FIRST LETTER FROM MY FRIEND ASHOK DHALIWAL*
Gursharn Singh Randhawa
June 9, 1970
My dear Gursharn,
Perhaps it is my luckiest and happiest day when I got your unexpected letter because you are unknown about my address. Brother I am very sorry that I could not meet you on the last day because suddenly I got a telegram from somewhere where I had to go immediately. Really it gave me a great shock but I hope that not caring about my this guilty, you will forgive me and no damage will occur between our friendship. I am very sorry that I could not write a single letter to you because I was also unaware about your address. I went to Borde** and Skipper*** only for this purpose but they also answered negatively. I hope as a best friend you will not mind all these guilties which will not occur in future.
It is luckiest for me that I could find such a noble and intelligent friend this year and I hope that our friendship will remain for ever. Surely I understand myself not equal to your even a single figure but it is you who have taken, going to take and will take to the peaks of success. I was going to ruin my life by accompanying some other friends (understood) if you did not deviate me. Really it is the result of your noble company and excessive encouragement that I shall get about 520-540 marks this year which have not much importance for us. So I am grateful to you for this act by which you are going to take me in high position about which I could not take even dreams. But only by your inspiration I hope that now I shall reach to the highest peaks of success. The next year (Pre-medical) is first year of life which will give us great joy which we have never gotten. Hard work of study is that great source of entertainment which we cannot get even from pictures. In these holidays I have read some lives of great men and continued to read the autobiography of Shri Jawahar Lal Nehru. Dear friend I hope you must have read some autobiographies. You must write me in the reply letter that how are you going in these holidays. At last I again request you to forgive my wrongness which I have done in the college and in that last day with you.
Yours brother,
Ashok
* Ashok Dhaliwal (Nickname Ashok Mankad, after the name of a famous cricketer), now with the name Dr. Ashok Kumar Sharma (date of birth 10.3.1955), is a renowned eye surgeon and has his Sharma Eye Hospital at Jalandhar. At the time of writing of this letter Ashok was about 15 years old. Hence, please ignore the spellings/grammatical mistakes.
** Nickname (after the name of a famous cricketer, Chandu Borde) of a classfellow and friend, Ramesh Kumar.
*** Nickname (after the name of a famous cricketer, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, who was Skipper of Indian cricket team at that time) of a classfellow and friend, Kimti Lal, who unfortunately died when the ship in which he was traveling somewhere near Europe sank.