While studying in Cambridge University on a scholarship in the mid 1950s, money was the only real problem for Manmohan Singh and there were times when he had to skip meals or live on a sixpence bar of Cadbury’s chocolate, according to his daughter Daman Singh.
Manmohan Singh earned a First Class Honours (Tripos) degree in Economics in 1957 from University of Cambridge.
Daughter Daman Singh came out with a book “Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan”, published by HarperCollins in 2014, to tell the “story of her parents”.
She also mentioned that her father often spoke about his early years, of the hard life in the village as well as the charm of a simpler existence. Singh was born in Gah in Punjab province’s western region, which now falls in Pakistan.
Daman Singh recalled that when once her sister Kiki asked Singh if he wishes to go back to Gah, he replied mildly, “No, not really. That is where my grandfather was killed.” Writing about her father’s days at Cambridge, Daman said money was the only real problem that bothered him as his tuition and living expenses came to about 600 pounds a year while the Punjab University scholarship gave him about 160 pounds.
“For the rest he had to depend on his father. Manmohan was careful to live very stingily. Subsidized meals in the dining hall were relatively cheap at two shillings sixpence. He never ate out, and seldom indulged in beer or wine,” she wrote.
Yet he would be in crisis if money from home fell short or did not arrive in time. “When this happened, he skipped meals or got by on a sixpence bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. He would never borrow money his entire life, but this was when he came closest to doing so. The only person he could think of turning to was Madan (close friend Madan Lal Sudan),” the book said.
After the results of the first-year Tripos examination were declared and Singh came first, he wrote to Madan Lal asking not to send him any money from then on.
“I think I will get some prize worth about 20 pounds and if I press I might get an Exhibition (an allowance or scholarship), but I am not so greedy. I prefer to wait till next year,” Daman Singh wrote.
Daman also mentioned how her father used to sing at family get-togethers and picnics. “Whenever we went on a picnic, people used to sing. He knew a couple of songs. He sang ‘Lagta nahin hai ji mera’ and Amrita Pritam’s poem ‘Aakhan Waris Shah noon, kitey kabran vichon bol’,” she wrote.
“Aakhan Waris Shah noon…” is about Partition and Amrita Pritam invokes Waris Shah to come and write about what happened to Punjab.
“Lagta nahin” is the poem penned by last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar when he was in exile in Rangoon, where he later died.
According to Daman Singh, her father had a good sense of humour.
“This was evident when he was with friends, even if they were economists. It was comforting to know that he could laugh and crack jokes as well. With us, he rarely did either.” He also liked to give nicknames to people.
“Unknown to them, one of our uncles was ‘John Babu’, another was ‘Jewel Babu’, and a third – to commemorate his pointed turban – was ‘Chunj Waley’. My mother was ‘Gurudev’, and the three of us were ‘Kick’, ‘Little Noan’ and ‘Little Ram’. Some of the other names he coined were less charitable,” Daman Singh wrote.
Daman Singh gave their pet dog Penu a string of affectionate names such as ‘Nut Babu’, ‘Nutter’ and ‘Douse Fellow’ and even composed little jingles around them.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)