Punjab

Abstract

When I first went to Punjab in 1967, I worked for an institute of English whose task was to retrain secondary teachers in ‘modern’ methods of English instruction. Every four months or so, dozens of teachers from throughout Punjab and Haryana were ordered to Chandigarh, the common capital of both states, to undergo the course. It was not popular. People resented leaving their villages, families and subsidiary occupations. One day Dhoom Chand, a likeable, bulky man in his forties, who came from a fairly distant village in Punjab, looked particularly unhappy as he went about his practice rounds at the school where we worked.