Legendary

Long overdue because it's easier to believe nothing's changed.

Do you remember the sounds of your childhood? You probably heard icecream sellers and traffic. I heard jackals howling and the river laughing back at them. But those were background. In the foreground, I heard voices, voices that grew stronger with time, voices that rung out telling stories that have already lasted forever and will continue to do so.

I grew up listening to stories of Zohrasthra as well as Osiris, Orpheus as well as Muhammad, Krishna as well as Jesus. It must have been an interesting sight, my grandfather, an upright octogenarian, and me aged an impressive three, pouring over scriptures to understand what opinion leaders made of life before heatedly debating our own ideas and opinions (I can only hope mine have gotten slightly more sound with time!)

In old men, I've found an acceptance and a sense of belonging I rarely find anywhere else. It's not unconditional, it comes with the expectation of a self-perfection they demanded from themselves through the course of their lives, and it seems natural to replicate it. I've learned to sit with my back straight, to hold candles up regardless of whether they drip hot wax on my hands, to enunciate, to be fanatically punctual - and, though I've often hiccuped and cried to my mother, there was no question of not following what they implicitly held up to me as a standard.

I had just one grandfather, but sometimes, looking back, it seems like I had very many. They blend together in time, their gentle advice and gruff pride shining through to remind me of the best that they took for granted I'd work towards. Looking back, I remember the sound of tradition - not of religion or of dogma, but of simple belief. In life itself and all that it encompasses. It's overwhelming the love and strength that emnates from the very memory of these men. They're all missed and remembered in one way or the other every day - and, since a few days ago, Agarwal Uncle will be too.

'However men approach me, even so I accept them, for the paths men take from every side are mine. They are in me and I in them.'

~ The Bhaghvad Gita.