Dedicated to my father, Mr. R. K. Saran (May 21st, 1941 – Dec. 9th, 2007)
It has been ten years since you left me, and I have forgotten what it feels like to have a father. A person who saw me for who I am, and told me that I was too talented to waste my time doing mundane things. A person who did not want to see me fall into the same trap that other women fell into, sacrificing their own dreams for their family. It was this faith, that I was someone special, which forced me to be different.
“Kirti bahut door chali gayi hain…”, (Kirti, has gone too far away…) was a constant lament on your lips, but it wasn’t until you passed away that the distance between California and Patna became unbearable for me. That flight and train ride back to Patna, immediately after you passed, was the longest journey of my life. No one will ever understand how painful it is to travel 10,000 miles back home after a parent has passed away, unless you have already done it. I never got my closure, because you were cremated immediately. I knew before I boarded the plane that your physical presence was gone. I hadn’t seen you for two years, and I needed to see you or talk to you one last time. I needed to go back home, to the same place where you passed away, hoping that you would talk to me in my dreams, but you were already gone. All I had to hold on to were memories. After your passing, my whole childhood flashed before my eyes, and memories long forgotten submerged.
On the flight back to India, at one of the airports, I saw a little girl eating breakfast with her Daddy and remembered our car trips when we were in Canada. You would stop at McDonald’s and it was really early in the morning. We were sleepy. “What’s this?” I would ask, still half-asleep. “It’s a hash brown. Eat it… It’s good.” Such an insignificant memory, became so relevant. I woke up from my reverie, staring at this little girl and her father, and realized that I had lost this care and affection forever. In one instant, you were gone.
Whilst tightening the seat belt strap on the plane, my mind went back to when I was fourteen years old. This was our big move from Canada to India. I was very skinny back then, and the tightest setting of the seat belt was too loose for me. I was sitting beside you and I showed you the seat belt, and you just grinned and shrugged, “I guess it’s not meant for skinny people.” Both of us laughed and I saw the laugh of a man who was finally free, as if you didn’t have a care in the world. We had sold everything in Canada including our house, and were moving to India. There was a certain feeling of lightness in this journey, as if we had left everything behind and were venturing into the unknown, embracing the future. You felt like you were fulfilling your mother’s dream (my grandmother). Whoever knew, that you would pass away in the same house where she passed away. I finally understood the grief you felt after her passing because now it was happening to me. You were in Canada when she passed away, and I was in California when you passed away. You got a phone call after her demise and I got a phone call after yours. When I received that phone call, I threw the phone away. I felt the weight of the whole world on my head as I sat down on the ground moaning and rocking myself. I started pulling out my hair when my husband asked me what happened. I looked at him as if nothing in the world mattered anymore. “Pick up the phone…” I managed to say as my hair was still clenched in my fists. Gradually the realization of my father’s passing filled my whole being with grief. Every ounce of my body ached with the pain of being left alone and deserted. I felt as if my whole world had turned upside-down. That feeling of hopelessness and despair… That huge ache in the heart… Now that pain was mine.
When I landed in Delhi, I saw a father receiving his daughter, with the same pride and joy that you would receive me after I got married. That look of happiness on the father’s face when he saw her, and that sudden transformation in the stance of the young woman when she saw her father, her sudden burst of confidence and familiarity. As I looked at them, I stood there feeling absolutely alone and abandoned, with a sharp stab of pain in my chest, “Where was my father?” my heart cried. Never again would I see your face beaming with pride… Never again would you pick me up… Your face had vanished forever. You were gone.
The train-ride from Delhi to Patna had even more memories. We always travelled sleeper class because you wanted us to see the real India. You were never arrogant or pompous and we always lived beneath our means. “Machhad Singh! (Mosquito face)”. It was 2003 and the children in the train were beckoning my son, Raghav, to come and play with him. He was twenty-months old at the time, and was delighted to see other children. You looked at Raghav and said, “Children have a language of their own.” At that time all my son could say was, “What’s that?” to which the children replied to in their own language. Children have no boundaries or barriers, they don’t look at race, color, nationality or status… all they can see is pure love.
It was 2005 and you were looking at Dhruv in the train compartment. Dhruv was twenty-one months old and Raghav was three years old.. “Dhruv is weak.” You said to me. “No, he looks delicate, but he’s strong.” I responded. You agreed immediately. That is the exact same thing people would say when they looked at me as a child and that is exactly how you responded. You were there when Dhruv had open-heart surgery. You prayed for him with me. Now he is strong and he is just like you.
You left far too soon. After I became a yoga teacher, I found an old yoga teacher training form in your “Kriya Yoga” book from 1975. You were contemplating studies in yoga, but never did, because you had to support us. You were an Electrical Engineer, and were good at it, but never really got to pursue your passions. You would have loved that I teach yoga but you never got to see that.
Both of my children had a very short time span with you. Now they are sixteen and thirteen. Remember when I won a gold medal for the 400-meter relay race and you were so proud of me? Now both of my children run much more than I ever did and win awards. You would have been so proud of them and they would have loved you.
Grief has an interesting way isolating a person. It makes you feel like you’re all alone. Around the time that you passed away this song from “Om Shanti Om” reverberated in my heart, “Chhan Se Jo Toote Koi Sapna… Jag Soona Soona Lage… Koi Rahe Na Jab Apna… Jag Soona Soona Lage… Hai To Yeh Kyon Hota Hain… Jab Yeh Dil Rota Hai… Roye Sisak Sisak Ke Hawaayen… Jag Soona Lage”. (When a dream is shattered the world feels barren… When no one is yours, the world feels barren… Why does it happen that when the heart cries, it feels like the winds are trembling, whimpering and crying too? The world feels barren…”
Grief takes it’s own sweet time. For many years after that, the month of December brought back that same pain and this song by Green Day echoed in my soul,
“Here comes the rain again, falling from the stars…
Drenched in my pain again becoming who we are…
As my memory rests, but never forgets what I lost…
Wake me up when September (December) ends.”
Ten years later, the heart is lighter, but that same love remains, and I still cry whenever I write about you. Grief is not a figment of the imagination; it is real. It is not something you can shake off immediately, it not something that you can shake off ever. The loss of a parent is not trivial, it creates a shift in your personality, a paradigm shift that makes you see the world differently.
On a lighter note, we both loved to write. In large families there is very little personal space, and you often complained that for writing, silence and quiet contemplation were necessary. Our conversations were filled with silence. We spent many hours sitting together in silence, while you drank your morning tea, and I my vitamin milk. We spoke about life, but there was very little speaking and more thinking. The words we spoke were filled with meaning, because they were spoken after so much contemplation. The books we read, the ideas we shared, were all discussed, after a lot of thought processing. So, here is your favorite essay in your own words:
SILENCE by R. K. Saran
Once an old Rishi and his disciple went on a pilgrimage. Often people gathered around them to listen to the Rishi, whose simple and wise words went directly to their hearts. The Rishi was a great saint, although he was clothed like a beggar and didn’t have many disciples. He did not talk much, and sometimes many days passed by without him saying anything at all and people often wondered why.
“Silence is power.” the Rishi once said. “What is the use of talking? You learn through silence and not through words.”
Old sages used to say, “Be still and know that I am within.”
Silence is one of the powerful sources of communion of souls. Two people can remain together physically, silently, no words need to be said, yet these people communicate telepathically.
Two very old people who have lived together for many years as man and wife can anticipate the thoughts of each other. They, truly in love, do not engage themselves in senseless babble or small talk; they sit together, picking up silently the messages flowing from one brain to another. It was better, if they had learnt this when they were younger, because old people are at the end of their journey.
Two world famous thinkers, they were very old friends, once used to live together, met after a long time. They sat on a lawn – no talk, quietly and peacefully – they sat for hours. Before they parted, one said to the other, “We had a great time.” The other replied, “Surely it is not easy to get this kind of company.”
We talk too much, all of us, we let our brains clutter away like machines which have no thought. If we relax, we remain alone more and talk less, when we are in company of others, then thoughts of a greater purity are modified by the influence of the company of others.
Some of the old villagers who were alone all day had greater purity of thought than any person in the city. Shepherds, while by no means educated people, had a degree of spiritual purity which many priests would envy.
It is the thought and the reason which keep humans in their very inferior present position. Humans, inspite of their vaunted superiority, are in many respects lower than the lowest beasts. This is because we have wrong values, humans crave only money, and they crave the material things of this mundane life, whereas the things that matter after this life are the immaterial things.
Silence would be providing one of the most precious things upon this earth, for in the modern world, there is no longer silence, there is the constant roar of traffic, the constant noise of aircrafts overhead, and over that are unending episodes of radio and TV.
Let us try a day and see how quiet we can be? Say only what is necessary and avoid all that which is senseless, gossip and chatter. If we do this occasionally and deliberately, we will be quite shocked at the days and as how much we normally say which really doesn’t matter in the least.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN.
R. K. Saran