A life lived well, from Shimla to Prague

“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the telephone and with muffled drum/ Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.” As I grieve the loss of my father, this verse from WH Auden’s poem Funeral Blues plays on my mind.

A charismatic man, papa left an impact on many who met him. He was quick to laughter and even quicker to temper. His loud booming voice could put the fear of God, but on the other hand he had an intrinsic sense of reaching out to people and helping them. He was ahead of his times and never hesitated to try and adopt new things. A brilliant engineer, who loved music and loved to waltz. Even in the last years of his life when walking was hard for him and dancing impossible, he would try to waltz with his granddaughters.

His great love was the mountains, especially the hometown of his grandparents, Shimla. He grew up primarily in Bombay but whenever the demands of schooling got too much, he would escape to Shimla, sometimes for months, using the excuse that he missed his grandparents. So as children, we spent many a summer break in Shimla. My dad would point out his favourite haunts and also the surrounding bhoot banglas (haunted houses) and the stories that went with them. I still wonder if the haunted house just a little south of Hotel Asia Minor exists or has it been taken over by developers?

Years later on a visit to the Mall Road, he gleefully showed my daughters the police booth across from the general post office, where he would hide after skipping school. My daughters were entranced. They wanted to do the same.

They would argue that if papa could skip school then why couldn’t they? My response to them was that papa graduated as the youngest student from the first batch of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, if they could do something comparable then sure why not.

When I was growing up, papa would regale my brother and me with stories of yesteryear stars in Bombay. He would tell us of his neighbour, the actress Suraiya who lived in the same building. He would tell us about Dev Anand who was in love with Suraiya and would visit her every day.

But his best stories were of Prague, where he went to work in his early twenties. He would tell us how bitterly cold it was for a boy from Bombay. He would joke about the fact that people would literally stop and stare at him, a sardar (Sikh), as if he was a specimen from a zoo. Sikh men were not seen much, or at all, in eastern Europe back in the early ’60s. Not once did he talk about discrimination. Instead, he looked at his years in eastern Europe as a great adventure.

Papa had the joie de vivre till the end. We made big plans of travelling to Istanbul and Goa, instead he went to hospital. Now he’s travelled further than we can reach but we take consolation in the fact that it was a life well lived.

PAPA LEFT AN IMPACT ON MANY WHO MET HIM. HE WAS QUICK TO LAUGHTER AND EVEN QUICKER TO TEMPER