(This letter was sent to my dad after I saw him in Mumbai at the Kokilaben Ambani Hospital. Unfortunately, it never got to him before he left our dimension.)
Dear father,
Our lives have been parallel and we only know each other at a great distance but ultimately, you are my father and I am deeply proud of that fact. I am very happy to hear that you are getting stronger. I have been resting easier havingseen your face both smile and shed tears at the same time as I spoke to you. Complex emotions surfaced and they were real enough for me. I was moved to see how people close to you at the hospital kept vigil over you withaffection and tender care and I am grateful that your staff was kind to me, making my visit with you meaningful. Please let me indulge in these clunky words to share some realizations that I never got a chance to relay to you. You are amazing! You are such a loved one. It is a great honor and pleasure to be your son. You are a great poet at heart and a lover, and you have celebrated your humanity fully. At long last, now that I have access to your translated works, it is truly remarkable how high-minded, exquisite and consistent your writing has been from the 1950s to the later decades. And that is not even talking about the enchanting quality of your music and voice.
You let nothing to get in the way of achieving your selfless goal to protect and uplift the people of the North East and the downtrodden from the cruel barbs from the rest of the country, just because we are utterly different from the rest of the population. You never turned your back on the salt of the earth that you came from. You were ‘scheduled’ to be great at whatever cost. And how heart-wrenching it must have been when you rejected the burden of being a father, husband and householder. But I see in your words how honest you are. You never pretended to be what you were not and you never suffered fools lightly but your compassion for the oppressed is genuine. You chose to protect the weak. I love you for that quality that is always in short supply. You calculated my mother and I would be okay without you. It turned out to be true. We ultimately didn’t suffer due to your absence. I was able to become my own person. And you far from wasted that opportunity to be a free spirit because you worked so hard to not let down millions of people who no one was speaking to with so much kindness and appreciation. I meant it from the bottom of my heart when I said to you at the ICU that ‘I forgive you absolutely’ and ‘I love you’. Remember you once said to me, “I don’t need your respect’? Words I know you craved to hear from my own mouth. In the back of my mind you have always been my model for a life of excitement and breakthroughs into new territories. You are good in my book. Do you not remember telling me long time ago in NY, as I was describing to you the Mahayana ideal of the Bodhisattva, “I am a Bodhisattva too!”, looking at me straight in the eyes? Now I understand how strong your vision was. It is a good thing India has recognized your specialness. I draw inspiration from you going for your dream and attracting the conducive circumstances to achieve that. You were damn practical in your own way, not just gifted. I rejoice at your success and you should know I picked up quite a few neat tips from you. Great good fortune that we were able to see each other at the hospital, hard as it was for you. I felt very proud of your determination, and sticking to ‘decorum’ vis-a-vis ‘us’ while your own sense of personhood remained intact under those tough conditions. Love of life. Bravo, dad! Do you remember saying to me (we read your lips), “I am sorry I haven’t been able to spend more time with you”? I say now that I am sorry I haven’t been able to spend more time with you. Please accept my weak apology for having been so bad and remote these past few years. I felt really sad before I saw you. And though I could not understand everything you said, I was very happy to see you. I felt like a prodigal son, grateful for the life you and mother gave me. And my life continues to be a most amazing experience. Remember Sage and I have your genes and your standards to live up to! After all, we only get what we see. My mother gave me unconditional love and my effort at being a householder and father finally made a man out of me. But I know, esteemed one, that after seeing you in Mumbai, that cloud of uncertainty and shame I have been carrying has vanished. Wordsmith that you are, you should know, Devata or Deuta, as I understand the word: All my deep aspirations, as I imagine them, when I choose to take the form of an ‘Ishta Devata’, residing in my heart centre, a completely awakened, self-perfected and owner-less manifestation of intelligence, luminous and compassionate, in fact, Tej. But it is entirely a characteristic of our unfabricated original mind itself, to guide me through life’s choppy waves, including the passage of death. Of late, Bhupen, I have been holding you in my heart’s chamber more consciously and realize that you have always been there. Yes, you have been my worldly Deuta all along though I didn’t call you that. Now at 60, I saw you suffer terribly. I am paying more attention to you. To me, more than an icon or a dad, you came through as a man. You are a father to millions but you should know that both Sage and I are quite comfortable in our skins and terribly proud of you. And you know Priyam is quite content in her retirement. Get well soon, I am coming back to talk to you as soon as I can.
Your son Tej
Tej Hazarika speaking during a memorial service of his father at the
Indian Embassy, Washington, DC on December 3, 2011
