IN MEMORIAM

1. CHARLES SNEAD HOUSTON
2. ROBERT (BOB) LAWFORD
3. JOHN WILLIAM ROLFE KEMPE
4. LALIT CHARI
5. SERBJEET SINGH

 

 

 

In the early hours of 16 May 1938 the American K2 Expedition, led by Charles Houston and Robert Bates, crossed the Zozi la, the pass separating Kashmir from Baltistan, on their 330 mile journey from Srinagar to the base of the second highest mountain on earth. A midnight start was planned to avoid the hazard of avalanches careening down steep gullies onto the pass.

On 31 July 2009 at a kinder season and hour of the morning, our small entourage stepped from our vehicles on to the road that now crosses the Zozi lao

As I was preparing to leave the U.S for India, I had one last phone conversation with Charlie, during which he recalled their crossing of the pass and that we too should rise early to avoid avalanches. He told me how he always carried his small, giltbound copy of the Oxford Book of English Verse, reading from it when tent bound on high mountainsides. He apologised for not thinking of it sooner or he would have loaned me his copy to carry along. It happened that I had my own identical, cherished copy, which I took along, pulled from my pack at the Zozi la, and read as we toasted our dear old friend from William Ernest Henley's 'Invictus' :

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

When we returned home in early September, I called Charlie and shared with him this precious moment. He was delighted. Three weeks later, on 27 September 2009, this wise old guru and mentor for so many of us died peacefully in his Vermont home. He was 96, the last of the Harvard Mountaineering Club Five, with Terris Moore, H. Adams Carter, Bradford Washburn, and Robert Bates.

Charlie was scarcely 40 when he swore off mountaineering, but he packed a lot of it into the preceding two decades. During his Harvard undergrad years, first ascents of Mounts Crillon and Foraker were among the crown jewels. While a supposedly serious medical student at Columbia, he conceived what was to be the first ascent of Nanda Devi in 1936, the highest mountain climbed until the French ascent of Annapurna fourteen years later. He managed to enlist three seasoned Brits, Bill Tillman, Noel Odell and Graham Brown, to join his young team. Two years later Charlie and Bob Bates put together an American Alpine Club (AAC) sponsored reconnaissance of K2. They would have reconnaissance themselves to the top had they not run out of matches. Somehow he was granted the M.D. degree; perhaps the M was for mountaineering.

When Nepal opened its doors to westerners, in 1950 Charlie and his father Oscar, Andy Bakewell, Betsy Cowles, and Bill Tillman pioneered a new approach to Everest. Charlie and Tillman became the first Westerners to view its infamous Icefall.

Fifteen years after their first K2 trip, Charlie and Bob Bates were back in the Baltoro with a team of young hard men. The 1953 K2 expedition is, like Shackleton's voyage of the Endurance, one of those magnificent failures that provoke us all to re-examine our definition of success. The team was high on the mountain positioned for a summit attempt when the weather packed in, and Art Gilkey developed what Charlie diagnosed as thrombophlebitis. For him and his teammates, there was no choice but to try to lower Art down the mountain, even though they figured the odds of succeeding were about zilch and that their own chances of getting down alive would be much diminished. That assumption was validated when one of the team fell, pulling off a sequence offour others in entangling ropes. It was only Pete Schoening's ice axe belay of Gilkey's makeshift litter that kept all seven from hurtling thousands offeet to their deaths. Charlie, in his later years, came to call this iconic camaraderie of that team the 'Brotherhood of the Rope', used as the title of both a film he put together in his 90s about the two K2 expeditions and of his biography by Bernadette McDonald.

Even before K2 in 1953, Charlie's affair with thin air was morphing into its next incarnation, that of high-altitude research. Though Charlie had no formal training, here too he dreamed big and with the same remarkable ability to make dreams happen. Insatiable curiosity and an instinct to seize a serendipitous moment were among the driving forces.

In 1946, while a flight surgeon in the U.S. Navy, he convinced his superiors to allow him and Richard Riley to place Navy 'volunteers' in an altitude chamber for 40 days, gradually acclimatising them to higher and higher altitudes. The payoff was to demonstrate the value of acclimatisation to fighter pilots flying unpressurised aircraft, but Charlie's personal mission in Operation Everest was to demonstrate that an acclimatised person could survive at the summit of Everest, which had yet to be climbed.

After K2, Bob Craig and his boss, Walter Paepcke, brought Charlie to Aspen. Here, another pivotal event in his life as a researcher occurred when he rescued an ailing backcountry skier and discerned his breathing problem was something new. The result was a seminal report in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1960 on the entity we now call HAPE or high-altitude pulmonary edema. Then came the Logan years, 1967 to 1982, summers at 17,000 feet pursuing field research on human performance at altitude, including the discovery of high-altitude retinal hemorrhages. In 1985 Charlie pulled off his magnum opus, Operation Everest II. Volunteers gradually ascended to the equivalent of the summit of Everest in a hypobaric chamber. With Charlie as captain of the chamber, this effort yielded some three-dozen publications from an all-star cast of investigators. Two other major bits of his research legacy were the initiation of the International Hypoxia Symposium in 1979, a biennial gathering of scientists from many disciplines and many places, and the publication the following year of Going High, the story of how humans fare in thin air; the 5th edition, Going Higher, was completed in 2005, when Charlie was 92 and blind.

In 1962 Charlie, his wife Dorcas, and their three children left Aspen for India, where Charlie directed the Peace Corps. As the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition was returning home through New Delhi, our paths connected for the first time, though Charlie had entered my teenage life many years before from within the pages of James Ramsey Ullman's mountaineering history High Conquest. I shared with Charlie our adventure on Everest's West Ridge. His clear pleasure with our accomplishment was seasoned with a wistful wondering about whether it could have been done without supplemental oxygen. That encounter was my first exposure to his philosophy that mountains should be approached simply and with humility. Over the more than half century that we subsequently shared, I came to realise that this was more than a philosophy of mountaineering; it was a philosophy of life.

Charlie Houston was an explorer, scientist, caring doc, mentor and a totally committed and at times stubbornly principled spokesman for making this world a better place. This self-effacing, sometimes courageously blunt and downright exasperating curmudgeon was his own harshest critic. Charlie is too marvelous and complex a character to capture in these few words, but to me two of his most precious gifts were his sorcerer's ability to tum fantasy to reality and his total commitment to those he cherished.

THOMAS HORNBEIN

With appreciation to the American Alpine Club for permission to reproduce portions of this memoriam that appear in the 2010 American Alpine Journal.

 

 

⇑ Top

 

Past President and Honorary Member, The Himalayan Club

Bob Lawford, who was born on 19 September 1916, died on 11 October 2009, merits a special place in the history of the Himalayan Club not only for creating over many years the unique resource of the first Himalayan Index, painstakingly compiled as a card index before the age of computerisation, but, in the words of Trevor Braham, for single-handedly saving the Club from dissolution during the second exodus from India of core office-holders in the 1960's.

Bob will forever be remembered as the leading member of one of a trio of British expatriate mountaineers, the others were Bill Risoe and Charles Crawford, who 'stayed on' in post-partition India in 1947 and who resolved, individually and collectively henceforth to ensure the future viability of the Himalayan Club undoubtedly weakened by the inevitable loss of its core executive membership. All were to eventually to hold office as Presidents of the Club.

For those members familiar with the work of the celebrated novelist of post-partition India Paul Scott, his novel Staying On, though fiction, is, nonetheless, an accurate description of the few who did stay on after the exodus of the majority of the British civil servants, soldiers and business men (the latter known as 'box wallahs'), at partition in 1947.

Bob and Ann Lawford epitomised the perseverance and dedication of those few, particularly in their concern and support for the survival of the Himalayan Club. Bob (as everyone knew him) was not only a Calcutta 'Box Wallah' — he was a 'Metal Box Wallah!' and Company Director of that famous concern. His professional role perforce took precedence over his passionate love of mountains. A keen rockclimber and hillwalker in the English Lake District from his youth Bob had no choice but to forgo the call of higher mountaineering and channel all his formidable knowledge and energy into the task of transforming the Himalayan Club into the main, and viable, institution for promoting the science, art, literature and sport of the greatest range of mountains on earth. He accomplished this by bringing to bear on all who met him the personal qualities described by Lt. General Sir Bill Williams, KCB, CB as:

'He is a very delightful fellow — exceedingly clubbable — and in my opinion well worthy of distinction.'

Had it not been for Bob's firm conviction that the (then) nineteen year old mountaineering club, a creation of British alpinists in the military and civil service of the Raj, had already proved its worth, and deserved to succeed, the Himalayan Club would not have survived this crucial phase in its short history to become the senior mountaineering club in Asia. dedicated to promoting the science, art literature and sport of the Himalaya, and especially respected for its authoritative and attractive Himalayan Journal.

Bob and his colleagues, only too conscious of their own imminent departure from their beloved India, initiated an ambitious and progressive training of a fine cadre of young Indian mountaineers in the multihlde of voluntary tasks required to ensure and secure the future success of the Himalayan Club. Charles Crawford had already forestalled the first '1ear collapse of the Club by transferring its HQ to Calcutta — an essential re-location after the 1947 post-paI1ition exodus of the British from Delhi where the Club was founded in 192R with Field Marshall Sir William Birdwood elected President. Even after the successful transfer of the Central Committee to the hospitable Eastern Section in Calcutta, a move ratified in the Bengal Club on 22 March 1948. the current office-holders were progressively leaving India. However Charles Crawford was elected President that year and initiated the beginning of the revival of the Club by re-writing the Articles of the Club as well as obtaining High Court approval for the transfer of the Club's registered office from Delhi to Calcutta.

By 1953 the Club was sufficiently robust to host the first celebratory dinner and lechlre by 'Brigadier Sir John Hunt and his successful Everest team to mark their appreciation of the Club's significant contribution to their first ascent, particularly in the recruitment of an exceptional contingent of experienced Sherpas, including Tensing Norgay. However by 1956 the second stalwart of the trio, Bill Risoe. President in 1956, had joined Charles Crawford in London, leaving the last of the trio, Bob Lawford, to hold the line - a task at which he excelled. Some indication of his single-minded dedication to the Club and his detennination that it should not only survive but flourish again, can be gained from the progressive sequence or the voluntary offices held during the critical 'lean years' of ensuring the 'succession' by the emergent, enthusiastic, skilful, but still youthful, Indian mountaineers destined to be the future office-holders and mainstay of the Club, as well as guardians of its traditions enshrined in its library, which Bob believed to hold the finest collection of mountain literature in the whole of India. Bob was a member of the HC central committee from 1959 to 1960; honorary librarian 1961-62; honorary secretary 1963-1965; vice-president 1966-1967 and president 1968 to 1969 — a meteoric rise indeed! His first officer appointment in the service of the Club was honorary librarian, a significant post since Bob believed that the production of the Himalayan Journal was the most important activity the Club could undertake because, in founder-member Corbett's memorable phrase: 'India is the land of endlessness when only now and then are two or three gathered together.' The Journal, he believed, could provide the vital life-line linking far fiung members and promote unity, common purpose, and, above all, fellowship of the mountains.

It was Bob, as honorary secretary, who invited me to Calcutta to present an illustrated lecture to the Club on our first ascent of Kulu Pumori, 21,500 ft., above the Bara Shigri glacier on the Kullu/Lahaull Spiti section of the Great Himalaya Divide in 1964. The hospitality was legendary and the company the epitome of fellowship engendered by a love of mountains. It was also memorable for a scholarly Vote of Thanks by Dr K. Biswas, then editor of the Himalayan Journal. Bob, as Vice-President in 1966, offered strong support to Jagdish Nanavati and me as we planned and carried through our Indo-British party's successful second ascent of Bruce's Solang Weisshorn, 19,450 ft., later renamed Hanuman Tibba.

On his own and family's repatriation to England in 1970 Bob applied his inexhaustible voluntary effort and skill to a grateful Alpine Club, becoming honorary librarian and finally emeritus librarian. as well as continuing to assist me in my role as the Club's honorary local secretary Great Britain to the end of his life, a forty-year epilogue to round off a lifetime of service to the greater mountaineering fraternity from Calcutta to London and thence world-wide.

Bob is survived by his wife Ann, his daughters Anna (a member of the HC and A.C.), Diana and grand-children Lisa, Rob and Mark.

ROBERT PETTIGREW
(Honorary Member)

 

 

⇑ Top

 

John Kempe who died on 10 May 2010, aged 92, was born on 29 October 1917 so had outlasted most of his contemporaries. He was elected to the Alpine Club on 8 December 1952 being proposed by Harry Tilley and seconded by A. E. Gunther and bec~me a Life Member of the Himalayan Club in the same year. In the Alps he climbed over three seasons 1949-51 in the Dauphine and Silvretta area with Gunther, where he also led parties of schoolboys. Then he joined Han), Tilley, David Bryson, a BBC producer, and John Jackson for trekking and climbing in the Garhwal Himalaya which included an attempt on Nilkanth 21 ,640ft.

His most notable role in the Himalaya was in setting the scene for the first ascent of Kangchenjunga in 1955 approached from the southwest up the Yahmg valley. In April and May 1953 he accompanied Gilmour Lewis, attempting Boktoh on the west side of the valley and ascending the northern shoulders of Kokthang and north Kabru. Both summits were missed because of misgivings as to the state of the snow on the way down, but from Kabru the southwest face of Kangchenjunga was examined and after reconnoitring the lower defences of the mountain, they considered that, in spite of Smythe's opinion to the contrary, a possible route up could be found.

This led to a further reconnaissance of the mountain in April and May 1954 by Kempe, Lewis, Ron Jackson, Jack Tucker, Trevor Braham and Dr Donald Matthews. The expedition had the limited objective offinding a route which would appear to lead to the summit. Three routes were examined: Pache's Grave route, one below the Talung saddle, and the last by the main ice-face, all with a view to reaching the large ice-shelf which runs across the mountain at about 24,000 ft. Kempe's official report of the expedition (Alpine Journal Vol 59, pp 428-31) together with the photographs and reports of individual members were considered by a subcommittee appointed in April 1954 under the chainnanship of Sir John Hunt. Their recommendation that an expedition to the mountain should be sponsored by the Alpine Club was accepted. Charles Evans agreed to lead the expedition with the limited objective of reaching this Great Shelf. (So far no expedition had been above 20,000 ft on this face.) At the same time, just in case things proved easier than expected, Evans was planning to take oxygen and sufficient equipment to launch an attack on the summit. This was to be 'a reconnaissance in force'.

The 1954 party climbed a rock buttress on the east side of the Lower Icefall, which became known as Kempe's Buttress, and thought that from there one might climb the remaining 600 ft of the Lower Icefall, and continue up the Upper Icefall to the Great Shelf, and thence by way of the snow gangway, reach the west ridge and so to the top. It was a complicated route, and at the time we had little faith in it, for the avalanche dangers, let alone the technical difficulties, might make it totally unsafe or impossible. Kempe's party had considered the top of the Rock Buttress — the highest point they had reached — to be about 21,000 ft. But a detailed survey by the civil engineer and deputy leader, Nonnan Hardie, now judged it to be only 19,000 ft. This gave us another 2000 ft of virgin ground to cover. But the main achievement was that it got the 1955 expedition launched on the mountain, and it was successfully climbed by two pairs, Joe Brown and George Band on 25 May and Nonnan Hardie and Tony Streather the following day. The ascent was not repeated for 22 years.

John Kempe was born in Nairobi, the son of a Colonial Service officer who sadly died of a fever when John was only four, so his mother took her young son and daughter to live at her family's home in Norfolk. He was educated at Stowe and Clare College, Cambridge, where he read Economics and Mathematics. He also joined the University Air Squadron — of the 22 undergraduates who trained with him at Duxford, only two others were to survive the second world war.

Kempe was about to enter the Indian civil service when war was declared, and he volunteered for the RAF. In 1941 he was posted to No 602 Squadron, flying Spitfires, and in May 1942 promoted to squadron leader, and the next year mentioned in dispatches. In June 1944 he was posted to No 125 Squadron, flying Mosquitoes. From a base in North Africa he escorted convoys making for Malta. He commanded Nos 153 and 255 Night Fighter Squadrons, and in 1945 was posted to Algiers as chief test pilot (Middle East). Shortly before being demobilised in 1946 he was again mentioned in dispatches.

After the war Kempe worked briefly at the Board of Trade and in private business, but found himself dissatisfied and restless. Discovering that his former housemaster at Stowe was now teaching at Gordonstoun, he asked whether there was a vacancy for a mathematics teacher. There was, and he got the job. After only three years in Scotland, in 1951 he was appointed the founding principal of the Hyderabad Public School in India with the motto 'Be Vigilant'. He chose the Shaheen (literally 'Royal White Falcon') as the school emblem, for its sharpness of vision and its innate ability to soar to great heights. He served from September 1952 to August 1954. Among his first acts was to ensure that the dates of the school holidays coincided with the Himalayan climbing season!

In 1956 (by which time he was headmaster of Corby Grammar School the Northamptonshire steel town where he remained until 1967) Kempe was the leader of an expedition to the Peruvian Andes which climbed the virgin 18,797 ft peak Huagaruncho. Legend had it that the Incas had climbed it previously leaving a cross of gold on the summit, but no such thing was found. Three of the party were from the 1954 Kangchenjunga venture: Kempe, Tucker and Matthews, augmented by Michael Westmacott and John Streetly, the successful summit team, and myself. This was the first time I had really had the opportunity to meet and climb with John and found him a delightful, kindly and modest companion and we became good friends. This was to be his final expedition. He gave up climbing in 1957 after marrying his wife, Barbara Huxtable, the daughter of an Australian doctor who had won an MC and Bar at the Battle of the Somme.

In 1968 Kempe returned to Gordonstoun, but this time as headmaster, a post he held for ten years. The school was already famous as the alma mater of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales; under Kempe, it also educated Prince Andrew and then Prince Edward, who arrived just before Kempe retired. The school's other claim to fame was its Spartan regime: boys were required to go for a dawn run, whatever the weather, and to take two cold showers a day. But while Kempe retained these traditions, he was also an innovator, in 1972 admitting girls who, within three years, made up nearly a quarter of the pupils. He also introduced individual tutors for sixth fonn pupils. He himself taught classes in English, logic and philosophy, and would invite groups of pupils to his house for tea, sherry or his own homebrewed beer.

Kempe was a member of the Mount Everest Foundation Management Committee 1956-62 and Chairman of the Round Square International Committee 1979-87 through which young people undertake voluntary work in developing countries. He was also vice-chairman of the European Atlantic Movement Committee 1982-92 (and its vice president thereafter), and a trustee of the University of Cambridge Kurt Hahn Trust 1986-89. In addition to articles in the Alpine, Geographical, and other Journals, he published A Family History of the Kempes (1991).

The last time we met was at his very special 90th birthday celebration at the RAF Club on 27 October 2007. He was now quite frail but afterwards sent me a photograph of three of us standing together, John, Mike Westmacott and myself, which is a lovely souvenir of the occasion.

John Kempe was appointed CVO (Commander of the Royal Victorian Order) in 1980, and is survived by his wife and by their two sons and one daughter.

GEORGE BAND

 

 

⇑ Top

 

Lalit Chari was a man of many parts. Those who knew him in his other avatars should count themselves blessed. He was a kind man, a gentle man, with a resolve of steel and a commitment to his beliefs that never once wavered. He combined these qualities with an acute mind. He read widely. His interests were many, and varied: from music and theatre to the law and rock-climbing and mountaineering.

He was bom to the law. His father was A.S.R. Chari, one of the finest practitioners of criminal law this country has ever produced. His parents, A.S.R. and Dilshad Chari, were both communists. Not the pretentious kind, but card-carrying members of the Communist Party of India. Lalit was raised in party-run communes. Lalit, too, achieved success with his designation as a senior counsel. But his approach to the law, and his practice, differed from his contemporaries. Fees, earnings, what hotels one stayed in while travelling on work——these things remained unimportant and he made little effort to hide his disdain for such measures of success. At the core of his being as a lawyer lay a belief that everyone has a duty to defend the oppressed against the oppressor, to combat inequity where ever it is found, to remain steadfast in the battle for a just social order.

We often visited Lalit and Malvika at their holiday cottage in Khandala, near hills of Mumbai. For a ten-year-old, their house seemed bigger than it probably was, and I remember being awed by the sheer iconoclasm of its design. Pushed back against the hill, the house was simply one large space with a huge steeply pitched roof pulled down tight like a very large hat. We could hear only bird song and the wind in the trees and Malvika's laughter and Lalit's gravelly baritone, smell the bitter-sweet aroma of his pipe tobacco. In the monsoon, a thick mist crept up from the bottom of the garden and stole through the house. Now there was an ancient quiet to the place, just the soft dripping of the rain from the leaves and branches allowed to grow free.

No manicured paradise spoke to him. He rambled the hills around Khandala, alone or with Malvika, perfectly content. He was happiest in a wilderness and none more than the menacing beauty of the high Himalaya. I knew he trekked. In the early 1970's, he and Malvika, and others trekked to the base camp of Annapurna. My father recalls a day of brutal ascent and then descent into a forest infested with leeches. They were everywhere, and almost impossible to get rid of. At day's end, finally at their camp for the night, he remembers the Charis saying, What a wonderful day we've had.

A little more than a year ago, Lalit called me and asked me to see him in the High Court library. I sat across from him at his table in the eastern corridor. He gave me two files. He had written his memoirs. I flipped through the files quickly. This was a typescript. I asked if he had it on a computer. 'Just a photocopy somewhere,' he said grumpily. 'Can't be bothered with machines.' He asked me to read them and tell him what I thought. I read it through most of that night and the next. There are two volumes. The first is about his large and bewildering family, growing up in a city that we couldn't begin to recognise, and being a communist and what that means.

The second volume is entirely about mountaineering. The writing echoes the man: in the old school, free of any avant-garde flourishes; spare, controlled, yet with an immensity of longing and affection for people, times and places. This is a very different work. Suddenly, all tension and anxiety and concerns are gone, and there is in these pages a tangible brightness, a sense of freedom, a richness of breath and a lightness of being. He talks of the house in Khandala and walks in the woods, of taking up rock-climbing and training as a mountaineer. Many of the names are now familiar: colleagues and friends from court, and their families. But the main players here are the mountains themselves.

'The next day's march took us through the Kali Gandaki gorge as it breaks through the main Himalayan chain. It has been described as the deepest in the world, since the river here is at a height of only 7000 feet while the mountains tower up on either side to over 26,000 feet. We came to an astonishing place beyond the gorge, the little village of Lete. This is situated on a flat area. To the west, Dhaulagiri towers to 26,800 feet and, to the east, Annapurna goes up to 26,500 feet. Sunset at Lete was too beautiful for mere words: suddenly, Annapurna blushed a fiery crimson while. opposite, Dhaulagiri was cold and blue against the western sky.'

This is not the Lalit Chari we saw in court. Here, he seemed stem and forbidding, was known to be acerbic. But you only had to push a little, be careful not to cross the line, and he let you into his world of books and music and mountains and a perfectly wicked sense of humour.

I returned the files to him a few days later. I told him I'd made two photocopies, for safety. He asked if I thought they were worth publishing, and did I know anyone who might be interested? I can answer the first question. I never got around to the second.

'When one is on a little ledge——perhaps 12 inches of the horizontal in an otherwise vertical world——belaying a fellow climber, one is, for that moment, as alone as it is possible for a human being to be on the face of the earth. Men and women will come and go. But the mountains will remain.' (From Mountain Memories, by Lalit Chari).

This good man left us dying on Sunday, 15th November 2009, as he lived, quietly and with dignity.

Farewell my friend. I am glad I was privileged to have known you. Go softly now to that palace in the mountains that awaits, and know that in your time among us you bettered many lives. but marred none. And yes, the mountains will remain.

'And those that have three times kept to their oaths,
Keeping their souls clean and pure,
Never letting their hearts be defiled by the taint
Of evil and injustice.
And barbaric venality,
They are led by Zeus to the end:
To the palace of Kronos.'
(Pindar, all Elysium)

GAUTAM PATEL
(Lalit Chari was Life member of the Himalayan Club since 1962.- Ed)

 

 

⇑ Top

 

I first came to know Serbjeet Singh, the painter, in about 1969. Serbjeet came to see me about a problem. We talked, and I learnt for the first time about his interest in painting and his time as a young man living in Dalhousie, and his journeys up to, and down the Kangra valley. He also told me about the things, that he had done in the 1948 Kashmir war with Pakistan, as a young war correspondent. He had been up to Zozi la with General Thimayya, and Col. Rajender Singh 'Sparrow', with the tanks of the Seventh Cavalry. He had sketched that historic war, moving with the soldiers up the Sonmarg valley and on to Dras and Kargil. What he had done as a young man, was in the best traditions of the 'Times War Correspondent' in 1857, reporting from Delhi and Lucknow. His sketches of war and experiences were recorded in his book Zozi La, Pass of Blizzards.

He told me an amazing story of, how he had struggled, to make a film on the legend of Indian gods Shiv-Parvati, in Kullu and Manali, using local actors. Pandit Ravi Shankar, the great Sitar player, had written the music for him. Kairon, then the Chief Minister of Punjab, had given him some help from the govenU11ent. He wanted the film back from the Punjab government to show round the world. As Kairon was no more, obstinate bureaucrats would not let the film go, citing some petty arguments. I saw the film at a private showing by the Punjab govemment and was very impressed. I tried hard to help him, but failed. I do believe that he had as much talent in film making, as the great film maker Satyajit Ray. While Ray was lucky to be helped and encouraged by Dr B C Roy, the Chief Minister of Bengal, in Punjab after Kairon, nobody understood Serbjeet enough to hold his hand. Now, 40 years later, when Serbjeet is dead, the film must still be stuck in the Punjab government archives. What a shame. He never made any more films. Perhaps just gave up. It is a sad story of the loss of a great film making talent.

Serbjeet and I became friends. I liked his pugnacious personality. He painted as well as Roerich, but differently. The same great Himalaya, the valleys, the crags, the little temples on top of the mountain ridges, with Shiva tridents left by yogis and sadhus. He painted nothing else. The mountains remained his life-long obsession. He left a body of work, which is a great national treasure. But unfortunately Serbjeet was not given, in his life time, the recognition that was his due. He was a fiercely independent man and suffered no fools. Unfortunately, the cultural awards generally require a lot of 'pairavi', (follow up and 'buttering') and hanging around important people's outer chambers. Serbjeet would rather drop dead, than be seen in one of them.

The strange thing is, that Serbjeet's paintings, came to the notice of our earlier Prime Ministers, Nehru onwards. His remarkable satellite eye view, maps of the Himalaya, hang in many places. His sketch work on the Zozi la, as a bold painter-correspondent is a rare historical record, for the India Ariny. Just before he passed away, he sent me a brochure on these sketches. I am amazed, at what he has done. In spite of all this, and more, nobody thought it fit, to give him a simple an official recognition: The wheel has come full circle, and the discerning world is beginning to recognise Serbjeet's worth.

Serbjeet had another talent. He had a great natural command over the English language, and could write sharp pieces, chiselled like diamonds, on men and events, particularly military affairs, with a humour and bite, which was sometimes difficult to face up to. Every time he wrote a sharp short letter to an editor, it demolished the unfortunate opponent. I always argued with him, insisting that he should write an autobiography, since he knew several historical figures of that period intimately. Sadly, he never came around to doing it. It's a loss.

Serbjeet was generous. In Pandara Park, New Delhi, there is a Sikh owner of a restaurant. Serabjeet painted great mountain panoramas, in each nook and comer, of the eatery. I am told, he has also painted the walls of his Dalhousie house with murals and paintings. I always promised to visit this house to see his wall paintings, but sadly, never did in his life time but I will one day. When I became the President of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, the museum there was in a mess. It only had pictures of personalities, who liked being seen on the walls. The museum was named after Tensing Norgay, and I persuaded Serbjeet, to work on it. He did, as a service and painted various maps on the wall of the museum. He also presented all his Himalayan maps to the IMF. He was a generous man, and gave away most of his paintings too. Only few remain with his family. He used to send me an annual painted card, for the New Year, some scene in the high Himalaya, that floated before his inner eye. My wife kept them all carefully, and framed them. Though many could not recognise his real worth, his aura remains.

DR. M. S. GILL

 

⇑ Top