Karachi’s radio-mechanic’s son becomes Pune’s Traffic Warden

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Teertharaja Ramchand Bhatia’s father was agent of Philco Radio Company and also did radio repairs in his shop. They had to migrate to India after violence erupted in Karachi in 1947.

Saaz Aggawal

For many years we saw this short, very feisty elderly gentleman directing the unruly traffic at a signal on the way to my kids’ school. He was fierce with the bikers and ST buses alike, forcing them to stop when the light turned red and waving his baton at them in rage when they misbehaved (frequently).

When Ajay Aggarwal was volunteering with the Pune police on traffic projects, he found out that this very committed and effective person was not getting paid – because he was too old to be an employee – and started sending him a stipend every month.

He also found out – surprise of surprises – that this person, Bhatia, was a Sindhi. That was when I was doing my first book on Sindh ‘Stories from a Vanished Homeland’, and I interviewed him and included his wonderful story in it. Some years later, Veda interviewed him too, for the Pune Mirror’s Heroes series.

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Bhatia with Ajay Aggarwal

We haven’t been going out of late so haven’t seen Bhatia, one of Pune’s celebrated heroes and familiar to everyone who lives around here, for a long time and it was really special to have a visit from him the other day. He is celebrating 82 on Friday and came by with a box of mithai for Ajay.

Here is the story of Teertharaja Ramchand Bhatia

Loss and disruption – but total commitment

My father was an agent of Philco Radio Company and he also did radio repairs in his shop. We lived in a flat on the third floor of a building in Karachi – my father, mother, older brother and older sister, me, and one younger brother. When the riots, started I remember our Muslim neighbor on the ground floor came and told us, don’t worry, I will see that you are safe. He put up new nameplates on the doors with Muslim names. We were told to hide inside but could look out and see people entering homes, throwing children from balconies, people fighting in the streets, and heads being chopped off with swords. Our neighbor stood at the entrance of our house with a sword and did not let anyone enter.

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Bhatia’s father’s radio repair shop

Our family travelled in a ship with many other families to Bombay. When I saw the ship I was scared but my father held my hand and said, don’t worry, it’s just like a train. It was a cargo ship which used to carry wheat but it had come empty to Karachi for us refugees.

In Bombay we were taken to the Lake Bill military camp and given a place to stay and food to eat. We stayed there for a month and were then moved to Kandivali where there was a row of huts and we were given one. The water connection and the toilets were outside. One day my father saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a radio instructor urgently required at Wadia College in Poona.

He applied for the job and was appointed, and our family moved to Poona. My father rented a shop on Mahatma Gandhi Road and we called it Bhatia Radio.

My mother and younger brother had fallen ill. The water at the camp must have been contaminated. They were treated by Dr. Banu Coyaji at KEM Hospital where they were given a special room and well looked after but they had bloated and could not eat anything. It was a very difficult time for our family. After some years, they died. All my father’s money was used for their treatment. Atur Sangtani was a prominent Poona Sindhi and he helped our family and many other Sindhi refugee families a lot.

In Poona, we stayed in touch with our family members but lost touch with the friends we had in Sindh. Local people would ask, “Where are your fields? When do you visit your village?” But we had to tell them that we had nowhere to go, we had nothing. My father put me in St Mira’s School and I was there till the eighth standard. After that I went to work at the Kandla Port in Kutch. My older brother was already staying in Gandhidham. He had been appointed there as a dispatcher.

Gandhidham was a jungle but Bhai Pratap had developed the place for us Sindhis. There were separate quarters for clerks and bungalows for the officers. My brother and I lived in Gopalpuri Colony and had two rooms, a storeroom, kitchen, bathroom and a small compound. It was a good arrangement. A cowherd would come in the morning with his cow and give us milk. Gandhidham had a hospital, shops, schools, everything. My sister lived in Adipur.

I started working for a daily wage of Rs.2, going to the dock when a ship came in. I was given a register. When a ship came in, I had to write in it the number of sacks removed, and the number placed in the warehouse. Then I was also made a dispatcher and had to make note of all the letters, inward and outward, of the residents of Kandla Port. There were big offices, one in Gandhidham and the other in Kandla.

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Teertharaja Ramchand Bhatia was born on 10 December 1939 in Karachi. He is a familiar figure working enthusiastically as traffic warden at various traffic lights in Pune, a city of unruly and disruptive traffic, and continues to do so in 2021, at the age of 82. Seen here as a young man, in his Home Guard uniform.

One of the most important things I did in Gandhidham was to attend the Home Guard training which was arranged for us Sindhi refugees. We were taught fire-fighting, how to go into the jungle at night, and the technique of ‘cockering’ where we walked on our knees and elbows, and how to handle guns. We were paid Rs.7.50 per week for this training.

I went back to Poona after fifteen years to work in my father’s radio repair business and began to volunteer as a traffic warden. Because I was fully trained, the Poona DCP Traffic instructed his force that I should be allowed to work at any traffic signal of my choice. I am now seventy-three years old but I continue to direct traffic in Pune every day, either morning or evening. Many people have appreciated my efforts and I have received three medals from the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Traffic, Pune.

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Saaz AggarwalSaaz Aggarwal is an independent researcher, writer and artist based in Pune, India. Her body of writing includes biographies, translations, critical reviews and humour columns. Her books are in university libraries around the world, and much of her research contribution in the field of Sindh studies is easily accessible online. Her 2012 Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland is an acknowledged classic. With an MSc from Mumbai University in 1982, Saaz taught undergraduate Mathematics at Ruparel College, Mumbai, for three years. After a career break when she had a baby, during which time she established a by-line as a humour writer, she was appointed features editor at Times of India, Mumbai, in 1989, where she launched Ascent, the highly successful HR pullout of the Times of India Group. From 1998 to 2006, she was HR and Quality Head of Seacom, an Information Technology company based in Pune. As an artist, she is recognized for her Bombay Clichés, quirky depictions of urban India in a traditional Indian folk style, as well as a unique range of offerings at the annual Art Mandai event in Pune. Her art incorporates a range of media and, like her columns, showcases the incongruities of daily life in India.