I haven't had an easy relationship with my father. It was fraught with fear. Even when I wasn't trying, I was afraid. Even when there was no reason to (as I am sure there were such times), I was afraid. Cowering in fear, nearly petrified each time he said my name. Living out an entire childhood under the shadow of a man who was larger than life and more terrifying than any monster under my bed.
As I read Harneet Bhatia's tangible memory, I was struck not by the objects, but by the relationship they represented. Truly, these are simply paraphernalia. The real story is of a boy that struggled into manhood under the crippling gaze of a man he could never hope to please. Every word resonated. And that is why this tangible memory is so close to my heart.
"What is the most significant, memory-laden, gushingly sentimental object currently in your possession?" – Andrew Kaufman
1. Tell me a little about yourself. Something that gives me a sense of what you’re about:
I love describing myself as a reluctant architect. Reluctant and nearly not thankful enough. I am also a work in progress – getting to know myself better, learning to look at myself from my own eyes and falling in love with what I see.
I will be a photographer, one day.
2. What is the most significant, memory-laden gushingly sentimental object currently in your possession? (It could be ANYTHING. Try to think of the first thing that comes to your mind. That’s usually it.)
I have two. There’s a green-colored, glass paperweight from my childhood and my father’s wristwatch.
3. What’s the story behind it? (Don’t worry about being judged or about what anyone will think. This is YOUR memory and it’s precious.)
The paperweight was given to me by someone I respect a lot. I was really young and was completely mesmerized by this green chunk of glass, with a rough form of a lion impressed on it. I wanted it but didn’t have the courage to ask, partly because I was too shy and partly because I was afraid of my father’s reaction. My uncle caught me playing with it, asked me if I liked it and, just like that, gave it to me.
It was so incredibly delightful and magical, that moment, for me, to be able to get something I wanted, no matter how unremarkable, without having to ask or with the fear of being scolded for wanting something. That little piece of glass – crude & flawed – represents, in a way, a piece of my childhood, a memory of something that I have not lost. There is not a lot of good that I remember from that time and I have clung on to this little memento all my life, through all my ups and downs.
The wrist watch was the one my father was wearing when he passed away. I don’t particularly like it – it’s too flashy & has an ugly black dial. I have kept it because it’s a memory by association – it reminds me of his other watch, an old HMT workhorse, big & fat, that he tried to pass on to me, when I was in school. I hated it! My friends had slim, expensive looking digital Casio pieces, the HMT embarrassed me and I refused to wear it to school, keeping it hidden in my study-desk. It wasn’t till I was in college that I began to look at it differently, started admiring it and even fell in love with the simple design.
I never told my father; I hated him too much to do that. The HMT got stolen on a college trip. My father passed away, a few years later. I hung on to his watch because it symbolizes, in many ways my relationship (and of course, time) with him. It was him and, yet, it wasn’t at all. My memory of my father is very different than anyone else’s memory of him. It’s painful and full of a lot of yearning, a lot of rejection and denial. This, then, was also a very feeble, and often failing, attempt by me to acknowledge and accept him for who he really was, as much as what I imagined he never could be.
I keep both these mementos together in a small cane box.