often forgetten or shadowed fact is that 2-October is also the Jayanti of Sri Lal Bahadur Shastri.
Anil Shastri remembers his father, in Jagran. couple of the tales he told, translated below.
Our Babuji (Shastriji) was in jail. Lala Lajpat Rai who was wealthy, had arranged to send some money every month to the freedom fighters families whose bread-earners were in jail, and he used to send 50 Rs every month to our mother too. Once when we went to meet our babuji in jail, babuji asked mother, whether she was able to make-do. She replied that she was able to manage in 40 Rs and kept 10 Rs for some cotingency. Upon this, babuji immediately wrote to Lalaji, to only send Rs 40 to us as that much was sufficent, and made sure we received only that much.
Other occasion. After Sardar Patel, Shastriji was the home minister. His stature was the tallest in the politics, besides Nehruji. We used to go to school in Delhi on a Tanga, whereas the children of home ministry officials and police officers used to come in motor cars. We asked our mother to ask Babuji to send us in the car too. When the matter came up before him, he arranged the car, and asked his secretary to make arrangements to deduct the money from his salary at the rate of howmuch it would cost for a private car. And even then, he was not satisfied. The very next day before we left for the school, he called us. He said, he could only afford a car for us temporarily, as he was a minister in the cabinet. There is no guarantee that this would be the case always, and they might have to return to Tanga if he could not afford it in future. Shifting from car to Tanga would be difficult. He convinced us that Tanga is what we could really afford, but left the choice to us. Finally we on our own decided to go to school in Tanga, and never used the motor car to go to school.
Anil Shastri remembers his father, in Jagran. couple of the tales he told, translated below.
Our Babuji (Shastriji) was in jail. Lala Lajpat Rai who was wealthy, had arranged to send some money every month to the freedom fighters families whose bread-earners were in jail, and he used to send 50 Rs every month to our mother too. Once when we went to meet our babuji in jail, babuji asked mother, whether she was able to make-do. She replied that she was able to manage in 40 Rs and kept 10 Rs for some cotingency. Upon this, babuji immediately wrote to Lalaji, to only send Rs 40 to us as that much was sufficent, and made sure we received only that much.
Other occasion. After Sardar Patel, Shastriji was the home minister. His stature was the tallest in the politics, besides Nehruji. We used to go to school in Delhi on a Tanga, whereas the children of home ministry officials and police officers used to come in motor cars. We asked our mother to ask Babuji to send us in the car too. When the matter came up before him, he arranged the car, and asked his secretary to make arrangements to deduct the money from his salary at the rate of howmuch it would cost for a private car. And even then, he was not satisfied. The very next day before we left for the school, he called us. He said, he could only afford a car for us temporarily, as he was a minister in the cabinet. There is no guarantee that this would be the case always, and they might have to return to Tanga if he could not afford it in future. Shifting from car to Tanga would be difficult. He convinced us that Tanga is what we could really afford, but left the choice to us. Finally we on our own decided to go to school in Tanga, and never used the motor car to go to school.