Love, time, and the things we keep
My grandfather died last week in Delhi, at 101. This is my eulogy. It's about what he suffered and what he made, about what history steals from us and what it never can
Thank you for being here to honor the life of my grandfather. He was known to the world as Sardari Lall Agarwal. Known to many of you as a friend, a mentor, a colleague, a relative. To me, he was Nanu.
Nanu was born in 1924 in Lahore [then still a city in British India, soon to become part of the new Islamic Republic of Pakistan when the British left the subcontinent in 1947 and divided it as a colonial parting gift]. He lost his father at a very young age, and then, some years later, as if that blow were not enough, his family lost a home, a homeland, and everything else they had.
In a blink of history, he became a refugee. But this man without a country would soon make himself a man of the world; if he was no longer welcome in Lahore, he would one day be at ease in London and Paris. And this man without a father would plant seeds that would grow into the orchard of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who welcome you today.
I’ve been reflecting on how these formative experiences shaped Nanu’s life. I think they gave him an acute appreciation of all that can be taken away from you in an instant — and of what never can.
If you knew Nanu, he probably tried to talk to you about the stock market. He was obsessed with the ballet of share prices, the dopamine rush of dividends. And, of course, he had spent a long and illustrious career inside a business, Hindustan Lever, making sure the things that can be counted were counted right.
But I realized over time that Nanu’s business mind, his obsession with the Sensex, was not really about money. After all, what use did Nanu have for money, having no plans to spend it? For him, attending to finances was a love language, a way of sharing with others the sense of security of which he had been deprived.
But Nanu’s real devotion was to the things that fate cannot so easily steal from you.
Having lost all manner of physical possessions, he learned the hard way that the wealth even History can’t steal is in your mind. So he built and sharpened and filled and ever revised his mind as his revenge against those who would hastily redraw borders before a bit of pheasant hunting.
Having lost his father young, Nanu knew you can’t choose when you die. But he also knew that choosing to live with curiosity is the ultimate defiance of death.
Nanu was insatiably curious. Age makes most of us more certain. It made him more inquisitive. In a world of mansplainers, he was that rarity — a man-asker.
He knew where he came from, but he was interested in what’s next. He sometimes asked us about pop stars, and we would have to look them up — he knew their names, and we didn’t. “How is your president?”, he would always ask me. But he was just as liable to ask if we’d heard the news about Ricky Martin.
Nanu also knew that they can never take away your voice. He read the newspaper like it was scripture. Not to pass the time, but because he took seriously the duty of being the citizen of a democracy. He read, and things made him angry. He channeled that anger into letters, which, for those on the younger side, is basically paper WhatsApp. He protested to government officials and corporate chieftains.
He embodied the democratic ethos that what is not right can be changed; that to be changed, it must be named; and that no man, however powerful, is above hearing from an aggrieved reader of the morning newspaper still in his pajamas.
Nanu also knew that they can take away your home and try to turn it into a theocratic state, but you can choose your attitude, insist on freedom, and reject traditions. In a country where there can be too much love for the old ways of doing things, Nanu was a defier of norms.
He encouraged and celebrated both of his children’s marriages to people outside their community. He understood that character and education matter more than whether your great-grandparents traded goats and cooked lentils the same way.
And he was the rarest of Indian men who admired women for more than just beauty. Nanu delighted in smart women, capable women, women who thought for themselves, who challenged him the way his daughter (my mother) did, who went out into the world and made things happen like his wife and daughter and daughter-in-law and granddaughters did. Strong women made him feel stronger.
But, above all, Nanu knew the thing most precious — the thing most impossible to take away — is the family you make. In his 101 years, he saw empires and rulers and borders come and go. But the orchard of his family kept growing.
At the heart of that orchard is his relationship with Nani. For 71 years, Nanu and Nani tended to each other, witnessed each other, cared for each other, and made the world a little easier for each other. They always called each other “Sweetie,” whether in a moment of profound affection or in the middle of a juicy bicker.
It’s true: On their first anniversary, Nanu gave Nani…equities. She had been hoping for earrings or maybe a shawl. But Nanu understood that, on love, at least, there is no capital gains tax.
Nanu was a romantic in a society where many are trained to regard life, and even marriage, as a trial to be endured. He didn’t treat marriage as a merely practical arrangement, an economic union. He treated it as a place to bring to life ghazal lyrics people sing and then forget.
Nanu was also a wonderful father who let his children become their own full selves. And they have been so devoted to him in turn. And, by the way, I never understood why Indian people want their kids to be doctors until I watched Ajay Mamu [Nanu’s son, my uncle] prolong Nanu’s life by 10 to 20 years. Now I want my kids to be doctors.
And Nanu was an amazing grandfather. When I was living in India some years ago, trying to make sense of the country for The New York Times, I would often fly to Delhi and sit on Nanu and Nani’s bed, which is their real living room — if you know, you know.
I would tell him what I was finding in my reporting on farmers and small-town strivers and industry captains, and together we would process the data of a changing country and make meaning of it.
Nanu and I received the rare gift of four decades of this kind of grandfather-grandson processing of the world. Back when I was a young boy and tussling with my parents, Nanu would take me on walks around Paris. We would carry two peaches in napkins. I looked at him with admiration, which is also how we were looking at the French women around us.
Some years ago, Nanu took me aside. He presented me with a pocket watch. He told me it had belonged to his father, who was a lawyer. When you charge by the hour, it’s important to know the time. When his father died, Nanu got the watch.
Somehow, in the dark night of Partition, grabbing what few possessions he could and fleeing south and east, Nanu took the watch.
I think of that watch, the time on it stopped, sitting idle as Nanu built back a life from a Delhi refugee camp. I think of the watch sitting in storage as he cobbled together an education, a career, and a family, and I think of the moment when he gave it to me, a conduit from my great-grandfather to me, passing through hell on earth.
I live in New York, another city that takes great pride in welcoming refugees. One day, I took the pocket watch into a store and asked if they could make it a wristwatch — and alive again. It wouldn’t be easy, they said, but it could be done.
Now it’s on my wrist as I share these remembrances of Nanu with you. His heart may have gone still, but the watch is ticking again. Sometimes I hold it up to my ear and imagine it’s the sound of his legacy.
Nanu had a long time on this planet, and he had a very good time, and he knew that time is a gift you redeem by living.
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A live well lived!! Condolences to your family with grace and peace for the blessings his life provided.
Every memory you articulated about Your Nanu reminded me of my deceased uncles and brother. Isn’t it amazing that memories can be similar across cultures and generations!!Be strong and courageous!! Live on with his love and wisdom in your soul.