I am Rejected at Birth continues...


The birth of the child on 23 December, 1889 was declared highly inauspicious by the astrologers. They said that he was born at a moment when the stars were in such malignant conjunction that the child’s father would die as soon as he saw the face of his son.

A family council was held and it was decided to tear the infant from the lap of his mother, and exile him from home. Who dared gainsay the astrologers when they claimed to reveal the future, particularly if it was unpleasant?

In another family such an un- lucky child might have been abandoned. But the fates were kind to me, then, as always.

One Mayya, a Rajput, and his wife Rugtu, lived in a village a few miles away from Nagrota in a small thatched hamlet on a lonely hill top. They had a son Gopalu, a tall, hand- some and sturdy young man of affable manners, married to a wife who was very loveable, good natured and affectionate. They had no son, but the wife of a cousin had recently given birth to a son.


She had plenty of milk in her breasts. This family had business dealings with the family of Chhajju Shah. The then head of my family, Dallu Shah, step-brother of the unlucky child’s father, sent for Gopalu and his mother Rugtu. The old woman readily agreed to take me to her home and treat me as her own son.

She said there was plenty of milk in the breasts of her daughter-in- law and she could feed both the children.


Thus it is that the would be Chief Justice of India was sent away from home on astrological grounds. But my being placed in a hill Rajput peasant proprietor’s family was a piece of good luck for me. I was brought up as a peasant proprietor’s son up to the age of seven.

Mayya was an invalid and remained lying in bed. The family had a number of cows and buffalos and there was plenty of milk; cream, curd and whey for them all.

To be continued.....