‘Seeing parents work as labourers shocked me’

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 14

Coming from a well-established family from Gojra village in Pakistan, it was traumatic for a young boy, who was going to complete 12 years of his life in 1947, to see his parents working as daily wage labourers to feed their family members.

Surjit Singh Cheema, who is now 82, is a veteran in surgical instruments industry. Sharing his experiences with Jalandhar Tribune, he said when he, along with his family, reached here in 1947, seeing his parents work as labourers earn for the family members came as a shock to him.

“Sada Pakistan de vich bhut vadiya kamm si, te ethe apne parents nu us halat de vich dekhna main kade nahee bhul skda,” said Cheema, as uneasiness gripped his face. 

The journey

There are some memories in everyone’s life which can never go out of the mind, and coming here sitting on top of the train was one of them for Cheema.

“When we decided to leave the village, it was raining heavily due to which it became more and more difficult for us to carry our belongings and to take these along with us by keeping them over our heads,” said Cheema.

“We walked on our foot for more than 7 Km and reached Daska relief camp and we remained there for seven days amid fear and tension,” he said.

“We then boarded a train led by Sikh regiment and came here sitting on its top, everyone was scared of the attacks because while sitting on the top, the scenario was clearly visible which was frightening,” he said.

He started a surgical industry here in 1959 and then there was no looking back. He became the chairman of the Surgical Sports and Surgical Complex Association.

Did charity works

Witnessing losses and agony of people during Partition and experiencing it himself, Surjit Singh Cheema is now running a charitable hospital in the city. He is the chairman of the Guru Hargobind Hospital Charitable Trust which he got built in 2008.

Desire to visit native village

Cheema fondly remembers that his village was well developed at that time also. “Everything was perfect. I would really like to visit and see my birthplace again as it is now my biggest wish,” he said.