Pride of Haryana Justice Surya Kant - Dr RAJ BAHADUR YADAV

 I can recall with a sense of pride that Justice Surya Kant, who has recently been recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium as Himachal Pradesh High Court Chief Justice, was my classmate at Government College, Hisar from 1977 to 1981. He was born on February 10, 1962 in Petwar village of Hisar district. He had a precocious talent for learning. He passed his matric examination from the village government school and completed his graduation from Government College, Hisar in 1981.Being a rural boy, he became my best friend.He was very articulate besides being imaginative also. I find my mind flooded with so many memories about him. I would like to share some of them with my readers. An American poet and educator, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow says,"Still achieving, still pursuing/Learn to labour and to wait". Justice Surya Kant was an omnivorous reader, always hunting for goods books. Having gone through them, he would discuss their main contents with me. He read the novels of Munshi Premchand, Upendranath Ashk, Yashpal Jain,Jainendra, Rajendra Yadav, Manu Bhandari and Bhisham Sahni with great enthusiasm. He spoke with erudition on Munshi Premchand's novel,"Godan" and Jainendra's work, "Tyagpatra". Haryana's famous poet, Prof Uday Bhanu Hans, used to be our teacher and sometimes he would show his self-composed poems to the great poet who usually patted him,"Well done, well done boy! Keep on writing !". Prof Satnarayan Sharma, a prominent lecturer in Hindi in those days, was his true guide and mentor. Prof Sharma shaped him into a brilliant and spontaneous orator. He was particularly very fond of talking about Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan and his popular concept of "Sampoorna Kranti"[Total Revolution]. In most of his declamation contests and debates, he would passionately argue in favour of an egalitarian society. He vehemently criticised the barriers of caste and creed. Like many of my classmates, I too had no inkling that one day, this talented rural boy would turn into a big legal luminary also. Justice Surya Kant has never used his " caste surname" himself in his entire life. Once I wrote a letter to him when I was doing my MA[English] from Kurukshetra University and put a suffix"Sharma" to his name, he did not like it and wrote back a 28-page letter, reminding me very politely,"Raj Bahadur, you know my views about castes and surnames. How can a good friend like you tag "Sharma" with my name?" In fact, with his landmark judgements, he has already proved the relevance of his name,"Surya Kant"[ glowing like Sun]. I consider myself fortunate to be familiar with Justice Surya Kant's father, Madan Gopal Shastri also[ a state level poet and author] who very carefully guided his promising son to work hard and never look back. It is just proper here to mention that he has authored several books like"Maati ki mahak"[ Fragrance of the earth] ," Adhyapak Samaj ki Vyatha Katha"[ A tale of teachers' sufferings], 'Nagari, nagari dware, dware"[ From city to city, door to door],"Chundari rung birangi'[ a long multi-hued female scarf], "Haryanavi gramya jivan aur riti riwaz"[ Rural life in Haryana and its customs].He has been awarded"Mahakavi Surdas Samman" by the Sahitya Akademi of Haryana. Whenever I visit him, I find him writing a new book or looking for some publisher to print it. I feel grateful to him that he spares time for me despite his ripe age and shares his views on literature with me. Last week when I congratulated him on the elevation of Justice Surya Kant as Chief Justice, his graceful and humble reply was,"Beta, ye aap sab ki subhkamnaon ka phal hai"[ My son, this is the result of good wishes of people like you].