Piti
is what I call him, short for Pitaji, but as a baby I could
never say that right, so it has always remained Piti.
My earliest memory….
I am five years old, sleeping on the moorah
(cane chair) in the veranda of our house in Amritsar.
Mama is winding up the kitchen. I hear her voice –
‘Look, Deepi has gone off to sleep here’.
Then someone gently picks me up on his shoulder and carries
me two flights up to the terrace and tucks me in my bed.
That’s my father. I pretend to be fast asleep. This
is my first memory of my father, being carried on his
shoulder.
That shoulder has always been there for
me.
An image…
A cold Amritsar winter morning – me
and my sister are fast asleep in our quilts. Father comes
to wake us up. He quietly stands in one corner of the
room and begins to play the harmonium, the instrument
perched on a stool. Gently, we wake up to the sound of
the music.
So much of my life today reflects my father.
He always wanted me to be an achiever, something more
than the ordinary. No matter what I decided to do with
myself, his support has always been there with me. Through
discussions, exchange of views, sometimes arguments, brainstorming,
brainwashing and even differing views, his support has
been constant. He is a wonderful teacher and has always
laid great emphasis on learning – to continue to
be a student all your life.
Another memory…
I’m like 12 years old. Piti and I
go for a long morning walk. This one Sunday we walk all
the way up to the Jandiaale waali nehar (stream) in the
outskirts of the city and walk back quietly without saying
a word to each other. We silently communicate.
My father has been a teacher all his life. He taught English
as a foreign language at Lehman College of the City University
of New York. He was an immensely popular teacher, always
adored by his students. He hated it when he had to retire
a couple of years ago. Even now he cribs about it. At
the college when once he became the victim of racial discrimination
his students gathered in massive support in his favor
and the authorities were compelled to reverse their decision.
His decision to move to America
In order to provide us with better opportunity, he at
a late stage in his life, decided to migrate to the US,
while his other colleagues planned retirement. We were
never denied anything just because we were girls. He has
always said ‘You can do it!’ He gave up a
well respected job as the head of the English Department
at Hindu College, of the Punjab University to start life
from a scratch once again in America. Here he obtained
his Ph.D in linguistics at age 65, a full 45 years after
completing his M.A degree at age 20.
I have always admired his spirit for that. He left Amritsar
with no security whatsoever, or even a promise of a job.
The first year was hard – he had to work as a librarian
by day and as a watchman, an ordinary guard of a building,
by night. It was a traumatic time for him. That one year
has always remained an inspiration for me throughout my
life. His struggled day and night to be able to accrue
enough money to send air tickets for all of us to join
him in New York. When I reached New York, the first thing
I did was to start working as a typist so that I could
pay for my own tuition and not be a burden on him. I worked
9 to 5 and went to night school at Hunter College in Manhattan.
The spirit to work your way through life and roughing
out in order to meet your dreams comes from my father.
Another memory
The Elmhurst house in Queens
Back in New York, I have decided to join
films. The family is shocked. My mother is devastated.
Both try their best to talk me out of my decision. But
my father is able to see my passion for acting. So he
decides to stand by me. Before I leave New York, he comes
and sits with me. ‘Acting is going to be with you
till you have the looks – but painting is going
to be with you till the end of your life, forever…
the decision is yours’.
I choose to do both. Of course he would
have loved it had I chosen to go to Paris to study painting
further. But once my parents saw me acting in a movie,
they have been quite proud of my work.
An image…
Pre-partition, The Roerich house at Naggar
My father, a youngster at 19, sitting across
the table with the statuesque old man, the Russian painter
Nicholas Roerich, in the verandah of his house in Naggar,
overlooking the Beas river valley. Both the men share
views and sit talking about life and art till the wee
hours of the morning. Roerich has set aside an hour or
two for the meeting but their conversation becomes un-ending,
and he invites the young man to stay overnight, providing
him even with pajamas for the night.
Piti had been a student of English Literature
at the Govt. college in Lahore before the Partition, when
his admiration for Roerich led him to bring out a journal
called ‘The Joy Of Art’.
With a Ph.D. in linguistics, he was back in 1961 also
the author of the first Asian-language publication on
a management technique called Work Study. I have memory
of a letter of appreciation from Pandit Nehru, hanging
on one of the walls in Piti’s study addressed to
“Dear Professor Naval.”
and several short stories, which unfortunately are now
lost. My father’s literary roots come from his grandfather,
an Urdu poet who lived in a village (now Pakistan) and
was invited to Lahore to write a poem in honor of a British
lord. That story was special to my father and was possibly
the seed for his love for words and writing. His recollections
of his first meeting with Roerich and a chance encounter
with Amrita Shergil are catalysts for my parallel life
as a painter.
Another image
Long Island
I am at my father’s house, one of my regular visits
back home, re-arranging the furniture. This is the quaint
little cottage Piti calls ‘Oonch Neech’. Cut
into the side of a hill it has 5 levels, after the fashion
of small agricultural tracts in the Kulu-Manali area.
He is in his study working on his computer… constantly
typing. He hands out a manuscript to me saying, ‘Read
this, this is the first draft.’ I look at him and
see this small 75 year old man, enfused with restless
energy.
He is writing a book. He has been working
on it for the last couple of years. He calls it ‘Zebra’
– it is about immigrants and it will be an extensive
and significant study about the Migration factor all over
the world. Rupa & Co. of Delhi is the Indian publisher.
Lectures on Karma
My father has been giving discourses on the theory of
Karma for the past many years and is constantly exploring
facets of the theory, trying to find its application in
day to day life.
Summer Holidays in Himachal
Mama and Piti were very
fond of Kullu valley, so for our summer vacations we’d
regularly go off to the hills. Mama would be painting
rocks, huts and the pine trees and Piti would be exploring
the landscape, briskly walking, egging us on. My parents’
love for the mountains and the outdoors is most precious
to me. Even today his pace of walking is so brisk: the
sound of his feet going tap –tap-tap- up and down
the stairs like a sprightly young man. I hardly perceive
him as an old person though he is now eighty. And I still
find my sense of belonging from this childhood my parents
gave us: I keep returning to the orchards and hills of
Kullu Valley for sustenance.
His sense of adventure and constantly challenging oneself
has filtered into me: I find myself always planning options
when things go slow so that there is a momentum in my
life. This comes completely from him. No matter what the
circumstance, to overcome, fight it out, and to move on
with stronger determination. The need to be someone of
worth, to invent a life of width and breadth, to stretch
your limits, is what I inherit from him. That I write,
paint, act and search for the elusive, is my legacy from
my very special parents.
An early image
Kullu valley
