SAMS -IN -LAW
JL Singh '65
One always felt that Jamalpur was an excellent location for a Hindi movie blockbuster. It has the hills, greenery, and a lake. There is a mandir on top of the hill for the "Bhagwan Sakshi" marriage and any number of locales for the last fight like the quarries or the massive stores in the workshop. The grave in the middle of the golf course gives the script a historical perspective. There's even a convenient "Lover's Lane".
In such an environment, heroes and heroines would be expected to proliferate. In actual practice though, heroes in the form of SCAs have been a dime a dozen but heroines have been scarce.
Kalyani’83 changed all that. She came, she saw, she conquered. And the hero she conquered was none other than Sanjay Chadda?'81. The first all Sam marriage took place in 198?: Sanjay's relatives and Kalyani's relatives became the first true set of Sam -in -laws.
Kalyani's lead was quickly followed by heroine no. 2, Saraswati'86, soon found her hero. Santosh Sinha, also ‘86. Heroine No.3, Bindu'89, hooked her hero in Jamalpur itself although they got married later in 1997.The hero Mayank Tiwari'89, was prepared to scale any peak, even cycle all the way to Kharagpur Lakes, for being near her. The story goes that the adventurous group of the 89 batch was planning a safari to the famous Kharagpur lakes. Bindu wanted to join them. They had no objection to her joining the gang except that this would mean Mayank also tagging along. And they were not sure of his stamina. Anyway, the story ended with Mayank returning to Jamalpur with breath not too far out and only one punctured tyre to show for his effort.
The latest hero to succumb is Vinay Srivastava'88, who has recently tied the knot with Vineeta Rao'91.
We already have Heroines No.5, 6 and 7.They haven't trapped their heroes yet but we are sure that it is only a matter of time.
Marriage between Sams did create in-laws, but such in-laws were certainly not the first. Another type of Sam-in-law is the father-in-law - son-in-law type. There are two such relationships that we are aware of: S.P.Mittal’54 married his daughter to Deepak Gupta'73. This was followed byH.N.Lal'56,marrying his daughter to Amitabh Sinha'81.
One thing Sams are very fond of doing is becoming in-laws through sisters. A number of instances of two Sams marrying sisters come to the mind. There's K.V.Krishnamurthy'49 and the late R.N.G.Dastidar '53, P.K.Malik'56 and Anil Badhwar'66, P.C.Verma'57 and S.C.Saxena'63, A.K.Rao'64 and Ravi Kochak'74, R.Singh'76 and S.M.Sharma'88.
Surprisingly, the Sam brother-in-law is not as common as one might expect. Only three instances are known to this chronicler. Starting this trend was R.S.Krishnan'31, getting married to the sister of S.Venkataraman?'55. This was followed by J.L.Singh'65 marrying R.Malhan'66's sister and Sanjeev Kishore'81 marrying Sishir Dutt'82's sister.
In sharp contrast to this, the Sam samdhi is not at all uncommon. Starting in the 40s batches, the trend continues. Sam samdhis include R.C.Tandon'42 marrying off his son to M.M.Suri'44's daughter; A.N.Shukla'53's son marrying S.K.Dikshit'56's daughter. The most celebrated Sam samdhi is M.K. Khosla'46,marrying both his sons to Sam daughters, the lucky brides' fathers being I.K.Puri'47 and Loraia'48 respectively.
The latest to join the club are Y.B.Sharma'64 and J.L.Singh'65.In December 97, the former's daughter married the latter's son. Friends noted that when JL had been following YB around all his life-to Jamalpur, into the Railways, on a foreign posting, to the alma mater as a professor and finally to RITES- is wasn't at all surprising that the son had followed the daughter into matrimony.
PS:- If there are other cases of Sams-in -law that may have been missed, please let us know. We would like to keep a complete record. Previous issues of SAM have already chronicled blood relatives including Sam brothers and Sam sons.
PS- Heroine No. 7, as Mr. JL Singh would prefer calling her, Anjali Varshney'93 ,married Suveer Kumar Sinha '93 on the 5th of Feb'99. It seems Mr. JL Singh has it all perfectly scripted......
PPS- A new set of SAM samdhis and a horde of SAM relatives for Vani. Her SAM links; Mr. SC Vadera'45- father, Mr. VK Bhargav '63 - father-in-law and, of course, Rajat Bhargav'88 - hubby.