Meeting Mr. Shelley

When I think about the past and my days of immaturity and filled with uncertainties, the happenings around me and in me I feel confused, shocked and captivated by what has transpired. It propels me to recapitulate and try to comprehend the parts played by my parents and others who I had not met ever before.

The impetus to write this memoir originated when I sat to read some entries from my diary sporadically written from 1959 onwards. It brought back nostalgic memories of how life has been and the tremendous changes of the last 50 years. A poor ignorant boy living in India, journeying through the traumatic days of the partition of India, travelling by ferry bound for Genoa and onward journey by train to London; it has been quite a journey of life! Even today, reading the saved letters from my father in English and my mother in Hindi brings tears to my eyes which further impel me to write the following pages. In description of the very early events, some finer details may have evaporated from my mind.

Childhood memories are far from concrete but some parts with imposing impressions remain intact and always will. Though my memory is not able to recall the name of the place I was born and nor there is reliable record of my date of birth, I can recall with reasonable certainty some events of the time when I was around 5 or 7 years old. I do not remember anything about kindergarten, or the nursery and my educated guess is that there were no kindergartens and even if there were, my parents would have not been able to afford one.

About the Author: Satish Batra was born 1936 or 1937, date not recorded anywhere, in a remote village in the province of Punjab, India. He lives with his wife in Lund, Sweden, where he is a professor emeritus at the faculty of medicine, university of Lund. This is his first book