At the dawn of Independent India in 1947, Manmohan Singh, aged 13, displaced by the partition, came to live with his parents in Amritsar from Gah, now in Pakistan, where he was born.
The house is today much more than it was in his time. Memories of the locals, his neigbours, friends, many of whom live here even now, reflect a man risen from the grassroots, his success built on dedication and merit overcoming odds.
Says Ramesh Kumar, an old resident of the locality, "We are so proud, so happy, that our old friend, someone who has grown up with us is today the country's prime minister. He'll do some good work, negate all the bad things done by politicians in the past. He's a very decent, very balanced person we can identify with. Only someone who has felt poverty first hand knows what it is like."
Rajwinder (64), an old family friend who lives in the same area even today, said: "In the early days, his family faced great problems due to poverty. His father had a petty job, and on days it was so bad, there wasn't even bread in the house to eat. He used to go to school barefeet. They didn't have electricity in the house, so he studied under a street lamp. Very often his family had to go to bed hungry for want of money."
Manjit Singh Calcutta, General Secretary of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), says, "There had been great tension between the Sikhs and Congress since 1984 with Bluestar and the killing of Indira Gandhi. This will bridge the gap."
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