My wonderful first posting as A.ssistant Engineer Irrigation Department at Mainpuri in 1963 onwards

My sub divisional staff was a wonderful team. My Barkandaz 's name was Sh. Suraj Bhan Singh who was a wrestler and his height was 6 n 1/2 feet tall. He used to drink about 1/2 kg of desi ghee/ day and plenty of food and milk . Every year he used to enter in the competition of wrestling organised by the then District Magistrate. On winning the competition Sh. Suraj Bhan Singh used to touch the feet of all the officers of the administration at district level and he was honoured with garland and the best wrestler of the district by the DM of Mainpuri. As he was my security person he used to guard the cash chest. Whenever I went for inspection I used to take him along with me in my car or the govt. jeep. I remember one instance when I was travelling to Kanpur to attend my official duty and we were in our car when all of sudden we were crossing, the bridge across the river Kali Nadi. This bridge was having only one way traffic but due to the negligence of the staff at one end of the river ,a bullock cart from the opposite side and our car was in the middle of the bridge and the position was very awkward as the bullock cart could go in the reverse direction because it had got no reverse gear. As such we were to go back by applying reverse gear. But before this heated arguments were exchanged. In the twinkling of an eye I noticed that Sh. Suraj Bhan Singh lifted the cart man by his legs and held him upside down on the river railing of the bridge and he was asking the cart man to whether he would like to be thrown into the river from the bridge. To this the cart man humbly requested him and as such he was pardoned. I had also intervened and the matter ended. As we crossed the river I had to convince him that he should be polite with the poor and humble people. Anyway we reached Kanpur quite safely. On the same day we hired a rickshaw to the canal inspection house at Phool Bagh and the rickshaw puller demanded extra charges more than the fixed rates. At that time he lifted the rickshaw and exploded on the rickshaw puller and challenged him that if he demanded more than the fixed rate , in that case he would throw the rickshaw on the road and damage it completely. On seeing this the rickshaw puller quite humbly accepted the fixed rate prevailing at that time in those days. On account of my safety personal I felt ,at that time ,very much safe.
To be continued.............