(This Eulogy was written by me 14 hours after my father passed away on November 28, 2016. To keep all thoughts as they were felt at that time, I have not modified or added any new content in this write-up from the original post on the Facebook)
Our father passed away yesterday evening at Vivek’s (my brother) place in New Zealand. Me, Anjali, Tejas and Aarti are on route to New Zealand. After the initial outburst of emotions yesterday, now I am settling down in celebrating his life! Many of you know him personally. Please forgive me for informing you on the Facebook, email and WhatsApp, instead of calling you individually.
Those who have met him, have felt his positive energy, zest for life and ability to connect with all generations. Humor was an integral part of his life. He was a great father, father-in-law, grandfather and a human being.
But those who know him from his younger age will recognize that he was a brilliant example of how an ordinary person can do extraordinary things in the most challenging situations. He was in fact, far less than an ordinary human being. He barely finished high school and went to college. He did not know English well, was a blue-collared tool-and-die maker throughout his life and was never a so-called “cultured” personality. But how many of us can start learning a new language (English) at the age of 75? How many of us can embrace new technology (computers) at the age of 80? At Aarti’s graduation, he proclaimed that he will be a professor at MIT one day, obviously in future reincarnations. After today, I really need to start keeping an eye on new professor recruitments at MIT.
At around the age of 25, he developed a “neutral” growth in his nose and on his upper lip. That growth was required to be removed physically every 6-12 months. It was an ordeal that lasted for 15-20 years. Every time such surgery required blood transfusion, every time it took a physical toll on him and every time it was a loss of family income as he was a daily-wage earner. Through that ordeal, he eventually developed Tuberculosis, which required his stay in the hospital for months and months. But more importantly, except for family and friends, he was a social outcast due to the horrifying look of that weird red blob protruding out of his nostril. Imagine that nobody, I mean nobody, would dare to come closer to him even in a crowded local train. We all barely survived those days, except for his humor and my parents’ positive energy. He used to call himself “human with a trunk” (सोंड असलेला माणूस)
“Humor” and “Positive Energy” take whole new meaning when one reads above experiences. Isn’t it?
This was the circumstance in which his extraordinary work began. My parents started a school, called Swami Vivekanand School in Dombivali. Both personally made sure that the school remained “par excellence”. Eventually, the school became so popular that there used to be a loooong que for two days (no kidding!) for admission in this school. Ministers from the Government of Maharashtra cabinet have come to our home requesting admission for their fans/acquaintances/political associates. The desperation to get admission in this school reached to the point where many people had offered all kinds of money and some had even pulled a knife in our living room in front of my grandmother to threaten my father. He never succumbed to such situations, despite our dire financial circumstances.
We are just lucky, really lucky to have him as our father and grandfather.
Nitin Anturkar (28 November 2016)
