Phulpur, near Prayagraj, UP, shot into prominence when the country’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru, won three Parliamentary elections from there. Later, his sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit also became an MP from Phulpur. It is the only constituency that gave India two Prime Ministers, Pt Nehru and VP Singh.

Having spent some time at Phulpur during the eighties, I found it to be a tranquil place where life moved slowly and everybody knew everyone, may it be the local SDM, college principal, the best doctor in town or even the car mechanic.

Hashmat was Phulpur’s well-known tobacco-chewing mechanic who ran his ramshackle garage at the entrance to the town. There was also Principal Siddiqui who would ride a horse to the college. His logic for preferring a horse over car: “This animal saved

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