World community: Vasudev Kutumbakam. This world is the family of the creator. Everybody living on this planet has all the freedom for the fullest exercise of his talents and for the pursuit of his cherished dreams. All members of the family are bound together with bonds of love, affection and concern for each other. To-day the vested interests, greed, envy, ego, socio-economic conditions and religious prejudices have scratched a number of cuts and holes in the community fabric, leading to all types of conflicts, almost everywhere. After all, what does a common man normally need, except that, he should have some elbow space and sufficient opportunities for work and should be allowed to live in peace and harmony with everybody. This may be a fanciful dream or a wild concept, but, that forms the roots and basic culture of our good old families and if it can be nurtured, it has the potential for ushering in, an era of safety, security and prosperity for all.
Our roots: The roots of our family begin with our forefathers, whom, we have not seen and nothing is known about their life, toils and tears. However, we always have a hankering to know about our roots and the life and times of our forefathers and to draw some reinforcement and inspiration from their struggles and achievements. Our family had its roots in Jisola, a small village in Muzaffarnagar District of U.P. The family were zamindars of the area and had a magnificent building in the village for living and were known in the village as mahalwalas.
Our Family Line up: Sometimes, at the turn of the twentieth century, ours was a family of six cousins, who were our elders. They were Rai Sahib Kanahiya Lal son of Ganeshi Lal, Kundan Lal and Bishambhar Lal, sons of Nathi Singh, Basant Lal, Ratan Lal son of Ranjit Singh and Brijbhushan Lal son of Laxmi Sahai. Rai Sahib Kanahiya Lal was the eldest and our father Brijbhushan Lal was the youngest. They were living in different states, in different cities and had families of their own, but, they were bound together, intimately, with family ties of love, affection and concern for each other. All invitations for festive occasions, marriages and ceremonies of their children used to be issued jointly in the names of all six cousins and they happily shared the joys, trials and tribulations of the family during those times.
Rai Sahib Kanahiya Lal: Rai Sahib Kanhiya Lal was the only son of Ganeshi Lal. Rai Sahib Kanahiya Lal was a distinguished citizen of Roorkee. Shyam Lal was the only son of Rai Sahib Kanhiya Lal. Shyam Lal did not have any male child and therefore, he adopted Surendra, the son of his daughter Bimla. Surendra had two sons Atul and Mohit. Atul was working with State Bank of India as Chief Manager and Mohit is on a management job in Delhi with Mahendra and Mahendra after retirement from Indian Air Force as Wing Commander.
Kundan Lal: Kundan Lal was the elder son of Nathi Singh. Kundan Lal had two sons: Manohar and Purshottam ( Babu ). Both of them were settled at Delhi. Manohar had a retail shop of fabrics at Dariyagunj in Delhi and Purshottam was working on construction jobs as a junior engineer in Central PWD at Delhi.
Bishambhar Lal: Bishambhar Lal was the younger son of Nathi Singh. Bishambhar Lal had three sons: Brijlal, Jia Lal and Dr Bishan Lal. Brij Lal completed an overseer’s certificate course from Thomason College of Civil Engineering Roorkee and worked throughout his life in UP Irrigation Department, initially as an overseer and subsequently, as an assistant engineer. Brij Lal did not have any child. He adopted Ashok the eldest son of his brother Jia Lal and Avinash the eldest child of his brother Bishan Lal. Jia Lal had five sons: Ashok, Akhil, Subhash, Ajay and Ashwini. Jia Lal started work from very modest beginnings, but, was responsible for setting up a flourishing industrial business at Meerut. All his sons and grandsons are engaged in that business. Dr Bishan Lal was a geologist and served the Government of Rajasthan as a senior Hydro-Geologist. He had three sons: Avinash, Anurag and Atul.
Basant Lal: Basant Lal had three sons: Sunderlal, Ram Narain and Parmatma Swarup. Initially, Sunderlal had a shop of motor parts in Sadar Bazar of Meerut. Subsequently, he started a bakery and confectionary shop. Alpha bread promoted by him, was first well known bakery brand of Meerut at that time. Sunderlal had two sons. Both are involved in parental business at Meerut. Ram Narain had one son: Chela Ram. Initially, Ram Narain was running the motor parts retail shop at Meerut with his brother Sunder Lal. Subsequently, he moved to Agra during the second world war period and set up a flourishing paints business there. Chela Ram was the only son of Ram Narain. He was a talented child and helped his father in business. Parmatma Swarup was settled at Agra and was working as superintendant in the engineering section of Agra Municipal Council.
Ratan Lal: Ratanlal was the only son of Ranjit Singh. Ratan Lal had one son and two daughters. The son of Ratan Lal was Sohan Lal. Sohan Lal had only one daughter Kamla, who was married to Lt Colonel Devki Nandan Gupta. Lt Col Gupta was working as a surgeon in the Armed Services Medical Corps. They had three sons Rajeev, Sanjeev and Sanjay and a daughter Kumkum. Kumkum is married to Ashok and is settled in Los Angeles in USA with their daughters Renu, Rachna and Rakhi. The two daughters of Ratan Lal were Rajeshwari and Shakuntala. Rajeshwari had three sons: Jagdish, Ramesh and Ashok. She also had five daughters: Shanti, Sarla, Krishna, Saroj and Shashi. Shakuntala had one son: Chandra Gupta. She subsequently adopted Shashi, the youngest daughter of her sister Rajeshwari. Chandra Gupta was a talented child. He was the topper of the Judicial Service recruitment examination of Uttar Pradesh. He worked as munsif in Uttar Pradesh for some years. Thereafter, he rose to the rank of Civil and Sessions Judge of Mathura.
Brijbhushan Lal: Brijbhushan Lal was the only son of our grandfather Laxmi Sahai. Kasturi was the younger sister of our father and the only daughter of our grandfather. She was physically handicapped, but was otherwise very affectionate and lively. She used to visit us at Bundi in Rajasthan quite frequently and we always had fond memories of her visits. She was married to Lila Dhar who was working as a time keeper in railways. Our bua Kasturi had only one daughter named Prem. Prem was married to Om Prakash, who was working as office superintendent in military engineering services. They had one son named Shravan. He was settled at Dehradun.