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I often find myself thinking about how India that is Bharat, its itihasa and people who have made this land, are a part of our lived experience; that from the north to the south, from the east to the west, there is an invisible unifying thread, which is reassuring.
There are two photographs of father which I remember from my memory. Warm, sepia tints carrying the time stamp of 1980.
In one, father, wearing a pair of bell bottom pants and a cowboy hat, sits on a horse. But it is the other one which draws my attention.
Frothy white waves of the Gulf of Mannar line the background, while father stands, wearing a Mundu, a shirt and my favourite smile.
Frothy white waves of the Gulf of Mannar line the background, while father stands, wearing a Mundu, a shirt and my favourite smile.
Father’s first posting after his training in the IAF, was in Bangalore. This was his first tour. How could he not visit Rameshwaram, the place where his aradhya (Ram) prayed to his aradhya (Shiv) during the setubandha:
‘लिंग थापि विधिवत करि पूजा,
सिव समान प्रिय मोहि न दूजा|’
‘लिंग थापि विधिवत करि पूजा,
सिव समान प्रिय मोहि न दूजा|’
From here, father went to the Vivekanand Rock Memorial. Father’s teachers in the village school would speak about Swami Vivekananda, but it was another experience to visit a place physically touched by Swami ji.
Father had an epiphany. He had been married for a few months and wrote a letter to my mother, in which he mentioned that if they had a daughter, they would name her Nivedita and if a son was born, he would be named Vivek.
They had both and that was how my brother and I got named :)
