causing the death of a man. Then he dictated a very strong report alleging violence by a huge crowd and of being forced to resort to firing under threat of his own life, in self defence, which incidentally hit the young man.

As soon as this report reached the District Head Quarters at Meerut, the then Collector, an Englishman reached Amin Nagar Sarai with a strong contingent of police force and started rounding up the people who came in their way. In all fifty two persons were arrested.

I was only three and a half years old then. When the police constables reached our house, I still remember, I started loudly crying. The constables tried to console me, saying that they did not mean any harm to me. My mother (my grand mother, whom I called ‘maa’) was cleaning the utensils. The constables sternly called her. ‘Old woman, tell us where are the folks’. She replied instantly ‘ I am employed for cleaning  the utensils. I do not know. They rebuked her sternly ‘Oldie’ you are trying to befool us by telling lies. They violently knocked the closed door of the room and sensed the presence of some people inside. They threatened shooting the immates, got the door opned, rounded up four or five persons and took them away.

My grand father and father were sitting in front of their shop and did not try to abscond or escape which they could easily do and both were arrested. All the fifty two persons arrested from the town were sent to jail. My grandfather being the chairman of the town area committee and a congress man, was sentenced to two year’s rigorous imprisonment after trial                      while my father was released after six months. Those two years proved to be very hard for our family and our elders suffered great financial loss and other hardships.

Education : There was one primary school run by the District Board in a ‘Shiv Mandir’ called ‘Shivalaya’ and one middle school, where boys were educated upto VIIth Class in our town. For Higher education, there were two schools at Baraut which was about 12 Kms away from our town. My grand father had made it a principle not to admit a child in the school before the age of seven years. Therefore, I was admitted in the primary school at the age of seven.

Since I was admitted late, I started picking up my course rapidly. In the primary school, the students were treated quite harshly. If any one remained absent without any valid reason, four sturdy students were deputed to fetch the boy from his

house by force. They caught him and brought him to school,
two mates holding his hands and the other two, his legs, (the process being called ‘Tangi’) throughout the market place, the prisoner kicking and crying all the way, but could never escape the grips of his captors. Straight away they produced him before ‘masterji’ but, surprisingly, the boy who was brought crying all the way, became deaf and dumb, all of a sudden, before ‘masterji’ and awaited the punishment to be meted out to him.

‘Masterji’ then issued orders to bring the cane which two other students obediently complied with, by bringing a small twig of the trees, which were standing in abundance all around. ‘Masterji’ then waved the cane in the air which made a hissing sound and hit the boy, the purpose of which was more to frighten the boy than to hurt him.

As soon as the cane hit his body, the boy cried in anguish ‘masterji margaya’, ‘masterji margaya’. The real meanings of these words were quite clear even to the teacher and the fellow students too, looked akance smilingly but with abundant precaution that the teacher could not notice their cunningness.

In those times, there was one more particular thing about the primary schools of our area. The pay scales of the primary school teachers were very meagre. Once in a year in the month of ‘Saawan’, they used to visit the parents’ homes of every student for receiving ‘chauth’ accompanied by a group of students singing, dancing and clapping with coloured ‘Dandas’ in their hands in their best attire. This group was welcomed at every students home with reverence.

The parents gave gifts and cash according to their financial status and the group took leave expressing pleasure and gratitude. This was, in a way, the annual teacher – parents meeting.

Now, to come back to the story of my education and training. From the very beginning, I developed a taste for Urdu Literature. In - side our shop there was a small library of Udru Books in an Almirah. There were books by Maulvie Mohd. Ismail for Ist  to Vth class and many other books. Whenever, I got time particularly. When my father was away, I used to take out these books and studied them thoroughly for hours together. In this way, since early boy - hood. I developed taste for Urdu Poetry. After passing out from primary school, I took admission in the local middle school in the Fifth Class.

Before independence, 26th January was celebrated as literacy day every year, when every school took out rallies and held meetings. There was a meeting in our school also on that day. I  wrote an Urdu Poem for the occasion which read like this ‘Agar Hindostan main Daura – e – Taalim hojaye, jahaalat door hojaye, Falakat door hojaye’ but the problem was that this was the first occasion of public speaking in my life, hence, I became nervous and after reading two or three lines, my head reeled and I just escaped falling on the floor. The students ridiculed, while the elders cheered up and patted me.