had come into homes, Papa had this adding machine in which he used to do amazing calculations. The machine used to make quite a noise and we were fascinated by him making all kinds of computations!

Another creative idea that Papa implemented was the log huts in the Kulu and Manali area where he was posted in the late sixties after Punjab was divided into Haryana and Himachal and way before these towns became such a beloved tourist attraction.

Log Hut designed by Papa in Kulu

On Dal Lake, Srinagar in the Shikara

When Papa retired and returned to Chandigarh, he commissioned the Mayapuri Auto Workshop to customize a Jonga for his use which he drove around and taught his sons to drive it and especially to the orchard in Outer Seraj Kulu where he built a summer house to go to.

The Jonga

The Pye Radio

When he was the Managing Director of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Development Corporation, Papa got the idea that the pine needles in the forest could be made into pine needle boxes for the apple orchards that were thriving in Himachal Pradesh.  So he oversaw the first pine needle box factory, which in the beginning did not make a mark but now I hear that they still manufacture apple boxes and cartons for other use as well.

The life and times of that era were so different from today, I'm not sure he would have appreciated the IPL or the T20s, or maybe he might just have enjoyed cricketers in coloured attire making the runs! When test cricket matches happened, Papa would listen to the commentary on his old Pye radio or later with the transistor close to his ear!

When he had the heart stroke, his body slowed down but still he visited us in Hyderabad just two years before he passed away travelling by train....he loved to travel!

Papa was fearless in taking decisions and making choices in his life because he lived in the fear of God.