Perfect Vision

"Remorse is Memory Awake" (~ Emily Dickinson)

I’m boiling four cups of water in a small pot, ready to drop two bouillon cubes to make a clear broth, my only nourishment for the day as I prepare for a medical procedure familiar to all over fifty. The cubes are in yellow and green packaging, from a company originally in Germany. Now, globalization has sourced the manufacturing to countries as far apart as Mexico and the Philippines. I flash on how my father used to love these cubes in his last years and often asked me to send him packets from the U.S.                                               

Memoir writing is often a journey into oblivion. Joan Didion, in Slouching Toward Bethlehem, had written: “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.” 

My father died when I was 33. However, the last time I saw him alive was when I was 30 in 1980. He was limping a bit, holding a cane with a carved head, waving, blindly, at me from behind the chain fence at the edge of the landing strip in Ranchi, India. I was in a propeller plane, returning to Calcutta (now Kolkata). It was late July 1980, and I had visited my parents in Hazaribagh on a three-week break from my life in New York City.

We didn’t have Father’s Day in India when I was growing up. And thank God for that. I had a complicated kinship with him ---admiration, love commingled with claustrophobic resentments and despair. He sensed that; we never talked about it; he loved me dearly and I owe him some of my best traits ---generosity, determination, always finding a way. I also know of his not-so valorous side. The shameful, unspoken humanity.

The author standing next to Baba, 1954 or 1955.

(Photograph permission of author. All Rights Reserved)

In my mid-seventies (one more year to go), I have two adult sons from two different marriages.

I am abundantly proud of them. And I sometimes wonder what they think of me and how they’ll remember me.

My oldest was a toddler when I separated. The first eight or so years, we saw each other every week (a number of times because we lived in adjoining boroughs), then, after I moved away from the city where he was born, every other week, marked by marathon drives to and fro, that left memories glistening to this day. I used to worry about whether he loved me or whether he resented my choices. I can’t undo that past and I respond to what is our life now. He’s the father of two luminously gleaming and enthusiastic boys. His patience and caring are visible and natural. My grandsons will cherish him always.

He’s a terrific writer and even better reader and his loyalty to the Knicks is exemplary. I know that many genes are in the pool here and I rejoice.

My youngest is a quietly courageous young man. He hardly ever overshoots his ambitions, and I am thrilled that he has such good sense. I delight in his life. His creativity is worth celebrating. Once for a high school project, he pitched the idea of cooking meals for his parents for a week and documenting the process. We ate well that week!

Somehow, the two half-brothers, who didn’t grow up in the same household, have a bond. They unfolded that themselves, as brothers often do. My heart is full.

I recognize the past. Very much so. It happened. It shaped me. It can’t be changed. It can be understood in infinite ways.

And I am thankful and joyful for the present this Father’s Day for what will always be my life.

Thank you Arnav, Simon, Mo and Sonny.

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COMING SOON

Published by Paper Lantern Books, India

Prepublication Reviews

“Amit’s writing comes from a space within that has an immense capacity to capture beauty in multiples. Descriptions of trees collide with yearning for friends, lives and cities past with today, and yet each stands out with a strange evocative intensity. It’s a beautiful read, the one you’ll carry outdoors on a warm but breezy summer day.”

(~Sohini Chattopadhyay, Assistant Professor of History, Union College, NY)

“At a time where everything is quick and easy, Revisiting the Mines is a slow and deliberate look at the world and the rich tapestry of life. The book's breadth is vast, encompassing engaging anecdotes from Shah's long career in publishing, the interplay of his family's and the country's history, as well as rich observations from his daily walks. It's a book I enjoyed dipping into at the end of each day, it infused in me a certain calmness.” 

(~Veena Venugopal, author, India)