Obituary-Prof. Manohar Lal, (Rtd as Lecturer in English from Public College Samana )

   At the tender age of seven years, a child born in a comfortably living middle class family went through the trauma of the partition, yet going through the deprivations and struggles, not only reset the life to a comfortable zone, being eldest, helped four younger siblings also to acquire a respectable place in society.

      Manohar Lal born in 1940 to family house of Charan Dass, who has a shop in Kanganpur near Kasur in Chunian tehsil of Lahore district of undivided Punjab on the other side of the border(now in Kasur district of Pak Punjab).

 During partition riots, many Hindu and Sikh families were massacred (as in East Punjab Muslim families were massacred), but an army unit saved lot many families and under their protection took many families first to Kasur town and later to Ferozepur on Train. The many families sought shelter in a recently vacated huge haveli of a Muslim family, who had migrated to Pakistan and the struggle to reset the life began. It first took the Charan Das family to Saharanpur for few months, but could not find a liveable work, so searching places, landed in Rampura village close to Mandi Rampura Phul in Bathinda district. The family opened a small karyana shop in the village.Here some earning led to first schooling of eldest child Manohar Lal, followed by other younger siblings. Manohar Lal and Yashpal were born in west Punjab other three siblings were born and brought up in East Punjab. Manohar Lal was a Kabaddi player and wrestler as well during school times.

In search of better earning, the whole family shifted to Ganganagar in Rajasthan and took contract of liquor shop but had to shift again to village Rampura and started Karyana shop again.

Manohar Lal worked with father on shop while studying in school, took care of studies of younger siblings and after Matriculation found a teaching job in Panchayat school. Later he did a course of Sanitary Inspector and worked briefly at Gurgaon in joint Punjab as sanitary inspector, vaccinating hundreds of small children, who used to run away out of fear of injections. In between their father Charan Dass had paralytic stroke, which made him immobile and bed ridden for the rest of his life. Though a good Samaritan Govt. hospital Doctor Sharda Ranjan, to whom this author also knew as a most respected doctor of the area in those days, went to their home in Rampura village without charging any fees to treat, but it was too late. The responsibility of running the shop was now on the shoulders of Mrs Lajwanti and young children. Later when younger brother Yashpal after completing Science teacher training, got job in a school, the elder one completed his FA and then MA in English from DAV College Dehradun in 1967and MPhil from Punjabi University Patiala. After running Your Academy, a private coaching centre at Rampura Phul with another friend Megh Raj, for few years, found his favourite job of Lecturer in English at Govt College Zira ( Ferozepur Distt) on adhoc basis.After some months he got job as English Lecturer  in  Public College Samana in 1976, from where he retired in year 2000. 

He was left-oriented by ideology.He got his life partner, a High school Hindi teacher Nirmla Devi in 1971, marrying her in simplest possible manner, with minimum rituals and without any dowry or exchange of gifts as he was left oriented by ideology.
. Both of them got two children-a son and a daughter, now holding good position, son Advocate K D Sachdeva being a former additional advocate general of Punjab. 

     But it was after retirement, Prof. Manohar Lal found more satisfaction, when he started translating literary texts, some of them classics. Thus, for Punjabi University Patiala, Prof Manohar Lal translated Bertrand Russel large sized (700 pages) Autobiography and Albert Camus’s famous philosophical treatise The Rebel in Punjabi. He also translated Will Durant’s The Greatest minds and ideas of the time in Punjabi. Two books of Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine system in Punjabi. Manohar Lal translated Sahit academy and Kuvempu award winner fiction writer Gurbachan Singh Bhullar’s only novel-Eh Janam Tumhare Lekhe(This life dedicated to You) in English. He also translated selected stories of Kartar Singh Duggal and Santokh Singh Dhir in English, assigned by National Book Trust of India (NBT), New Delhi. 

(Title Page of the book translated from Punjabi to English by Prof. Manohar Lal )

Duggal’s stories were published by NBT, few years ago. Some of other translated works are awaiting publications. Apart from these books, Manohar Lal also translated present Punjab minister Anmol Gagan Mann’s some writings from Punjabi to English, Gandharv Sen Kochhar’s autobiography and Mehram editor from Nabha late B S Bir’s stories in English

       Prof. Manohar Lal had attack of Colin Cancer in 1996 and had open heart surgery in 2007, yet he never lost heart. With his disciplined life style and frugal meals, he continued to perform all duties of a family head. On 15th August 2022, on the occasion of 75th anniversary of independence his younger journalist brother Baljit Balli interviewed him on his web portal Babushahi.com, from which we could know about his struggles in life and the impact of partition on common citizens of both countries!

        In January 2023, he had another stroke, though recovered, but this attack was quite severe, his voice became affected though his mind remained fully alert, reading papers, watching tv and taking walk was part of his routine. He had become very weak and lost weight a lot, his haemoglobin was very low, not feeling hungry, so could not eat much to gain weight. In the early morning of 27th April, he passed away in sleep peacefully @83+. A condolence meeting is being held in Prof. Manohar Lal’s memory on 4th May, Saturday at Sector 44 Gurdwara Chandigarh.

*Prof. Chaman Lal is a retired Professor from JNU, New Delhi and close friend and brother-in-law of Prof. Manohar Lal. He can be contacted on X(Twitter) as ProfChaman

May 02, 2024