January 27, 2019

My father the day I arrived,.

At the urging of my sister, I left my home in Pennsylvania at the end of January 2019 and travelled to my father’s home in a small village which lay in the foothills of the Himalayas. Burdened with the daily stresses of Western life, I had last visited him in May 2014, nearly 5 years ago.

When I arrived at his house, which is in his words was the “Kohli ancestral home,” a concrete structure dating back to the early beginnings of the last century, I found a frail looking 99 year old man sitting in a wheelchair in the sitting room surrounded by photographs of his extended family which were placed on the mantel piece  above which hung a painting of my grandfather, Mohan Singh Kohli.

“I’m in here Dick,” he shouted when I opened the front door to the now enclosed verandah. I was elated when I heard his voice which was still very strong. Though my heart did miss a beat when I saw him sitting in his wheelchair. I quickly went over and hugged him for dear life. He tried to reciprocate but his arms no longer had the strength and I watched in sadness as he lifted his arms and then slowly lowered them. I remained there as long as I could and as I pulled back I looked into his eyes which were no longer the sparkling grey eyes of old. He looked sad, but he managed to smile.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

My eyes were still filled with tears and there was a lump in my throat. I was for a brief moment unable to answer him. He noticed that and continued answering for me, “the food is here if you’re hungry.”

He had given me the time I needed to compose myself, “No Dad, I haven’t eaten.”

“I thought as much,” he replied, “I waited for you.”

It was 2pm.

He then proceeded to open the door of an ancient Baby Belling oven, which now sat on an equally ancient cabin trunk in the sitting room. Once upon a time it held a much more regal place in the kitchen, but with my father’s infirmity it had followed him into the sitting room. It had served the family well for over 60 years. From within the oven came a line of neatly covered metal dishes, each containing all the goodness of Indian food, made lovingly by Manju, one of his servants, who he fondly referred to as ‘the domestics.’ In the past, because of his superstitions, he wouldn’t tell them I was arriving so as not to jinx it, but this time I had the feeling he had thrown caution to the wind.

Once I had served myself, at his request, I asked him where his food was. He pointed to two small containers in which there was some yoghurt and Indian bread, a paratha. I winced at the small amount of food, but bit my tongue. I didn’t want to further humiliate this proud man. 

“You know dad, Shaina and I have finished a book about you and mummy,” I said a little later as I ate my glorious food with great relish. He clapped his hands.

“And we are going to have it made into a movie as well.” He clapped his hands once more.

We ate the rest of our meal in silence.

As we did so I watched this giant of a man, who retired as a Brigadier from the Indian Army, a war hero, who was severely wounded in the Italian campaign, slowly and deliberately eat his yoghurt and parathas, but nothing else. I thought to myself that there would be no way he could sustain himself on such meagre quantities of food.

He would’ve been 100 on August 26th.

“I don’t think I am any longer physically or mentally capable of remaining in this world.” He said sadly after a few minutes of silence.

Those words took me by surprise and I had to catch my breath. I was determined he should live till at least his 100th birthday.

“I don’t agree with you at all, Dad.” I replied and he shrugged his shoulders. I don’t believe he agreed with me.

After lunch was over and the dishes put back into the Baby Belling, I sat for a few minutes contemplating my next move.

I was determined to plot a course to at least make him understand that he wasn’t in bad shape mentally at all, or at least not as bad as he thought he was.

“Dad, as I mentioned a little while ago, we have written a book about you and mummy, but you have never actually talked about your war experiences and I want to make sure we have the facts correctly documented. So what I would like to do is ask you some questions about those experiences.”

“Sure,” he replied to my amazement and surprise and then added, “if I can remember them.” Good enough I thought be sue I was sure he could. “How long are you going to be here?”

“About two weeks Dad,”

He turned in his wheelchair and looked at me, “what a lucky, lucky man.”

“Why is that?”

“How many fathers can say that they are going to spend two entire weeks with their 70 year old son.”

I listened to him talk. I didn’t need to interrupt him. We went to bed early that night. I’m sure he was exhausted and I was feeling sad and exhilarated that over the next days I would learn whatever there was to learn about not only my father’s war experiences, but also about our family history, of which I really knew nothing.

As I lay down on my bed in the room next to his I heard him to talk to my mother and tell her everything that happened that day. “Dickie arrived this afternoon,” a tear rolled down my cheek.

Next morning one of the domestics’ husbands picked him out of bed and placed him in his wheelchair. He came into the TV room where I already was and had turned on the electric heater on high. It was cold in that room, the concrete walls and floor with its threadbare rug didn’t radiate any warmth. Manju came in and turned on the electric kettle for the morning cup of tea. It wasn’t so long ago that he wouldn’t require any help there, but now he was at her mercy. The tea was good, made even better because my dad had made it and I was drinking it in his company. How many 70 year old children can say that?

Breakfast was made from the leftover dinner with a slight twist. My father placed some items on a bun and then took out a slice of processed cheese from a packet and I recoiled when he tore it up in slices and placed it on the bun. The cheese was mouldy. He didn’t seem to care. He shrugged his shoulders when I tried to protest. He might get ill.

He will be 100 in August.

Later that day I began my questions. Easy ones at first, which he aced. Then I asked him questions I had asked him years ago but he had refused to answer using his standard refrain, “oh that was so long ago.”

“How was the fighting in Italy, dad?”

“Brutal!” He replied lowering his head and reliving, no doubt, some painful memory. I sat there silently, not wishing to disturb him. “We lost so many, many good men.” He continued, “some from the shear incompetence of younger officers.” That was new. He too was a young officer at that time, “no,” he concluded, “I mean those that had come right out of Aldershot or Sandhurst and tried to implement what they had learnt in a classroom. Doesn’t work on a battlefield.”

In years gone by I had asked him when he saw his first action and he had replied briefly in Libya. I brought up the subject again and learnt his prior answer wasn’t quite true, at least the briefly part wasn’t. His involvement was worthy of an honour which he was deprived of. He shrugged his shoulders when I broached that subject. He was never one to shine a light on himself. He trusted his men in combat. He trusted his men in peacetime and in return, they would go to the ends of the earth for him and did.

I found out during our talks that his grandparents from his father’s side, who lived in what is now Pakistan, were butchered when they tried to leave their village and go to India in 1947. My father was part of a Muslim regiment, the 3/1st Punjab regiment which remained in Pakistan upon partition. “Were there any problems with the Sikhs and Hindus who had to leave upon partition?”

“None at all. We were accompanied to the border by the entire regiment to make sure nothing happened to us. And the same courtesy was paid to those Muslims who wished to go to Pakistan and were stationed in India.”

“I think that was very honourable,” the only words which came to mind.

“Dash it all!” My father said in the loudest and strongest tone yet after a moment of silence, “how could it not be. We had fought together. We had laid down our lives for each other. We certainly weren’t going to abandon them just because some ignorant politicians couldn’t get the job done properly!” Well said.