“Abode in Amritsar”

I read the article on Tahmi Bhandari (née Boga) ("Abode in Amritsar,” Parsiana, March 21, 2018) with great pleasure. She studied under my father Prof N. C. Daruwalla, a well-known professor of English. Sir Sundar Singh Majithia came all the way to Kolhapur in the 1920s to take my father to Amritsar where he was the principal of the Khalsa College.
In 1952 at the age of 15 when I had just joined Government College in Ludhiana, I took a letter from my father and went and stayed in Boga’s lovely bungalow for three days to watch the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) against North zone match. I was cricket mad. Lala Amarnath scored 98 not out and thus came back into the Indian team. Swaranjit Singh Butt scored 25. The Gilchrist episode started in this match, and he was sent back to the West Indies later.
Bhandari was a very sophisticated lady. Her brother Rustam Boga had an ice factory, and played host to so many Parsis travelling between India and Pakistan through Punjab. When I visited Punjab in 1978 (I was looking after both Kashmir and Punjab on behalf of the Cabinet Secretariat) Rustam took me to the Parsi cemetery and pointed out the graves of my siblings who had died in their infancy. Boga looked after all the Parsi traffic to Pakistan and back that passed through Amritsar and Wagah. May his soul rest in peace.
KEKI DARUWALLA
kekikhurshid@gmail.com