Finding the words

There's a story I often tell about this day in 2016

I am 19 years old, sitting in a taxi, with my school bag holding the first set of white clothes I could grab. White clothes that were reserved for funerals. My cab bhaiya in Delhi is trying to get me to the airport as fast as he can, but his car is still slower than my tears that just. won’t. stop. It is February 11, 2016, and my Dada, my grandfather, is no more. 

During the 15-hour journey home that day, I was on another journey, revisiting the precious lanes of my childhood. I grew up in this large, loud, loving, Indian family, with Dada at the center of it all. I often spent the evenings after school at our family shop in Coonoor, and before I ran to attend to customers at the chocolate counter or measure up groceries for them, I would go sit on his lap for a few minutes. And no matter who walked into our store, whether it was a Bollywood star, my school teacher, or

each time I saw Dada rise to shake their hands with both of his, with the same warm smile. “How can I help you today”, he would ask. I saw him serve with love - sometimes by giving a discount on a TV, other times helping someone in a rush find the right gift for a wedding. Sometimes it was through just the right words of consolation to someone who’d lost their loved ones. He spoke 7 languages, but most importantly he spoke the language of love. It enveloped our family, our shop, our little town like the warmest of hugs, and each time we ascended to the sight of Coonoor’s blue clock tower, I knew I was home. To Dada.

This time, with him gone, I didn’t know what I was going home to.

When I finally reached our shop that night, the table where Dada used to sit is replaced by a raised bed, on which his body lay. My entire family is here, except my 5 year old sister Kriti. We all needed to tend to the holes in our stomachs, but who was tending to hers? 

I find her in a corner of the shop, playing with fake and far-too-colourful lego blocks. She is calm at first, but as the thrum of the jaap (the prayers) get louder and louder, Kriti is first confused, and then bursts into tears. “Where is Dada going?” She asks me. At that moment, all I wanted was to hide in a room and cry, because I had no words.

As I held her and felt the heavy failure to protect her little heart, I picture Dada. How he always had the right, hopeful words and was never afraid of saying what he meant, and saying it even if his eyes welled up or his throat got into a knot. I knew that I had to channel whatever of him I had in me, and find the smallest ray of hope for us to share.

“Kriti”, I said to her, “Good people become stars. Dada is going to become a star. And whenever you miss him, you can always look and he’ll be right there.”  

That evening, just as we were getting home after the longest day of my life, Kriti pulls me into the lawn. I follow her pointed finger to the brightest star in the sky, and she says, “Didi! That’s Dada! I can see him!”

Today, 7 years later, we miss him at every small celebration, while eating his favourite breakfast, and when old customers come to the shop and say on their way out – “You are so lucky to be born into Shanti’s family”.

The very last conversation Dada and I had was about building a school in the Nilgiris. He used to say – “You just get ready ma, whatever else you need is already there.” Getting there, Dada. It is to his lifelong encouragement that I credit any courage I have. It is from his hope that I get mine.

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For anyone reading, thank you for letting me tell share with you the story of the most incredible person I know. I hope we can all find it in ourselves to be that light of hope for someone. I wrote this story as my Public Narrative for why I teach, and why the act of encouragement is so important to me.

Come join one of our workshops if you’re in Bangalore – telling the story of our lives, no exaggeration, can be life-changing.