The doctors gave him different medicines but the Guru closed his account book. Half-an-hour later he sat up and looked around as if he wanted something. He opened his mouth very wide as if he was yawning and with a gasp sank back on his pillow and stopped breathing. My mother closed his eyes with her hands and wailed the lament for the dead: ‘My light is the name of the one Lord; its oil is sorrow.’

The news quickly spread to the town. Within an hour it seemed as if the entire population of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims had come to share our grief. Professional women mourners came in groups beating their breasts and singing litanies in praise of the departed. That afternoon his cortege decorated with coloured strips of paper and balloons was led by the town band followed by over 2000 mourners. Mothers made their children walk under the bier so that they could live as long as he. In our family it was customary not to mourn the death of an old person but celebrate it as release from the world’s bondage. My father was sixty-five when he died.

I stayed with my brother for the ten days of mourning and then returned to Delhi with my wife and children. A few months later my wife bore our last child, a son. And a few months after that I bought a secondhand car, an Oldsmobile, from an English engineer who was due to return to England in a few weeks. Since he had helped me secure contracts, I gave him the price of a new car for his old one. He more than compensated me by passing all my inflated bills.

I did not know how to drive. I hired a Muslim chauffeur who had a teaching licence to teach me as he drove me to work. I stuck to my resolve that I would drive myself to the Qutub Minar in my own car.

It took me a month to learn how to drive. Being an honorary magistrate I got a driving licence without having to pass a driving test. The great day came. I told my family that we would have a picnic at the Qutub Minar the following Sunday. My wife made great preparations and filled baskets of parathas stuffed with potatoes and fruits. There was enough to feed twenty people. When I took the wheel, we were nearly a dozen in the car. The driver cranked the handle (there were no self-starters those days) and the automobile throbbed into life. My wife and children and maidservant crammed into the rear seat. My head clerk and chauffeur were in the front with me. Four servants, (two on either side) stood on the footboards of the car. We started off with a loud cry of Sat Sri Akal. One servant standing beside me blew the bulb horn all the way. We passed by Safdar Jang tomb and hundreds of other ancient buildings strewn about the wilderness near Yusuf Sarai and Hauz Khas. And suddenly the Qutub Minar came into view and everyone shouted, ‘Look, there’s the Qutub Minar!’