The other tale you hear is about a certain Sikh damsel who studied at the Allahabad University's English department in the late 30s. The beautiful young woman's name hadn't got suffixed with a Bachchan yet. At the campus, she was known as something of a rebel. Allahabad University prided itself as a place for the liberal-minded and welcomed people with radical ideas and lifestyles. Yet custodians of liberty at the university had to stretch their moral fabric a wee bit more to accommodate our lady's rights of expression. By wearing lipstick and a sleeveless blouse in the classroom, she set the moral police on her hunt. Her English professor—a venerable university stalwart—objected to this attire, and even threatened to resign. But the lady refused to budge and stood her ground. Such was her charm and aura, or so the legends of Loknath Gali maintain, that the vice-chancellor of the university intervened on her behalf and the poor professor had to back down.
Loknath Gali has not changed much since those days. You still hear the tallest tales there. If it was drizzling when you entered the gali, by the time you reach the Baba Loknath temple you would hear people talking about the hailstorm that has just lashed the town. The past exists in easy harmony with the present. In one of the many narrow lanes someone will point out a building that is falling apart—the Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya, set up by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, and still functioning.
This neighbourhood doesn't look like it will succumb to Allahabad's new builders, who are tearing down the fabulous bungalows to make group housing flats. A local wag avers the lanes here are too narrow for the builder to move in his bulldozers, so they are safe for now. And safe too is the statue of Pandit Kalyan Chand Mohiley, which stands stately at the Loknath Gali entrance. Mohiley who? you would ask. And why him in a city that has given India four PMs and a refusing-to-retire superstar? Well, Mohiley was four-timeMLA from the area. That's attitude, Loknath Gali-style, for you. That deep-rooted self-assurance and unabashed local pride ensure that a Big Mac or even a dosa will never threaten the supremacy of Hari's samosas.
