june 15th has a special place in my life. it was this day almost a quarter century ago that my father died in a car accident, and in that singular outbreath changed so many lives irrevocably. just as he had filled them with his goodness when he was alive. it has been almost a quarter of a century and perhaps not a single day has not passed when i have not remembered him. i remember. i remember the silence i entered when my sister in law's friend broke the news to me. "there's been an accident. two people died. your father is no more." it was as if life had suddenly gone into slow motion. i could clearly understand what she had just told me and yet nothing made sense. and it was years before it made sense, if at all. i remember traveling to the morgue and seeing my fathers body, not daring to touch it, just looking at him. so still, not a scratch that i could see
on the body, yet evidently he had gone to a place very very far away.
i remember consoling my friends at the funeral, neither they nor i knowing what really to say - what can you say? i remember going back to iim and breaking down - just once. outside that it was just this immense sadness that had enveloped my world, but it was a very private sorrow. and i remember the dreams that came unfailingly for years - in them he was always alive, and i always surprised ("you're alive?!") and then immensely happy. all was well in my world again. i remember how wonderfully well my world seemed to be when i was sleeping in the backseat of my parents car, my father singing ghalib's ghazals, and the car gently humming away to its destination. how i hated it when the destination actually arrived and the car slowed down :-) i remember sitting in the verandah with my parents and generally being. happy. i remember that he often called me "shera" (tiger) and though i never knew why, i wasn't complaining! i remember during my iit days when my cycle would set out for the chemical engineering department but change its mind and head home instead, to share a morning tea with my parents. and they never seemed surprised :-) it was a battle chemical engineering lost too often so i decided to do an mba instead :-)
i remember the entry my father made in his dairy ("deepak needs the car..") when i asked to borrow his car for a date. i remember the warmth of his home office and the simple pride he took in his income tax library. i remember the crazy tenants that my parents would invariably find for our annexe (each was a character. i was like "wow":-)
i remember cold winter mornings when my father would wake me up to study, a glass of milk already steaming hot in his hands. i remember cool summer evenings celebrating mangoes melons and life's mysteries with my parents.
even more than what i remember are the living lessons that went way beyond memory -so deep beneath the skin that i could not forget them even if you promised me unimaginable riches. or tortures.
an unimpeachable integrity and the wonderful freedom of honesty's breath. an immense capability for hard work and a meticulous attention to detail. a brilliant mind and a humility that outshone the mind. a passion for history, mathematics and poetry that he bestowed to me as a genetic part gift and that are slowly beginning to stir inside me :-) a generosity of spirit that lead him to treat a vast extended family as his own, and the innumerable responsibilities that he cheerfully shouldered. his was a vast umbrella that provided shelter and support to so many.
and above everything, the simplicity of his love that infected every cell of mine with its warmth till i was left with no doubt that yes i had been loved and no sovereign no government no historian could alter the truth of that. we were never "rich", he never really had any significant savings yet such was the promise of his love that i never ever really needed anything, not an iota was experienced as lacking. it was the most undemanding, most giving love i have known and it lives on as the very foundation of my being.
love. that life is nothing if not love. sincerity. that intention matters supremely. goodness. the ease (and not the difficulty) of being good. an equal eye. that no one is really higher or lower. truthfulness. the unforgettable fragrance of a life lived uncorrupted, and for others. will power. that anything is possible if you are so determined. humility. that there's no escape from hard work no matter how brilliant you are. generosity. that the true secret of giving is to give before you are asked, and quietly. and passion. that love is nothing if not lived. these are the lessons of many lifetimes, and will probably take many lifetimes to imbue :-) but what a teaching, and how precious this inheritance is.
its not that there are no regrets. ghalib, urdu, hugs, just a little more time. much more time :-) its not that he was perfect. he was human, so wonderfully human. its just that there was a fire that he lit. and in this near quarter of a century since he passed away the fire has refused to die, just seems to be growing brighter and brighter.
every june 15th is a double celebration then - a beloved father's death anniversary and a dear nephew's birth anniversary (happy birthday karan!). a precious death and a precious birth on the same day of the year, such is the way the river of life flows, and there is much it is telling us.
this weeks poem is again a fresh discovery. loved the title! and the poem too :-) and though my father may not have exactly written this one, he probably would have written his one!
Letter Of Recommendation From My Father To My Future Wife
During the war, I was in China.
Every night we blew the world to hell.
The sky was purple and yellow
like his favorite shirt.
I was in India once
on the Ganges in a tourist boat.
There were soldiers,
some women with parasols.
A dead body floated by
going in the opposite direction.
My son likes this story
and requests it each year at Thanksgiving.
When he was twelve,
there was an accident.
He almost went blind.
For three weeks he lay in the hospital,
his eyes bandaged.
He did not like visitors,
but if they came
he'd silently hold their hand as they talked.
Small attentions
are all he requires.
Tell him you never saw anyone
so adept
at parallel parking.
Still, your life will not be easy.
Just look in the drawer where he keeps his socks.
Nothing matches. And what's the turtle shell
doing there, or the map of the moon,
or the surgeon's plastic model of a take-apart heart?
You must understand --
he doesn't see the world clearly.
Once he screamed, "The woods are on fire!"
when it was only a blue cloud of insects
lifting from the trees.
But he's a good boy.
He likes to kiss
and be kissed.
I remember mornings
he would wake me, stroking my whiskers
and kissing my hand.
He'll tell you -- and it's true --
he prefers the green of your eyes
to all the green life
of heaven and earth.
Richard Jones
its yet another monday night and you've just been monday morning emailed (in a manner of speaking :-) the fragrance, as the buddha said, of a life fully gived, goes that far and then even further. may it be our fragrance too.
much love,
d&s
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