Places & My Family
Author :
Dr. K.S. Kang
I strongly believe that places play prominent role in
the life of a person. As genes travel for seven generations similarly a person
cannot remain unassociated with the places where his ancestors have put their
foot on. In this series I have decided to describe the places that have been
associated with my parents, ancestors and forefathers. A brief geographical
location and history of the place will also be given along with the association
that particular place had with some member of my family.
Dharamkot
I begin this series with my ancestral place Dharamkot,
which was earlier a municipality
of Firozepur
My father’s great grandfather S. Buta Singh was a
revenue official of this place designated as Kankash, whose duty was to
ascertain the yield of a land so as to calculate its revenue. My father used to
tell me that the rulers of the day were so much satisfied with this work that
they honoured him with golden letters and wanted to give land in nearby Pandori
village as a reward. But he was an honest and conscientious man who refused to
take it as he saw that his son, my father’s grandfather was an idle and worthless
youth so it will only spoil him more. My grandfather S. Khazan Singh remained
associated with it as Lambardar, whose duty was to collect the revenue and
deposit it in Tehsil Headquarters at Zira. He later on also became a member of
Muincipality of this place. Though he had to resign due o his son who was
educated up to Eighth standard and had applied for the job of Toll collector or
Nakedar. And in those days it was a rule that son of Muincipal Committee Member
could not get a job that was under the municipality. So he resigned for the
sake of his eldest son S. Labh Singh who became Nakedar of the town. Sardar
Khazan Singh was not educated but by the time his sons S. Labh Singh and Kehar
Singh came in this world three entrepreneurs of the town- Lala Arjun Dass, Lala
Prabh Dayal Nauharia and Lala Bhagat Ram -opened a school in 1906 A.D that
proved to be a blessing to the young people of the town including S. Labh Singh
who could get education up to eighth standard and as a result of his education
he could get the job of toll collector under municipality of the town at the
monthly salary of Rs. !3. Similalrly his younger brother S. Kehar Singh also
got his education upto matric in this school and due to his outstanding
performance he secured scholarship from the Government of the day and as by
that time the awareness had increased so he went for his higher education to
the nearby town where he got admission easily in a private college D.M.
College.
Though currently my family does not own even an inch
of land in this town but still our family is associated with this place as my
father has spent a few years of his childhood and youth here and as family of
my uncle still resides here. Secondly due to the presence of the shrine of holy
sufi Saint Abdulleh Shah at this place and our family visits this shrine almost
every year without fail. Over the years this place has gained prominence,
particularly after the construction of a bridge over River Sutlez at Shahkot
connecting it with Jalandhar and other main towns of the state. Now it is
situated on State Highway
