This pensioner’s annual tribute: An ad on Shastri

NEW DELHI: Every year as September ends, PN Malhotra withdraws money from his pension fund and makes a round of newspaper offices in the city to get an advertisement published. It’s not about a birth or a demise in the family. Nor is it about a job opening — or even about anything related to him. For a decade now, the 70-year-old inserts a remembrance in the newspapers about India’s second prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri on his birthday on October 2. And at home in Pitampura that day, Malhotra assembles his brood around the small family shrine and together pray before a portrait of Shastri.A self-confessed “devotee of Shastriji”, Malhotra was enamoured of the humble politician the day he saw him speaking from the ramparts of Red Fort. “The humility and grace that he showed were his most attractive qualities,” recalled Malhotra, who was a lad of 18 that day in 1965. “Many agreed that Shastriji was a calm and composed person but thought that he was a weak man. The way we defeated Pakistan in the 1965 war under him proved he was very strong.”Malhotra, who retired as an assistant commissioner of police in 2007, used whatever time he could spare in a time-starved police officer’s life to learn more about his idol. On Monday, the visibly moved septuagenarian remembered, “I perused almost every book written on Shastriji. I know most of the details about his life as recorded by historians and those who cherished the memory of that great soul.”He was particularly impressed by Shastri resigning from his post as railway minister after a train accident. “This showed his strong sense of justice and truth and accountability, and made me a strong believer in his ideals,” he said. Even when Malhotra was laden with VIP duties, especially on Independence Day and Republic Day, the police officer would make time to “visit Shastriji’s memorial and prostate myself before his pictures”.After his retirement, Malhotra decided to spread the word of Shastri when he realised, on surveying over a hundred people, including schoolchildren, that not many knew much about the former PM and his contribution to the country. He began putting up hoardings to commemorate his memory, reiterating the qualities of the man who put India’s farmers and soldiers on a high pedestal with his Jai Jawan Jai Kisan slogan. “But many people thought that I was standing for elections, so I decided to publish advertisements in newspapers,” explained Shastri of his annual rite.In the advertisement that appeared in TOI on Monday, Malhotra mentioned Shastri’s mother, Ram Dulari Devi, to pay his respect to a woman who gave birth to the ‘Yug Purush’.The former police officer admitted that his adverts are directed at the government in ire at having “forgotten about that great man and only selecting a few icons of the past like members of the Nehru-Gandhi family or now focusing solely on Modi”.The Shastri devotee, however, expressed elation at a few newspapers publishing Shastri’s pictures and articles about his greatness. Malhotra believes that in contemporary times, “our leaders are lacking in the humility and calm demeanour of the former prime minister and could learn from him”.