An equitable arrangement with bittersweet nostalgia

Dear Pappa, 

June is here, the sunlight is here, and it dragged in the bittersweet nostalgia through doors kicked open by summer. Somehow I was and wasn't ready for it to arrive, so I agreed to meet it on the page, and it was deemed to be somewhat an equitable arrangement. In a previous draft of this letter, which I've since deleted, I told you how I came to be a writer. How I, the first in our family to go to school, squandered it on a degree in rocket science. How instead, I found solace in obscure works written by dead authors, some of whom never dreamed of a brown face hanging by their sentences. I found solace in a language in which the more words I learn, the farther it carries me from you. But none of that matters. All that matters is that it brought me to this page.

Dearly beloved, we have gathered here where no misfortune has befallen us. We have gathered here simply to assure you, unequivocally, that you are, dearly beloved. 

At twenty-three, standing short at 5ft 8in, weighing 170lb, I am writing from a body you created with your only lover. That is to say, I am writing as your son. 

In this life on the run, I have had to change the name you attached to me (Prathamesh) to something that slips from the lips (Mesh). The history of preferred names runs in the family. So I am writing to summon your name. Not the one affectionately adopted, but the one you were born with.

In the depths of a September afternoon, within the weathered walls of a century-old hut nestled in the corner of a rice paddy, the same one that cradled your father's childhood, you became his son. As grandma told it, it was the Ganesh festival and the air hung heavy with the remnants of yesterday's festivities, a jubilation in honour of the revered elephant god. Relatives, both close and extended, gathered outside the hut alongside a priest, eagerly anticipating the inaugural cries of your existence. After the midwives cut the umbilical cord, the priest hastened inside, enfolding your newborn form, still coated in the remnants of birth, within a pristine saffron cloth. Swiftly, you were whisked away to the nearby river, where veils of incense smoke and sage scent enveloped the sacred bathing that awaited you. It was then that the priest, in hushed reverence, whispered the name that he bestowed upon you. 

It meant - ‘the one blessed with an elephant's visage’.

Sensing the need to capitalise on the festivities but, more importantly, appease the man who was to compensate him for his services, I can imagine the priest wisely selected a name that would satiate grandpa's expectations. And it worked. Ajoba radiated joy, lifting you high above the threshold of the humble dwelling. "My son," he exclaimed, his voice resounding with conviction, "the very incarnation of the divine, sent to salvage this village and bestow prosperity upon its inhabitants." As the years unfurled, the village, trapped in the clutches of destitution, withered before your eyes. At thirteen, you stepped in the classroom for the last time as the last teacher in the village died. A year later, the dire circumstances would drive you to flee, leaving behind the very soil that gave you life.

I need to tell this story as it reminds me of the burdensome fate thrust upon you, an unmerciful imposition of godly duty that stripped away the simple joys of uttering your own name, without it being followed by a weighty decree of unfathomable responsibilities. Which you, with an air of nonchalance, shouldered within your being. And when it was my turn to follow in your footsteps, departing the sanctuary of my familial abode at seventeen, you washed my feet of that crimson burden, liberating me to wander a path untethered by the weight of our name. Now, I only throw your name behind mine but believe me when I say, I never want to leave it behind. And in the delightful liberation, I often forget to say Thank you. 

What is a name but something we carry with ourselves like a weightless burden, like our heartbeat?

What is a name if not a lifeless sentence -

Mesh.

What is a name if not a life sentence? 

***

India is a beautiful country, depending on where you look. Depending on where you look, you might see a boy with dreams in his eyes, grateful to live another day. Or you might witness a shameful usurpation of sunlight meant for all, as towering figures loom over the slums. Shouting is the preferred mode of communication, a means to ensure that you're heard among millions of people. For the poor, the cost of living is high, the cost of dying is higher. It is true what they say, there isn't much difference between here and there. But it makes all the difference if you survive, and thank you for surviving. India, indeed is a beautiful country, depending on who you are. 

Fourteen years old, you arrived in the city that never sleeps. It was the peak of the monsoon. Rain in Mumbai is like a reckoning. It divides people. You either celebrate the heavy freshness in the air or find yourself submerged, struggling to resurface, overwhelmed as the water swells, threatening to spill over. The dirt sticks to your legs like quotation marks, your body - a living dialogue. A plea - to survive. Wrapped in a worn quilt, with the weight of uncertainty upon your shoulders and the meagre sustenance of a single meal tucked in your pocket, you stood at the city’s doorstep with nothing but your labour. While your naive ambition was to become a doctor, it was always survival that was on your mind. So you humbly presented what little you possessed, offering your sweat and toil to the unforgiving city. You worked all and any jobs that came your way. Your hands, calloused and blistered long before I was born, then ruined further by working on the port, filling containers that would feed entire countries, their children and their dreams in exchange for two meals a day for your family. Night after night, you returned home, only to depart early each morning. During the first two years of my life, our encounters were fleeting. You would witness me slumbering peacefully while I caught but glimpses of you. 

Today, the void of your absence shadows my recollection of you; that is to say, I miss you more than I remember you. 

London, adorned by the Thames, and Mumbai, embraced by the Arabian Sea, both owe their existence to the waters that cradle them. They served as conduits of trade, shaping the destinies of these cities. London, with its bustling ports and maritime heritage, became the empire's hub, while Mumbai, born from the fishing villages, transformed into India's commercial and financial heart. Here, the boundaries between land and water blur and the rhythm of the waves is found in the heartbeat of the people, defining their collective identity. To live in these cities is to carry the fragility of your existence in your hands and not let the water wash it away. At the crack of dawn, people march forth into battle, navigating the concrete trenches, ready to replace the ones who defended the front line overnight. They say, in the capricious embrace of the water, stories float, awaiting their chance to be revealed. And only if you’re lucky, some stories survive like shipwrecks, only debris floating - but finally legible. So the truth is, people in water cities speak only partially in language, but entirely in war.

Whilst I inherited my mother tongue from Ma, it was the language of war that I inherited from you - a lexicon of resilience, perseverance, and solidarity.

***

September this year you turn fifty, inching closer but not the closest you've been to death.

I am writing to take us back to that time when you lied to Ma that you would be home late from work, while you lay on a hospital bed. When you continued the charade, fabricating a story of a bike accident when she rushed to your side. And moments later, she fainted on the ground like a puppet cut from the strings as she overheard your friend recounting the actual events. I am writing because I forgot to ask how it felt looking those goons in their eyes and begging for forgiveness for things you never did. To grasp your head between your trembling hands and unleash desperate screams for your mother, enduring the merciless blows of their hockey sticks. To have a crowd gather, spectating this heinous proceeding and realising the inherent loneliness that exists within everyone. To realise how misunderstandings can drive people to kill? To have your life flash before your eyes and only be able to see your child always sleeping and your wife cooking in the kitchen, her back turned towards you? 

How in the chilling turn of events, the sirens arrived, typically harbingers of ill tidings, but brought you the rest of your life and, along with it, my future. It was when I was 12, four years after the incident, a realisation washed over me like a chilling wave— that the spectre of that trauma still haunted your being. On the TV, the Indian hockey team was playing the Netherlands at the London Olympics. It was when you flinched every time the players swung their sticks, unstitching your unhealed wounds, one shot at a time. India lost 2-3, and I never could watch another hockey game again. 

That time when we had our longest conversation at the rest stop on the highway that stretched towards your hometown, a journey of at least 10 hours. As the rain poured, the glass distorted us, leaving only our silhouettes, colours like of impressionist paintings. You told me you love to drive because you could crawl back into your brain where it's comfortable and sit with your thoughts without any guilt. When we set off on the highway again, the December trees blurred by, branches raking the violet heavens. And I needed no further explanation, thanks to you, for I, too, was fluent in silence. 

Because I am your son, what I know of survival I equally know of loss. You lost your father in a time you were sure you couldn’t lose anything. Business thrived like the summer's day outside, while inside our home, sheer curtains adorned a south-facing window, only allowing in the sun's warmth. The gentle whir of an oscillating fan serenaded the air, brushing against the freshly washed white bedsheets as they gracefully danced on the clothesline. It happened all of a sudden. “It’s time, rush home now!”, Ma whispered on the phone, “he’s going”. As I made my way back from the playground, those words rattled about my mind like a loose pebble in a shoe. I entered the living room, to find you, already by your old man’s feet. His weakened eyes flickered beneath their half-closed lids as he mumbled incoherent fragments. I remember you rushing to the cupboards, frantically grasping for paracetamol, hoping it could somehow prolong the inevitable. You looked at me, the way a father looks at anything—not long enough and started to cry. You left the room, already on your way to becoming a story.

You lost your father the summer you were sure you couldn’t lose anything, which is to say you lost him the summer you had finally made it to the other side.

I have your eyes, they say. They are weak, yet they behold the world just as yours do - with a perpetual haze and an insatiable hunger for splendour and delight. You were five thousand miles away when I opened the door to my first snowfall, but I heard you whisper, "Look." Your voice filled me to the core, like a skeleton, and my solitude melted with the flakes touching the October earth. And suddenly, I wasn't lonely anymore. I am writing to tell you that it's been six years since I moved to the UK and I have fallen in love with the leaves here, for they make their death so beautiful. They emerge from ordinary branches, painting the world with vibrant hues before winter's icy grip crushes them into brittle remnants, crumbling into a graceful demise. But it's still back home; when I 'look', the trees in the rain look like my grandparents laughing, and I hold my face like a lover would, and let them finish their conversation.  

Every path I tread, I stumble upon myself, or rather - I stumble upon you.

***

Yesterday, tidying my room, I found a loose page nestled within a journal of mine from 2020. It read - 

11 Lessons from Pa to stay alive:

1. Wear comfy pants.
2. Never jump in head first - always feet first.
3. Cut the ties.
4. Don't wish your way into submission.
5. Find folks who smell like bonfire, who smile like the start of everything; make them a feast. Love them.
6. Leave the ghosts to their haunting.
7. Make friends with your wounds, learn their secrets.
8. Mirrors can do magic if you just stand still in front of them.
9. Hold your face like a lover would. ‘Look.’
10. When you're tired of hauling your life in a wheelbarrow, lie on the grass, close your eyes, and let your heart catch up.
11. Take what you've earned without flinching. It's yours.

I write with the awareness that reading, a privilege you were denied, will forever elude you and these words will remain unread. But I also know I can hold the oceans that separate us and the lands that grow more and more treacherous on this single page. I know we can exist together. Live together, if not under the same roof, at least, in literature, and that’s enough, for now.

Truth is, my recklessness grows on trees. Truth is, you survived your life. I’m afraid, now it's my turn.