Mani Shankar Aiyar gets birth certificate at 67

LAHORE: Visiting Indian minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, born here in pre-partition India, has obtained his birth certificate at the age of 67.

In response to his request for a birth certificate, the Lahore civic authorities processed the document within hours, bettering the record of Delhi in that the latter took longer to access old records and prepare the birth certificate of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf was born on August 10, 1943 at Nehar Wali Gali, a locality in old Delhi and was a little over four years old when his parents migrated to Pakistan. The Delhi government had prepared his birth certificate but it could not be gifted to him when he visited India last.

Lahore was one up on the Indian capital on Wednesday when its nazim (mayor), Ameer Mahmud, presented Aiyar with a certificate. Mani Shankar Aiyar was born at Lady Aitchison Hospital in Lahore on April 9, 1941.

"The finding of my birth record within few hours by the city government was a pleasant surprise for me," said Aiyar.

He was also amazed to find that his original name, registered at the Lahore Municipality, was Venkata Subramaniam.

According to the birth certificate, the names of father and mother of the Indian minister were V Shankar Aiyar and Bhagya Lakshmi Shankar Aiyar.

Aiyar, whose Punjabi wife also hails from what is today Pakistan, said when he made the request for the certificate, he had expressed reservations about the availability of pre-partition records of the civic body and the hospital.

However, while presenting the certificate Mahmud assured him that records right from 1876 were intact and computerised.