One day, I called a pediatrician and told him of my son’s symptoms. He told me to bring Rajan to his office the following Monday.
“My son is losing weight and has not eaten for the last four days,” I said, desperation creeping into my voice. “I would like to bring him to you today.”
Upon my insistence, the doctor finally agreed.
“Bring him to my residence, and I will take a look,” he said.
Raj and I took Rajan to the doctor’s house, and after a brief examination, the doctor said, “He may have lost his appetite due to the heat. Give him something salty. That will make him thirsty. Try giving him potato chips, and little by little, he will start eating and keeping cool.”
On our way home, we bought several bags of potato chips, something we normally didn’t allow our kids to eat, but we were hoping Rajan would eat as many chips as he wanted. Slowly, Rajan began eating, first the potato chips, and then a peanut butter jelly sandwich, and later, a cheeseburger. After a few days, his eating patterns returned to normal. After then, we made sure Rajan stayed cool and that his bedroom A/C was working at all times.
Rajan’s health was one concern continually on my mind. My cousin Ved Bedi’s wife, Usha, was a doctor. Every month, we took him to Usha’s clinic to get his blood drawn to monitor his creatinine levels, and even though we gave Subhash and Christopher regular milk to drink, Raj would mix Rajan a drink from the Similac PM 60/40, which we had shipped from the US in large quantities before we moved to India. The Similac was designed for children with poor renal function. Also, Rajan had grown little in the past year. I made several calls to Dr. Redmond in Cleveland to check on the growth hormone medicine. To my disappointment, he always had the same reply—it was not yet available.
Despite the challenges we faced, my family and I experienced fun, light-hearted moments, and the holidays in India were always a chance to let loose and celebrate life. Holi, in particular, is the most vibrant and joyful of all the festivals. It is a celebration of the arrival of spring, a season of joy and hope. We would go to Satish’s house in the afternoon, and we all would dump water of different colors on each other and rub red powder on each other’s faces. Out in the streets, the people of New Delhi ran about, throwing red, green, orange, yellow, and purple powders at each other. Afterward, we would share sweets with each other and laugh because we all were covered from head to toe in an array of color.
We also visited Mussoorie, also known as the Queen of Hills, a hill station in the State of Uttarkhand where the air was cooler. We enjoyed visiting local tourist attractions, such as Gun Hill and the temple Nag Devta, dedicated to the snake god, Lord Shiva.
One day in June 1984, Satish called. As soon as I heard his voice at the end of the line, I knew something was wrong.
“Bedi Saheb, have you heard the news?” he asked.
“What news do you mean?” I asked, even though I heard it on the radio that morning.
“Operation Blue Star,” he answered. “Today, Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to attack the Golden Temple. Can you believe it? The Golden Temple. The Sikhs are not going to be happy about this.”
Everyone was talking about it, and everyone was on edge. The self-styled leader of a Sikh separatist movement called the Khalistanis, Bhindranwale, and his followers were taking shelter in the Golden Temple along with their ammunition. He was considered a freedom fighter by some Sikhs, but others saw him as merely a terrorist. Ordering an attack on Bhindranwale would rile up the Sikhs, posing a serious danger.
“I have heard, Satish Ji. I hope the Indian Army can keep the insurgents under control.”
“Yes, I am afraid things might get out of hand,” Satish said. “You remember what happened last October, don’t you? Those Sikh militants stopped a bus and shot six Hindu passengers.”
I heard about that attack when I first moved back to India a month after it happened, shocking me to know these tragedies still happened. The Sikh separatists were stockpiling weapons in the temple in an attempt to take over the state of Punjab and form it into their own country. The revered holy place had sustained much damage, and the Sikhs and others who worshipped there were furious that the Indian Army attacked the insurgents who were using it as their hideout. I told Satish I would be on watch for anything out of the ordinary.
Upon speaking with my parents, I learned there was a great fear spreading through the state of Punjab. Bhindranwale had gathered a following of hundreds of thousands of khalistanis who also wanted to create their own country, killing Hindus in the process. Now the people of my beloved home of Punjab trembled at the sound of his name.
On October 31, 1984, a year after I’d returned to India, I was in Bombay to make arrangements with a transportation company to transport boxes of camera film to New Delhi. Satish had asked me if I wanted to be a part of his side business of importing film. While taking care of the transportation, I learned that at 9:20 a.m., Indira Gandhi had been shot at her residence in New Delhi. She was in critical condition and had been taken to a hospital.
Two of her Sikh body guards shot her as revenge for the Operation Blue Star assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar a few months earlier. Indira
