Chapter 10
Diversions of a Busy Lawyer continues....

They live mostly on Shikar. Slaughtered goats are hung outside in the verandahs. All day long meat-soup is on the boil. Whenever anyone feels hungry or thirsty, he can take it. They store dry vegetables and various other dry fruits for their winter needs. Food to Pangi is carried on the back of big goats in small bags for even mules cannot traverse the reaches approaching the Pangi Valley. Goats and men form the only means of transport. After spending an enjoyable month in the valley, we returned to Chamba and managed to cross the Pass the very day it started snowing.

During the year 1925 I attended a big gathering of the Arya Samajists at Mathura, on the eve of the Ardh Shatabdi, held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Arya Samaj. This was the biggest gathering of the Arya Samajists that I have ever seen. Mahatma Narain Swami, president of the Arya Sarvadeshak Sabha, managed the whole show. Religious discourses were held every day and several conferences took place. According to my estimate, about two to three lakhs of people assembled here and paid tributes to the great Swami and deliberated on the problems that the Arya Samaj was facing. Bakshi Tek Chand, Rai Bahadur Durga Das, Mahatma Hans Raj, myself and many other leading Arya Samajists of Lahore attended this function with their families. It looked like a great fair and the whole town of Mathura was full of life. Mathura is sacred as the birth place of Krishna and the temples of Mathura attract devotees in millions from all over the country. To the Arya Samajists also, Mathura is a place of great interest. It was here that Swami Dayanand Saraswati took his lessons in the holy scriptures from his learned Guru, Virja Nand. When Dayanand had completed his period of study his Guru demanded as gurudakshana (his fee for instructing him) a promise that Dayanand would spread the light of knowledge which he had gained from Mm throughout the world and dispel ignorance.

to be continued...