'Father' of the Indian Constitution

A vocal section among the Members of Parliament of India has raised objection to the inclusion of a 1949 cartoon by the legendary cartoonist Shankar featuring B R Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru, in the text book on Political Science prepared by National Council of Educational Research and Training which is being used in Secondary Schools in India since 2006.

The purpose of this piece is not to discuss the merits or demerits of this controversy but to clear a misconception about Amedkar being called the ‘Father’ of the Indian Constitution. He has been variously described as the ‘Father of the Indian Constitution’, ‘Author of the Constitution’, ‘Chief Architect’ of the Constitution etc. The fact is that none of these descriptions is correct. However, it is a fact that Ambedkar was one of the important members of Constituent Assembly of India, comprising a little less than 300 members, which framed our Constitution, taking 2 years, 11 months and 17 days.

Dr. Rajendra Prasad (who was elected the first President of India in 1952 after our Constitution came in force on the 26^th January, 1950), was the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly. A galaxy of leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, who led our Freedom Movement, were Members of the Constituent Assembly. Many of them were legal luminaries of their time. (As is well-known, Gandhiji shunned any official position.) 

The Constituent Assembly constituted a number of Committees to deal with various parts of the proposed Constitution. Two important such Committees were ‘Union Powers Committee’ headed by Nehru and “State Powers Committee’ headed by Patel. These two dealt with the powers of the Centre and those of the States respectively. Another important Committee was that which dealt with Fundamental Rights. There were several such Committees. These Committees submitted their Reports, which were thoroughly debated in the Constituent Assembly.

The Committees and the Constituent Assembly studied the Constitutions of major countries of the world. The Government of India Act, 1935, which was the basic legal frame work of governance of British India, was also considered. The basic structure of our Parliamentary System was modeled on the British system; the federal structure took cues from the American system. Suitable features of the Constitutions of other countries also were taken into account. 

The Reports of Committees were processed,compiled and collated by the Secretariat of the Constituent Assembly, headed by S N Mukherjee, who was the chief draftsman. He was assisted by an expert ‘Constitutional Advisor‘, B N Rau, a retired ICS Officer.

The ‘Committee to Srutinise the Draft Constitution’ headed by Dr. Ambedkar, gave final touches to the Draft Constitution, prepared by the Secretariat. The proposed Constitution, recommended by this Committee, was again thoroughly debated and amended where necessary, in the Constituent Assembly. After this, it was finally adopted by the Constituent Assembly on the 26^th November, 1949. The Preamble to our Constitution, as originally adopted by the Constituent Assembly read as:

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship:

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity:

and to promote among all,

FRATERNITY, assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of the Nation,

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

(In 1976, during the National Emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Preamble was amended to include the words ’SOCIALIST SECULAR’ after the word ‘SOVEREIGN’ and the word ‘integrity’ after the word ‘unity’. I feel that these additional words have not given any additional value to the Preamble but have diluted the sanctity of the noble goal of the nation set in 1949. At that time there was a lot of controversy as to whether the Preamble, setting the objective of the Constitution in 1949 could be amended without scratching the Constitution itself. Can one say that the words added in 1976 were the objectives set by the nation in 1949? The Govt. led by Indira Gandhi had got the Constitution extensively amended in the Parliament. Some very basic features also were amended. For example the tenure of the Lok Sabha was made 6 years from 5 years. After the Congress, including Indira Gandhi personally, was miserably defeated in 1977, the successor Janata Party Govt. led by Morarji Desai restored the original provisions of the Constitution except the Preamble. The original Preamble could not be restored as amendments to the Constitution require two-thirds majority in the Parliament which the Janata Party did not have. The Congress party stubbornly refused to support amendment for restoring the Preamble to its original form although, sensing the mood of the nation, it had to support restoration of the other provisions of the Constitution.)

Coming back to giving credit for framing our Constitution, we can thus see that it was the result of the collaborative effort of all the Members of the Constituent Assembly and not of any single individual. A Constitution cannot be a book of fiction, non-fiction or epic poem, authored by a single individual. Indeed, the less original a Constitution, the better! A Constitution is an accumulative document in that each new Constitution benefits from the historical legacy of all the other Constitutions in the world adopted before it.

On preparing the draft of the Indian Constitution, it is worthwhile to recall that on the 25^th November, 1949, a day before the Constitution was adopted, Dr. Ambedkar told the Constituent Assembly, “… the credit that is given to me does not really belong to me.” He unreservedly praised B N Rau and S N Mukherjee, for compiling and collating the Reports of the Committees and preparing the draft of the proposed Constitution for being considered by the Constituent Assembly.

Flower Show 4

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Sleep-walking at Dawn

The following is an article of mine an abridged version of which was published in The Shreyas, the bi-monthly House Magazine of Canara Bank in its August-September, 1997 issue.

Recently, my doctor-friend suggested that since I had already crossed over to the wrong side of forties quite a few moons ago, I must start the practice of morning-walk. She went on to deliver a well-prepared discourse on the hundred benefits of morning-walk. Sine quite a few years, I had been toying with the idea of undertaking morning-walk but like my many other lofty plans, I used to postpone it to ‘tomorrow’ or ‘the next month’. So impressive was her presentation and so persuasive was her friendly talk that I was hooked to the idea and immediately became a convert.

However, there was a small problem. I do not get good sleep at night. The worries, big and small, real or imaginary, relating to my work in the Bank or my domestic life, buried under the pressure of work which remain asleep during the day, wake up, get a field day after I hit the bed and try to sleep. So, I used to love that extra hour in bed at dawn, catching up with the lost sleep.

I saw a health ad saying, “If you want to breathe fresh air, start early; otherwise pollutants will start polluting the air.” The ad reminded me of my school-teacher who always insisted that whatever work was on hand, we should confront and conquer it early. “The early bird gets the worm.”, he used to say. One day, one of my class-mates asked him, “What about the poor worm, Sir? He gets eaten for coming out early!” Pat came the reply, “The choice is yours, to become a man or a worm!”

I put forth my problem before the wife, whom I treat as my friend, philosopher (Her subject in the University was Philosophy.) and (mis)guide. She took a deep breath, took one full second to contemplate over my problem, closed her once-beautiful eyes and came out with a very wise solution: “Why don’t you try to sleep-walk so that you can combine both your sleep and your exercise? Thereby, you can both eat your cake and have it too! Already, you do a lot of sleep-talk which disturbs my sleep. From sleep-talk, it will not be difficult to move over to sleep-walk.”, she said, and then after a small pause, added,” Only a ‘t’ is to be replaced by a ‘w’.”

In any case, I got over the hurdle, sacrificed that comfortable hour in bed in the mornings and started morning-walk. The experience was revealing. I realised how much I was missing.

In my school-days, I had read the poem ‘Leisure’ by W H Davis which runs like this:

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

While walking, I do not have the time to stand and stare at the many beautiful things that catch my attention but I do stare at them while passing by. This arouses in my mind a very pleasant feeling. I stare at the grand Gulmohar tree in full bloom as if wearing a red cap or as if in flames. I stare at the magnificent ducks gracefully gliding over water.

Every morning, I see a large number of children walking or cycling to school wearing bright smiles and a radiance on their faces. Occasionally, I also see a child with a grumpy face. Perhaps the poor fellow wanted to have a little extra sleep which pleasure the unsympathetic mother denied him. Or possibly, he did not like to face the hard task master teacher who had loaded him with home-work which the little one could not finish.

Observing the other morning walkers is quite a fun. There are Slow Walkers and Fast Walkers, There are Early Starters and Late Starters. There is a friend of mine whose house is situated at a spot which most of the morning walkers pass by. He gets up at dawn sits in his verandah in an easy chair and keeps a close watch on the road. He derives a vicarious pleasure of walking by watching the walkers. He has identified two walkers, one who is always the first to cross his house and the other, always the last. He has nick-named the first as Engine and the second, as Guard Van, as in a train!

As in the path of life, I do not relish walking alone. When I see a fellow walker, I either speed up or slow down to catch up (or down) with him (never a ‘her’). One day I saw a Real Fast Walker. With all my effort, I could not keep pace with him. I had to literally run to keep up with him. When I narrated this experience before the wife, she retorted, “Serves you right: remember when we go for shopping and you gallop like a horse and I trail behind you?” “Like an elephant.” I said to myself secretly.

One day I noticed a new walker. One thing stood out about him. There was a good crop of hair on his upper lip. It was his long and thick up-turned moustache. The two matching sideburns on either side of his face completed a macho image.For a few days, we crossed each other, without him taking any notice of me. Later, our eyes met and immediately he turned his, away. I kept on looking at him each day, enjoying the rhythmic movement of the ends of his moustache up and down in tandem with his footfalls. His ferocious face continued to wear a forbidding look. It appeared as if he had not smiled any time ever in life. Then I took the plunge; I smiled at him. His mouth expanded a little on the sides, a faint smile appeared on his lips and his moustache quivered a little but he recovered quickly, wiped off the emerging smile and moved away. I decided not to give up. I repeated my smile every morning. The twittering moustache twittered a little more each time. Then one day his defence fell and a full smile appeared on his face. My persistence paid off!, :)))))) We became friends very fast. He was a retired Lt. General of the Army. Later, I secured for my Bank, a Term Deposit of Rs. 10 Lakh from him.:)))))

I am a God-fearing man but somehow I do not get myself to visit temples. I developed friendship with another walker who stops at each temple and shrine, pays obeisance and then moves on. Out of politeness, I started stopping at the temples, waited for him to finish and then we resumed our walk together. One day, I discovered that the temple-music played at early mornings had a very soothing and sublime effect on my tense nerves. My days became less tiring. So I lingered on, to absorb the music, and now it is the turn of my friend to wait for me.

One persistent complaint of the wife was that I used to forget to drop her letters which she gave me for posting while on the way to the Bank. (Those were the days when we had not heard of e-mail or mobile phones and the use of telephones was not so wide–spread.) The letters lay in my bag or on my table at the Bank and I used to forget to give those to the peon for posting. She used to complain that I deliberately delayed posting her letters, particularly those addressed to her mother. Many times I used to lie to her that I had posted her letters when, in fact, those were lying safe in my table-drawer at the Bank. This irritant and cause for marital discord disappeared after I started morning walk. Every morning, I pass by the Post Office and all her letters are posted promptly.

In the early days of my walk, I used to collect wild flowers blooming by the road-side and present them to the wife. In the beginning, she used to accept them with a broad smile and put them in her hair. Later she started accepting them with a little condescension but still later refused even to look at them. So I started giving them to the daughter who put them in the flower-vase. After some days, she also got tired of it and the flowers lay scattered in the house. :((((((((((( Then I came across a quotable quote saying, ”Do not wait to collect flowers; more flowers will come by on the path of your progress.” And then I stopped doing it.

I frequently see a couple in their late sixties, walking unhurriedly, talking their way. The gentleman deliberately walks at a slow pace in order not to leave the lady behind. Their visages reflect contentment and happiness.

POST-SCRIPT (2012)

After retirement, I have found out that gardening is a better option than sleep-walking. Now, I have both the time and the inclination for it. Sweating it out for 2 hours in the morning and another one in the evening is not bad for health. And as a bonus, I have got back my hour at dawn to laze in bed! Now, I talk to my flowers instead of to fellow-walkers.

The Female Srikrishna

It was a slightly different version of an episode in the Mahabharat. There was the incessant rain. The gushing waters of the Yamuna deterred all but the brave or the very desperate.

Our Vasudev was carrying his child across the gurgling water. And the two were protected from the torrential rain by the black multi-hooded Vasuki in the form of an umbrella. The only difference was that the child being carried was a girl.

It was early morning. The pouring rain showed no sign of letting up. The footpath had turned into a rivulet with water flowing down at tearing speed. The school-bus was expected any moment. And the child couldn’t possibly risk spoiling the mirror-polish of her shoes by wading through muddy water. Dirty shoes would invite stern action by her merciless class teacher Miss Spic-and-spanwala.

The scheduled arrival of the bus was drawing nearer and nearer. The restlessness of the girl was growing further and further. In this trying moment what could a loving father do? He tucked up his dhoti which he was wearing like a lungi and asked the child to hold aloft the umbrella. In one clear sweep he lifted up the child, plunged into the water, crossed it and swiftly deposited her on the other side of the stream!

There was an anti-climax. This modern-day Vasudev lost one of his slippers. When he put a foot in water and lifted it to take the next step, the foot was bare! He hurriedly looked around for a floating slipper but there was no sign of it anywhere. The school-bus was now approaching its appointed stop; the child was getting impatient. So, without bothering about the slipper, the half-shod father soldiered on to reach the daughter to the bus stop. She boarded it in the nick of time.

Having accomplished the task, the father resumed his mission of searching for the missing slipper. He followed the current, examining every object floating along, with a hawkish eye.

Aha! He spotted the truant object not far off.

But his happiness was short-lived. The slipper belonged to a different pair. :(((((((

The desperate fellow trudged further down the road-turned rivulet and finally reached the mouth of the big covered drain into which the water was flowing. No luck. He cast an accusing look at the drain and started the return journey, eyes fixed on all floating objects. Still no luck. He reached home, still a slipper short. Letting out a sigh over his recent loss, he opened the gate and threw away the other slipper to the stream. Before shutting the gate, he cast a half-hearted look at the spot where he had lost the slipper.

Lo and behold! The elusive slipper was propping its tip over the gushing water at the very same spot!!! It had got firmly embedded in the underlying mud, by the combined weight of father and daughter. His face brightened. His smile was perhaps as wide as that of Alexander, the Great, after one of his victories. Retrieving the slipper, he ran down the stream to collect the other one he had thrown away and returned home. He stepped into the house and breathlessly poured out the story of his triumph over the unsympathetic and cruel nature before the lady of the house. But the LOH was no Devaki. Instead of congratulating her lord and master, she broke into a derisive and uncontrolled laughter. :(((((((((((

More was in store for our hero. He went to his Bank as usual. When he came home for lunch, the daughter had already returned from school. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the house, she said in a hurt voice, “Papa, how could you?” Then she said with an air of finality, ”From now on, never accompany me to the school-bus.” In the morning, her friends had seen it all from the bus-window!

Could a 14-year girl accept the role of 4-hour old baby-boy Krishna, that too against the glare, stare and giggle of her friends and school-mates?

But this blogger had no choice; the role of Vasudev was thrust on him by circumstance.

But look at the upside! Imagine the great Vasudev of Mahabharat losing and searching for one of his wooden clogs in the waters of the Yamuna!!!

Note:

This experience of mine was published in the ‘Punchline’ feature of The Sunday Economic Times of 21.12.1997

ADDENDUM

I find a lot of similarities between the pranks played by Balakrishna (the Child Krishna) and the antics of Dennis in the cartoon strip Dennis, the Menace by Hank Ketcham. Often Krishna's foster mother Yashoda would punish Krishna for his naughty pranks and Dennis's mother would punish him by making him sit facing the wall in the corner. But neither of the mothers can imagine her life without the pranks of the child. In one strip, fed up by the antics and the constant chattering of Dennis, his mother sternly asks him to stop talking as she wants some "peace and quiet". Then Dennis completely becomes silent. After a while, she can take it no longer. She hogs him tightly and says, "There has been too much peace; it has been too quiet!"

Divided By A Common Language

When I type ‘colour’, ‘favour’, ‘programme’ or ‘practise’, my computer underlines these words in red, indicating that the spellings used by me are wrong. When I type ‘recognise’ ‘apologise’, or ‘offence’, sometimes the computer on its own, corrects these to ‘recognize’, ‘apologize’ and ‘offense’. As most of us know, in American English, these words are spelt as ‘color’, ‘favor’, ‘program’, ‘practice’. And my computer says that the word 'spelt' is to be spelt as 'spelled'!

It was George Bernard Shaw who had said that England and America are two countries divided by a common language. The basic difference between Ameringlish and Queen’s English (or King’s English, depending on whether the reigning Sovereign in Britain is a female or male) is that the American spellings are more practical and are more in tune with how a word is pronounced. This makes spellings easier to remember and saves time and space in e-mails, newspaper columns and other modes of communications, even if it irks purists. The American English guillotines extra letters in words like ‘programme’ and ‘travelling’ and prefers ‘program’ and ‘traveling’.

The differences are not confined to spellings. There are many other words and figures of speech in Ameringlish which appear bizarre to a person familiar with Queen’s English. Autumn is ‘fall’; lorry is ‘truck’ and trousers is ‘pants’ ( a shortened form of ‘pantaloons’). Football is ‘soccer’; chemist (medicine-shop’) is ‘druggist’; petrol is ‘gas’; taxi is ‘cab’; road crossing is ‘crossroads’ and tick is ‘check’.

Here are some other American equivalents of English words:

Biscuit-cookies, insect-bug, cheque-check, currency note-bill, car-automobile, bonnet-hood, pavement-side walk, railway-rail road, fly over-over pass, ground floor- first floor, fries-chips, potato chips- potato crisps, soft drink-fizzy drink, lift-elevator, flat-apartment, class (school year)-grade, aeroplane-airplane, bill-check,blue-eyed boy-fair-eyed boy, dust bin-garbage can/trash can, funny bone-crazy bone.

The word 'first floor' referring to ground floor would be more soothing to us Indians. The term 'level I' is more neutral and appears to be better.

Americans ‘speak with’ rather than ‘speak to’. To the question 'How are you?', Americans reply, ‘I am good.’ and not ‘I am fine.’ Often Americans dislike propositions and say, “Let’s meet Monday” and turn nouns into verb (impact-impacts).

Recently, business, travel, Internet and television have brought the old and the ‘new’ world closer and have blurred language-differences. The American style has triumphed over the traditional English spellings and figures of speech. One of the apparent reasons is that the U S of A has become the sole super power in world politics and economy. In the process, English is becoming ‘Globish’.

TAIL PIECE

When television came to India, it was a government enterprise. In tune with the Sanskritised –and very apt- name ‘Akashvani ( literally 'Voice From the Sky' and officially, 'All India Radio') it was named ‘Door Darshan’ (literally meaning ‘view from a distance’). This reminds one of the word ‘doorbhash’ (talk from a distance), the Hindi word for ‘telephone’. There was no problem as long it was the only channel. When Indian air waves opened up and several privately-owned channels appeared, the generic Hindi term ‘door darshan” became a Proper Noun and the word ‘television’ became an adopted Common Noun in Indian languages!. Practically, there is no longer a Hindi equivalent of the English word ‘television’! 2: Francophones asked, "Why do Americans speak English?" The British would like to omit the first word and modify the question to: Do Americans speak English?

A Banker's Mantra

It was the Chinese philosopher Confucius who had said:

You ask credit;
I not give;
You get mad.

I give credit,
You not pay;
I get mad.

Better you get mad!

Most bankers (May our tribe flourish!) take this very sane advice as their mantra. Letting the other person to get mad rather than oneself getting angry is as sage an advice as the saying, ‘Tension leneka nanhi, deneka hai’. ( Don’t have tension; if at all, it is to be given!!!)

The American humourist Mark Twain defined a banker as a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining but wants it back the minute it begins to rain!

Twain may be correct to an extent but one must understand a banker’s plight. He has no money on his own; he makes money out of other people’s money. He is the custodian of other people’s money. He lends one person’s money to some other person in trust. He knows that if a depositor wants his money back, there will still be others who will deposit their money with him and he repays the earlier depositor with the money of the new depositor. He knows that all his depositors will not ask for their money back at the same time. Luckily for the banker, no depositor asks, or can ask, for the same currency notes or the same coins which were deposited by him with the banker. The banker has to return only an equal amount.

If a depositor has to get back the same currency notes or coins, it will not be banking; it will be ‘safe custody’, which is a subsidiary service provided by a banker under which system, a banker receives sealed packets containing valuables for safe-keeping, for a nominal charge.

A banker trusts that when his borrower has earned sufficiently by using the money borrowed, he (the borrower) will return the money with interest. Thus a banker is like juggler. Like a juggler, he throws up hats (lends money) and catches the falling hats thrown up earlier. Like the circle of flying hats, the cycle of money moves round and round. The interest charged by a banker is a little more than what he/she pays and he/she makes his/her dal-roti out of the difference between these two amounts. The poor fellow (banker) manages his money-shop by the inflow and outflow of money.

Another name of Laxmi, the Goddess of wealth, is Chanchala – the eternally moving, never staying in one place. Like Chanchala, money never stays in one person’s hands; it moves and changes hands. Water, when not moving, becomes stagnant, stale and unfit for use . Like water, money remains fresh - and helps one to make more money - only when it is on the move.

At the railway station or the post office, some times another person, who has not brought his pen and needs one to fill up forms, asks for our pen. Many times and wherever feasible, we give him/her only the writing part, retaining the cap of the pen with us. We watch that person while he writes and after writing, if he does not return the pen, we ask for the pen back. The same is the fate of the banker. Coming to Mark Twain's banker's depositor's umbrella, if you borrow the umbrella and do not handle it properly, or forget to return it, the banker has to ask for it back. And if the umbrella is not used properly or is mishandled, it will get damaged and lost - lost not only to the banker but also to the borrower as well as the owner.

Human psychology is such that a borrower may - and is not unlikely to - forget to return the borrowed money but a creditor never forgets it, nor can he afford to forget while a borrower can merrily and blithely do that!

TAIL PIECE

Shakespeare has famously said, “Neither a lender nor a borrower be.” But if everybody follows this principle, what will be the fate of the poor banker?

A Letter From Daughter II

On completing her Intermediate (the so-called Plus Two) Course in a school in India, Daughter II won a scholarship by Singapore Airlines to study Engineering in Singapore. One of the terms of the scholarship was that after completing her studies, she would have to work for a Singapore-based company for 6 years. As I said in an earlier post, I had maintained 2 files titled ‘Letters From A Daughter to Her Father’ and ‘Letters From A Father to His Daughter’, respectively. Here is a letter preserved in the first file. It was an e-mail sent soon after she completed her studies, a month short of 10 years ago.

Monday, May 06, 2002, 7.49 pm

Dear Bapa and Mama,

I finally finished the last set of my exams and suddenly I am plunged into this new world which requires a higher degree of independence than was expected of me when I joined a University in another country. I can now easily distinguish the three phases in my life so far. One, when I was at home, and my only responsibilities were my studies, because I had home to run to if I faced any problem. I knew there was hot steaming food waiting for me when I came home from school. I scarcely bothered if I did anything to deserve the meal that was granted to me. Every aspect of life was taken care of by you and Mama, and I had no worries about what I was going to eat the next day or where I was going to sleep.

Then came Singapore, and abruptly the higher degree of independence and expectations struck me. Suddenly, I had to keep account of the money I had. I had to make sure I fulfilled all conditions of being a legal entity in a foreign country. I had to remember to eat my meal at times. I had to remember to wash my clothes and fold them neatly. I had to remember to run and take the clothes off the drying line if it rained! I had to remember to lock my room when I was going out. I had to remember to manage my bank account. I had to remember to fill up my bottle of drinking water. I had to remember that it was time to change the bed-sheets and pillow-covers. But one good thing was, we were all together, all my friends, and we reminded each other and did things together. I knew it was time for lunch because I saw others eating. There was this connection between us friends that made sure that we were all managing life o.k.

And now the third phase. I am going to graduate. I have a job now. I have to hunt for an apartment to stay in. I have to apply for Permanent Residence, I have to pack all my things and move them to my new place. I have to buy utensils and things to keep in fridge. I have to wrap up all graduation formalities with the Ministry of Education. I shall be working in a place where I will make a contribution, where the things I do will make difference. At University, I was responsible only for my activities; now I shall be responsible for my company. I am not just a student anymore. Suddenly, I feel so grown up. Two days back, it was my farewell function for my batch. I was voted the 'most creative person' in my batch, and also the 'girl with the best sense of humour'. I had juniors coming and telling me they will genuinely miss me. People wrote in my autograph book that I was the most amazing senior they had. Four years of life at NTU... it feels like long, long time, but I feel proud as I believe I have done good, I have managed my life quite well. I have been happy and I have been strong.

Today, I went to view a few houses. I shall be looking at a few more before deciding. I have a lot of plans about my home and how I shall decorate it. It is going to be different from my hostel-room. I won’t have rules telling me exactly what I can have and what I can’t. My home will be what I make it, it won’t be just another room that looks exactly like the room of a zillion other hostelites. I am excited about the responsibility.

I want you to plan and come here and see how I have settled. I want both of you to visit me soon.

***

I was struck by the capacity for introspection by a 22-year old.

TAIL PIECE

Whose property is a letter? The sender’s or the addressee’s?

In the Banking System, a Bank Draft remains a property of the purchaser as long as it is in the possession of its purchaser. The moment the purchaser dispatches it to the payee, it becomes legally the property of the payee and the purchaser loses the right of ownership over the amount! This is the position even if the Draft is lost in transit or the payee does not encash it:)))))))))))))))))