A Celebration of Memories

Poet, impresario, wrestler, bureaucrat, champion of secularism—Kanwar Mohinder Singh Bedi ‘Sahar’ lived several lives in one lifetime. Born into a prominent family of Punjab that traces its lineage to Guru Nanak, educated in elite colonial institutions, and later drawn into public service, sport, literature and filmmaking, he moved with unusual ease between privilege and upheaval, tradition and change. This memoir grows out of a life that, in many ways, mirrors the journey of modern India. Across its pages appear the many worlds he inhabited: the spiritual universe of a melting pot of faiths; the regimented sphere of colonial Punjab’s schools; the rural order of zamindari in its final years; the demanding terrain of the civil services, often rich with possibility; the fractured landscape of Partition; and the enduring cultural world of Urdu and the shared social rhythms of North India. Moving through the intellectual circles of pre- and post-Independence Delhi and the wider public life of the subcontinent, he counted among his friends artists such as Josh Malihabadi, Firaq Gorakhpuri and Mohammad Rafi; political figures like Dr Zakir Husain, Partap Singh Kairon and Firoz Khan Noon; and nawabs and maharajas like Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and Bhupinder Singh of Patiala. The stories narrated here are intimate, sometimes humorous, and occasionally elegiac. What emerges from them is the portrait of a representative of a grand, inclusive idea of India—a man formed by plural traditions, sustained by relationships across community and class, and guided by faith in coexistence. A Celebration of Memories is more than a memoir. It opens a window onto a disappearing social world and invites reflection on what endures. In an increasingly divided world, it is the story of a life that represents the fragile but persistent hope of living together with dignity. Read more