Balraj Sahni’s house grabbed by land mafia

AMRITSAR: The house of one of silver screen’s finest actors, Balraj Sahni, who wrote his memoirs there, is under occupation of land sharks in Preet Nagar, once the hub of renowned Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu writers just 30 km from Amritsar.
"The house that once belonged to Balraj-ji is now under illegal occupation," said Hridaypal Singh, son of noted litterateur Gurbaksh Singh Preetlari, who set up Preet Nagar in the British era as home to brilliant writers and poets like Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Sahir Ludhianvi, Upendra Nath Ashq, Kartar Singh Duggal, Amrita Pritam and Balwant Gargi.
Hridaypal, 80, took this correspondent on a ride through the township identifying the house that once belonged to the thespian, whose birth centenary is being observed this year.
"Balraj-ji bought this house in 1960, but he didn’t mention it in his will. He made a relative in Amritsar the caretaker. But he and some other people faked documents and sold it," said Hridaypal.
The new owners also demolished the original structure of Sahni’s house and now don’t let anyone visit it, he added. "Balraj-ji’s actor son Parikshit Sahni didn’t show much interest in his father’s house in absence of legal documents and never pursued its possession in the courts," said Hridaypal.
Balraj Sahni, who immortalized the character of Shambhu Mahato in the 1953 classic ‘Do Bigha Zameen’, as a farmer struggling to keep his land from a rich businessman who wants to build a mill there, wrote his travelogue, ‘Mera Pakistani Safarnama’ in this house.
"But, we’re not letting the great actor’s memories vanish from Preet Nagar. We’ve built a digital auditorium dedicated to Sahni on his birth centenary year," said Hridaypal, adding that he had requested Balraj’s family members to grace a function in the actor’s memory.
Hirdaypal further said Sahni even got his son Parikshit admitted in a school in Preet Nagar but he couldn’t pursue his education there for long because Sahni, then a BBC commentator, had to travel frequently.
"All residents of Preet Nagar went to Lahore to watch Balraj’s debut movie ‘Dharti Ke Lal’. From 1965 to 1973, the legendary actor visited his house in Preet Nagar regularly. He lived here as a simple villager and played with children and took them to watch films," he said.
"Two days before his death, he called me to say that he was coming to Preet Nagar but that day never came," he recalled. The actor passed away in Mumbai in 1973 due to cardiac arrest.