Bhatia Uncleji... RIP

Bhatia Uncleji lived his life fully with vigor. My earliest memory of him brings into mind his characteristic loud laugh and many many of them. He was proud of his work at dept. science and technology. Wearing his classical Safari suit with a leather bag cum brief case in hand, he was punctually ready everyday. He liked the punctuality of this tempo bus that would take him on time and drop him on time. Later, after he got a car, he carpooled and found really nice friends and had a jolly time in the commute as well.

He always had a soft corner for me. I too liked him since early on. We shared a lot of common interests and that was the reason, we were always at some level more friends, the formal bond of a familial relative was far less with him. Perhaps, it was also his way of living life aspect that I always liked.

He was always the one who liked campa colas and local samosas. With age, his appetite grew less, he would be restrictive but still loved it. He encouraged bets in house and ask for ice cream treats whenever someone lost, which was largely me only.  He had his Kulfi while me and other will revel in the chocolate ice cream.  He liked the road side Chole Kulche and the south indian food but always in moderation. He liked all vegetables, loved home made food and ate it with same passion as one eats in restaurants. He also took us to various 5-star hotels, my first ones and showed us the glimmer of the luxury side.

He loved technology, always an early adopter of computers. He loved being photographed, seeing photographs and liked them if they came out good. He had a good eye for these sort of things. He liked cricket, tennis, kept abreast of news and wanted good for everyone. He was a religious man, narrated the Arya Samaja Prathana by heard with great enunciation. He liked performing Sandhya, did so almost daily.

Where our interests overlapped maximum was both of our love for Radio. Those days, the FM was really good, great RJs, greats songs, and less ads. He would turn it on every morning and I would love to listen it while getting ready. On weekends, he would take it upstairs, do his usual chores all the time while radio was on.  On cold days, he would go to the roof and sun bathe while listening to the radio. He loved sleeping under the Sun on those cold weather days of Delhi, those days before the smog would go away when Sun came.

Outside of radio, we were both big fans of Pradeep ke Bhajan. He had this cassette which he would play in loop and neither of us could get tired of listening.  He introduced me to Pradeep ke bhajan and to this day, I remember him whenever I listen to that album. There is a level of simplicity to these tracks, a philosophy of life and I think both of us understood this and tried to follow some of those tenets.

He loved his time in US. We went to Disneyland, he liked the rides, liked the country, liked the developed-ness of US, in particular the 17-mile drive. He was enthusiastic to travel anywhere we asked to, even though his health had started to give little trouble.


Post retirement, he decided to adopt few students and fund their education. He would study these kids, went and met then and tracked their progress periodically. He was very happy when they got good grades, showed me their report cards. He had this file where he kept all their records, he was very organized in almost all things. He loved playing cards, walking in park and spending time with other people.

Last five-six years have been painful for him. With health deteriorating, he was confined to the home only. His concentration power declined, so did his ability to read books, to watch TV, to use computer, to listen to radio, social circle became very very limited. I personally got frozen whenever I went to his place. I just could not see him being in that situation, my mind would get shut and i could not even communicate with him. He battled strongly but in the end, God really called him. May his soul rest in peace!