A letter for the departed soul from a Kapurthala constable

“Most letters of mine are to families who have lost their near and dear ones,” said Gurbachan. “I find their addresses from the newspapers and request them to plant a sapling in memory of the departed soul.”

He undersigns the letter with his name, designation and a post script: Punjab police lokan di hamdard hai na ki darr (Punjab police is your sympathiser, do not fear police).

Over 21,000 and counting. That is the number of letters Gurbachan Singh, a 50-year-old Kapurthala head constable with Punjab Police, writes. At a time when WhatsApp has almost replaced even e-mails, Gurbachan’s hobby might seem out of place. Most of his messages are to people he has never met and will probably never meet.

“Most letters of mine are to families who have lost their near and dear ones,” said Gurbachan. “I find their addresses from the newspapers and request them to plant a sapling in memory of the departed soul.”

“My only relationship with your family is that of humanity,” reads one letter he wrote on Sunday. “Deeply saddened to know about demise of (XYZ) but God has his own plans. It is my earnest request to you to plant at least one sapling in memory of your loving one. When that sapling will grow into a tree, its cool shade will remind you of loving memories of your loved one. ‘Saye mein aate hi wo aadmi yaad aata hai, jis ne kuch soch ke ye ped lagaya hoga. Meri mout tey na royo, meri soch nu zaroor bachao’. (Standing in the cool shade of this tree, I remember that noble soul who must have planted it- with a thought)”

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He undersigns the letter with his name, designation and a post script: Punjab police lokan di hamdard hai na ki darr (Punjab police is your sympathiser, do not fear police).

His first letter was to a doctor in Nawahashahr who lost his daughter in 2005. “He replied that he planted 300 saplings,” said a beaming Gurbachan. Gurbachan doesn’t stop with this. On his cycle, he attaches a plate every day with a social message.

divya cycle

Some of them read—Dheeyan hass ke apnao, Puttran nu nashey to bachao (Welcome daughters with a smile, save sons from drugs), Thekeyaan vich sharrab ni mukni, teri zindagi mukk jaani hai (Liquor won’t get finished at vends but your life will), Ikk botal daaru di, tera ghar ujaadugi (one bottle liquor will be enough to burn your home), naujavaan nu nasha mukht neta, afsar, teacher, maapey rakh sakde han (politicians, officers, teachers and parents can keep youth from drugs) and rukh manukh layi oxygen, panchiyaan layi ghar (Trees are oxygen for humans and home for birds).

In letters to over 6,000 village sarpanches till now, Gurbachan requests them with the same social message.

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

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