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Balvinder
Soon after Malerkotla was announced to become the 23rd district of Punjab recently, it remained in the news, chiefly for political reasons. This took me back to my Malerkotla days that I had spent in this historic town in the early ’60s.
Our small town Dhuri, near Malerkotla, where we had settled after being thrown out of our homes and hearths in today’s Pakistan, had no degree college then. So after completing high school, I spent two formative years in Malerkotla to pass ‘one’ preparatory college class. I fondly remember the town’s narrow, but bubbly and living bazaars, my favourite being the one where talented craftsmen used to weave beautiful silky blazer-pockets that are still used as insignias by many professional and other educational institutions. Brass metal insignias and trophies are still crafted there.