My Father

In 1946, Baloo Lal Panagariya, then twenty-five years old, arrived in Jaipur to join the editorial staff of the newspaper Lokvani, devoted to exposing the excesses of the British and princely rulers of Rajputana. Though unremarkable in itself, the story behind this event is one of the triumph of human spirit over adversity.Baloo Lal was born in a remote village in Rajasthan, in a family that could not scrape together two full meals a day. He lost his father at five and mother at fourteen. The village lacked even a primary school. Yet, thanks to the wisdom and sacrifice of his mother and his own perseverance, he completed his education, went on to serve with distinction as a civil servant in the newly formed state of Rajasthan and, after retirement, wrote the first definitive book on the history of the freedom movement in Rajasthan.In a very real sense, Baloo Lal's journey from the village of Suwana to the city of Jaipur was a long and arduous one, much more so...