Till recently, I used to take my evening walks in Lodhi Gardens. I had begun to tire easily after every few minutes of going round the lawns. I had found a flat stone at the base of the Bara Gumbad mosque to take short rests before taking another round. The spot was a short distance from the footpath taken by most walkers bent on treating walking as an exercise. One evening, it must have been over five years ago, I saw a young man leave the footpath and come straight towards me. He touched my feet, folded the palms of his hands, lowered his head and said: ?Aaap kaa aasheervaad leyney aayaa hoon ? I?ve come to seek your blessing.? He was a handsome, powerfully-built young man with dimpled cheeks. I put my hand on the mop of his hair and asked him who he was. ?I am Surinder Singh, son of Bansi Lal.? There was a lot more to him besides being the son of the former chief minister of Haryana. He had been a member of parliament and the vidhan sabha; he was the husband of the beautiful Kiran Chaudhary who was on the rise in Delhi politics. I was pleasantly surprised at Surinder?s humility and his asking for nothing more than my blessings. I had harboured a grudge against his father Bansi Lal. Though I regarded him as the best chief minister Haryana ever had, as defence minister, he had vetoed the proposal to shoot a scene of a train going over a bridge based on my novel, Train to Pakistan, as a security risk. I am sure he had not read the novel and the message of goodwill it meant to convey. It had nothing, whatever, to do with security. Ultimately it was Digvijay Singh; the then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh who allowed the scene to be shot in his state and the film made. It did not take long for Surinder to win my affection. I could not understand him as a rising politician; most politicians are takers; he was a giver. Another surprise was in store for me.

Some months after we got to know each other, I happened to be in Nimrana for Writers? Conference. On my way back, we pulled up at a roadside restaurant for lunch. It was a very pleasant, neatly-kept joint and the south Indian food I and my companions sampled was most tasty. While paying my bill, I complimented the manager and wrote a few lines of appreciation in the visitors book. A week later, the manager turned up in my flat, handed back the money I had paid for lunch along with a bottle of Scotch. He also said I could stay in the hotel whenever I liked and take as many friends with me free of charge. The joint belonged to Surinder and his father.

I had an equally memorable encounter with his wife Kiran. I found myself sitting across the aisle in an Air India flight from Delhi to Rome. I had not met her before. So we only exchanged namasteys. As soon as we took off, she put her head on a pillow and dozed off. I am unable to sleep in either train or plane and kept reading. Occasionally, I had a glance at her: the diamond in her nose ring sparkled in the blue light. At Rome airport, we again exchanged namasteys and went to our separate conferences. On my way back home, I ran into Kiran again in the passengers waiting lounge. She greeted me warmly. Her face was flushed with excitement. ?Such beautiful things in airport shops!? she gushed. ?I wish I could buy everything. But I have no foreign money.? Without pausing I took out my wallet which contained several hundred US dollar notes and said, ?Buy what you like; there are more than a couple of thousand dollars in it. You can pay me back in rupees when we get to Delhi.? She was taken aback. ?Really! You really mean it?? she asked. I nodded my head and thrust my wallet in her hand. After all, she was Surinder?s wife, my surrogate daughter-in-law.

Kiran returned from her ?shopping? expedition as she heard the announcement of our flight. She handed me back my wallet. ?I decided I did not want to buy anything,? she said, ?it was kind of you to lend me your wallet. I did not spend a paisa.? When I heard of Surinder?s death in the copter crash, my eyes filled with tears, as if I had lost one of my sons.

Lucky old men

Before I tell you what LAT stands for, I will tell you about the person who introduced the word in my vocabulary. He was an English academic who spent some years in India and other far eastern countries, researching on the prevalence of bribery and corruption. I often had him and his wife over for the evening. They were a happily married couple both involved in research. His thesis was published and acclaimed as a seminal work on the subject. He was appointed professor at the University of Bath. In due course of years, he was retired, his wife died and he was living alone close to the university campus.

An article on me illustrated by a cartoon showing me holding a bottle of Scotch and a tumbler appeared in the Financial Times in Britain. The professor wrote to me saying how happy he was to read of my doing what I was infamous for doing. He also mentioned the death of his wife and said he had found a LAT, which stands for Living Apart Together ? having a lady he got on with sharing his home, house-keeping and providing him company. It sounded a very nice arrangement. In the West, where aged people cannot expect to be looked after by their progeny, loneliness becomes a serious problem. They find company in Old Peoples? homes. Some take on second wives or husbands. A LAT relationship sounds better than the other two options. You acquire a live-in companion with similar interests. You can indulge in sexual fantasies without any compulsion to perform the act. You have somebody at hand to ring up for a doctor or the ambulance if the need arises. And in the end, ring up an undertaker to drive over with his hearse to take your companion away.

Getting it right

A funny calling

Congrats! R.K. Laxman You?re now a Padma Vibhushan! By your meaningful cartoons You often take off netas? pantaloons At times you also undo their dhotis and sarees

As you expose their evil cama raderies.

They are not only corrupt power-brokers

They are also a bunch of jokers.

Ministers? false promises before every election

Make you ?Common Man? suffer from frustration.

I wonder how the authority with bizarre nexus

Could honour your visual wit and you, a genius!

(Contributed by Reeten Ganguly, Tezpur)