I was born in Model Town, Patiala, and the city has grown up with me. In those quieter years it still carried the soft dignity of its royal past — tree-lined roads, and an unhurried rhythm. Going back now is like meeting an old friend who has become busier and more crowded, yet whose essential character remains.Patiala’s deepest identity has always been educational. From the grand legacy of Mohindra College, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in North India, to Multani Mal Modi College and the Yadavindra Public School founded after Partition, the city has long shaped young minds. These, along with Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rajindra Medical College, Punjabi University, Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law and the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports, have turned Patiala into a genuine educational hub. Students still arrive every year, and the city continues to absorb them with the same quiet pride it once showed us.Faith remains a living thread. The walls leading to Gurudwara Dukh Niwaran Sahib still speak to the spirit, drawing people seeking solace. Nearby, the deep faith of devotees continues to pull crowds to Kali Mata Mandir, a place that has held the city’s devotion across generations.The commercial face has shifted. The early excitement around Omaxe Mall has faded, while PVR and newer malls have taken centre stage. Yet the AC market in Adalat Bazaar still holds its own. The old and the new sit side by side. The old single screen theatres — Phul, Capital and Tagore, few of them are restored and still screen films, but the others have faded or lost their earlier glory.What also lingers in memory is the city’s distinctive cultural flavour. Once Patiala was known far and wide for its peg, its pranda and its Punjabi jutti. The generous Patiala peg still carries a certain swagger in conversations, while the finely embroidered jutti continues to find buyers in the old bazaars. The colourful pranda, once a common and graceful part of women’s everyday attire, has largely faded from daily life, becoming more of a ceremonial memory.The Army Cantonment, though, has stayed true to itself. Its neat roads, green stretches and quite discipline still give that part a clean and orderly look that many of us quietly appreciate.The city is no longer the simple royal town of my childhood, but it has not lost its soul. It remains a place of learning, of faith, of enduring flavours and of belonging — a city that continues to teach, even as it changes.Dr Nainky Sodhi, PatialaTribuneindia.com invites contributions to SHAHARNAMA. Share anecdotes, unforgettable incidents, impressionable moments that define your cities, neighbourhoods, what the city stands for, what makes its people who they are. Send your contributions in English, not exceeding 450 words, to shaharnama@Jattvibemail.comDo include the name of your city and your social media handles (X/ Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn)