DEATH ANNOUNCEMENT
GURBACHAN SINGH SETHI
“Bauji”
26 February 1939 – 14 August 2019
Northern Railway clerk, hockey man and Partition survivor who fed thousands at langar
In August 1947, an eight-year-old boy walked out of Rawalpindi holding his mother's dupatta, with a steel tiffin carrier and a promise that they would be back by winter. They never went back. Gurbachan Singh Sethi arrived in Delhi on a refugee train, grew up in the tents of Kingsway Camp, and rebuilt his life one clean, patient step at a time, which is also how he later did his sums.
In 1960 he joined Northern Railway as a clerk in the Divisional Railway Manager's office at New Delhi station, a post he held for thirty-seven years. Colleagues said he knew the timetable the way priests know scripture; he could tell you, without looking, which platform the Kalka Shatabdi would use. He played centre-half for the Northern Railway hockey team through the sixties, a quiet, dependable defender, and every Sunday morning he served in the langar kitchen at Gurdwara Bangla Sahib, peeling garlic and wiping thalis for thousands of strangers.
At home in Rajinder Nagar, Bauji was famous for his gajar-shalgam pickle, jarred every January and delivered by scooter to anyone who looked unwell. He loved Mohammad Rafi songs on an old Murphy radio, hated waste, and flew the tricolour from his balcony every Independence Day without fail. He and Harbans Kaur were married for fifty-eight years. He died in his sleep on 14 August 2019, the eve of the holiday he loved, and is survived by Harbans, his son Vikram, his daughter Simran in Toronto and five grandchildren who have promised to keep making the pickle.
“A full plate shared is a full life.”