'This tree belongs to Manmohan Singh': From the ravages of Partition to the PMO

If every man was as fortunate as my Mohna, the world would be a better place,” saying this, 81-year-old Muhammad Ashraf chuckles toothlessly, while he smokes his hubble-bubble (hookah), distantly looking at cars racing on the motorway, snaking along his ancestral village, Gah Begal, on the outskirts of Chakwal. Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh was born in Gah in 1932. Ashraf was his classmate and friend.

Gah lies about 80 kilometre south [of] the federal capital Islamabad. The village was unknown until Manmohan Singh became the prime minister of India. My father came to me saying “Oye apna mohna hindustan da wazeer ho gaya jay” (our Mohna has become the prime minister of India) “We’re finally on the map,” says Muhammad Zaman, Ashraf’s son.

“There were celebrations and everyone danced on the beats of dhol… when I was a kid, my father used to tell me tales about Mohna,” Ashraf recalls.

“We used to walk five miles to school, we were together till the fourth grade, I failed but he continued to study. He was a very hard-working student, while I was not that intelligent. I couldn’t even write my name. He used to study in candlelight and prepare for exams, sometimes he used to do my homework too! I remember the day of our exam, we had left for school early, without having breakfast… and after the paper, when we were returning home, we discovered a berry tree.

"Mohna picked up some stones and threw [them] at the berries and I picked them from the ground and ate them all; he got so annoyed that he started beating me saying ‘wattay assi sut-dae nay, tay bairey tussi khanday ho’ (I throw the stones and you eat all the berries). I want to tell Mohna that the tree is still in our village. They were going to cut it down to construct a road, but I told them that this tree belongs to Manmohan Singh.”

Raja Muhammad Ali, another friend of Manmohan and the deputy mayor of the village died two years ago, but he was fortunate to meet his childhood friend in 2008, after six decades, in Delhi. Ashraf smiles. “He took presents for Mohna, shoes and shawls. I sent him the famous Chakwali ‘rawori’. He invited Mohna to come to Pakistan and visit Gah, but then we heard about some terrorist attacks in India which were blamed on Pakistan.”

Despite sore relations, Mr Singh had not forgotten his schoolmates and school. He arranged funds for the school’s renovation. And the school was to be named after him during President Musharraf’s time. Renovations were done but the school still retains the original name, for some unknown political reasons. The school record of Manmohan Singh is still well preserved in the head master’s cabinet. —Published in 2012 in Pique magazine. Shared by Kamran Rehmat on X