My Grandfather
 
Vineet Dewan's world of knowledge & excitement

My Grandfather :  My grandfather(late) Sh. R.M. Dewan was a very nice human being and a very humble person.  (This is no eulogy.  I am telling you based on my experience and what I hear from lot many of those who knew him quite well).

He was very much inclined towards studies and for this reason he left all his property in his native village.  He was a scholar in Persian language which I am told was a real great achievement as there were hardly two more of such people in entire country at that time.

He was associated with the Ramjas Foundation which runs a number of schools and colleges in Delhi.  He taught in Ramjas Schools.  Because of his extreme gentle nature, he is still remembered by most of his colleagues and students.

My grandfather used to wear the turban (safa) which probably was a dress influenced by those whose one of the main language was Urdu.  Needless to say that he was very good at Urdu language.  I have reason to believe that his main language was Urdu though his mother tongue was Hindi.

My Memories of my grandfather :  I remember that when I was a kid going to the primary school, I used to take daily pocket money from my grandfather.  He was very fair to all of us (my brother, sisters and cousins).  He used to make a note of the pocket money he gave to us in his small diary so that we may not 'extract' money more than once from him.  Of course I tried doing that many a times but without much success.

He was fond of sweets (especially the milk/mawa sweets).  Whenever he used to bring the mawa home for my mother to make some sweets for him, I invariably, used to eat a lot of mawa without even waiting for the sweets to be made from that.  Even now after nearly two decades of those incidents, I relish the mawa quite a lot and whenever I eat it like that, I seldom remember of my grandfather.

I still remember very clearly of the time when he died of a series of medical complications and when his body was lying in a room for the last offerings by friends and relatives.  Everyone of us were expected to go to the room to have a last glance at him and touch his feet as a mark of respect.

Before I actually entered the room, I had never realised the fact that someone who was so dear to us was going away from us for ever.  When I entered the room, there he was, lying very quitely covered and tightly secured within a white sheet.  That was probably the first time I had seen a dead body from such a close distance and also that was the first time when I realised what 'death' is.

I was completely dumbfounded and just could not take my eyes off him.  I took the support of the wall behind me and kept staring at him.  It is difficult to describe the feelings at that moment but I was putting so much of pressure on the wall as if I meant like getting lost into the wall.

It is hard to describe the event and even when I am trying to put it here, my hands are having a different feeling. They seem to be trembling.  My eyes are moist  and draining but, even today, I can see him very clearly in that room.

I could not move myself from that position.  I was too young that time to have the emotions but that was something really not the case.  With all the elders around in grief, I was too insignificant to be taken notice of.  But why had he to go away from all of us?  When he left all of us, I could hardly have realised that the inevitable had already happened.

Now I think of those times when I used to disturb him so much over petty things such as 'pocket money' for the day, some sweets etc.  He never got agitated over any of my or any other kids' irritating child plays.  So cool was his temprament.

May God rest his soul in peace and also give all of us (the family members) strength & guidance to put hard work with true honesty and integrity as per the way shown by him.