The spirit around me

(Me and Bhabha in a field full of cars, somewhere in London - taken around 1986-1988 - I must have been around 2 or 3 years old)

I wonder how many of you have recently looked at your calendars on your computers, iPod, mobile phone, or if you’re like me, your cardboard calendar, and seen that very day’s date, yesterdays date, last week’s date, whichever date you may have seen, and have either felt puzzled, shocked or even just started wondering to yourself that one solitary question – how does time fly by?

That’s what happened to me last night, when I realised that today, April 10th 2009, is the one year anniversary of my grandfather’s death. It isn’t just any other day. Neither is it a day to just sit and be sad. Today is the day when hundreds of people that were touched by my granddad’s life will remember him, just like they do on most days. It’s not a specific day that prompts one to only remember him – instead it’s a reminder about how memory serves us so well, and even now I can remember how that 10th April last year unfolded.

I could easily write about all the fond memories we shared, all the knowledge that he provided me, or all the things that had influenced my life with him being ever present. But I don’t want to do that, because for me and my family, he is still present with us.

One doesn’t need photos, or video recordings or messages to remember “Bhabha”, as he was known. Instead, we just take a look around us and see that despite his passing last year, everything that surrounds my family makes us realise that those who perish may leave us, but their spirits never do.

Whether it’s my family’s obsession with newspapers, books or always checking in on Ugandan politics, Bhabha breathes throughout, wherever we are. Whether Anil (oldest Son and Uncle) is in Portugal or I’m in India, whether my dad (Subhash) is in Blackfriars and my sister (Shreena) is in Uxbridge, no matter where we may all be, Vanraj Hansraj Sampat is there.

I know to this day whenever my sisters wait for the tube to arrive at the platform at Pinner station, before waiting for the large, grey, double doors of the Southbound Metropolitan line to open, they will sometimes look around ominously, thinking that my granddad will be getting on too, doing his daily rounds to Harrow, Baker Street or Uxbridge, reading every last inch of the newspapers on the way. It's weird because even friends who knew him would always see him at the station reading his newspapers, and now he's not there, it's like the station has changed, or is missing something.

I know that to this day my Uncle Bharat, who for many years (around 25) spent the best part of 9 hours a day with my granddad in his shop in Pinner, will sometimes go to the back of the property and look to see if anybody was still sitting on that stool, again reading the papers, or fixing something, or neatly piling stock.

In Portugal, I know that sometimes my Uncle Anil will still pick up his telephone on a Sunday afternoon, sitting back on his comfy sofa, looking out of his balcony at the River Tagus in Lisbon with a cup of black tea or may be the finest wine money could buy, hoping that that his weekly phone call to Bhabha may actually be answered. They would discuss politics, cricket, Pakistan, India and life, for hours on end, like father and son would do.

And then there is my father, who on Saturdays would sit with my granddad and watch NDTV whilst flicking through the Saturday supplements in the papers with him. They would discuss the community, the happenings in and around the local town, and sometimes, just sometimes, even share a rare moment of laughter from their days in Uganda, fond memories of all that they have been through. Even if they were silent, each interested in their own activity, the silence was a sign of respect, man to man, of two men who valued each other’s characteristic to say less, and think more.

And when it came to laughs, Friday nights would be the role of my Uncle Hitesh, the youngest of 4 sons, who would spend his time cracking up old and new jokes, or just winding up my granddad for no reason whatsoever, always knowing that beyond that little smile he would produce after one of Hiteshs’ jokes, his heart was smiling too.

For me though, my story is different. My story is the life I lead now. My life in India is what many years and conversations with my granddad turned into. I’m here because of me, my heart, but also because of him. Bhabha made India for me a distant land with much opportunity. In my eyes, India was a country I had to see for myself, because despite all that was said and described, he always would say “Don’t listen to me, go see everything for yourself”. And so I did.

Bhabha surrounds me in this place that I call my India. All around me, when I see tiffinwallas, dhobeewallas, old men in lungi’s, young men in colourful shirts. When I smell the aromas from the numerous households cooking breakfast in the flats below me, or when I see the sari laden women walking the streets with so much colour and so much joy, or I hear the conversations in the many different languages that take place within households, or sometimes between households, I smile to myself. I smile knowing that this is everything that I was told to expect, appreciate and experience. I see children getting joy from running around hitting a tyre with some stick, may be comparable to me playing on my Nintendo when I was that age; I’m asked by two old women how much I paid for my tomatoes, may be comparable to when my mum asks why I spend so much eating in Nandos – and all these little things bring to me the bigger picture about why I’m here. I’m here because I was supposed to be; I’m here because my granddad believed I could be; I’m here because my granddad wanted me to understand him more even when he was gone.

I sit now, quietly, by myself, his image going through my mind. I smile. I smile knowing that despite this being one year since he left us - this beautiful, sometimes emotional, sometimes delightful, technicolour country before me, this India – has this spirit that keeps the country going, much like the similar spirit of Bhabha that keeps me going too.

This blog post is for my family, friends and loved ones who were touched by Bhabha. This post is dedicated Vanraj Hansraj Sampat - "Bhabha" - (1917 - 2008)