This piece was written for the Generations workshop, as an appreciation of my grandfather, but it became a much bigger project over the past months as Amanda and I researched, wrote, and edited it together.
You came here by sea. You stood on the railing of the SS Himalaya, looking down at all who came to bid you farewell. At least fifty of them came, all of your cousins and your aunts and your uncles and even the little boys down the street you’d played cricket with. You left your whole world behind you that night. You watched as the Taj Mahal hotel got smaller and smaller, and then you watched it disappear. Your grandma was there; you never saw her again. You used to be so close.
While growing up in India, you always wanted to leave your little suburban neighbourhood, which was too small and slow, too mundane. You wanted to leave when you, who taught yourself English, had ranked amongst the top English-speaking students in the Bombay state. When you’d work work work in the fields like all the other boys and girls but all you could think about was a world where you’d work work work, but not like this. No more riding your metal bike to that same dirt field, every morning, working under the same sun until evening. Instead you’d get into the subway each morning, amongst all the other men and women in black and white suits, and then you’d take a deep breath and stride into that tall building. Onto greater things you’d always wanted to go.
You rode the SS Himalaya to London. Oh how your father would laugh if he saw you here amongst the English, them greeting you and attending to your bags. Only thirty years ago, he was temporarily jailed by the British for marching alongside Gandhi. Your father had always had stories to tell, and when he did, it was as if the winds would quiet down and the babies would stop crying and, for a while, everyone would just listen.
After departing the boat in London, you flew to New York City. In this “new world” of opportunities, New York was a world all on its own. Alone, you took a cab to the YMCA, and for three dollars a night, you stayed there. That first night, you had entered the Empire State Building and the elevator you rode up was filled with you, a Chinese couple, and a middle-aged Frenchman and it was humming with freedom so as soon as the doors opened you flung yourself out and you rushed to the edge and as you stood and looked out, it felt like you were still flying.
On your second day in this new esteemed world, it was raining, and when you smiled at a lady on the train, she clutched her handbag closer to her chest. Did she not know of the work your family back in India had done to earn their wealth? When people made fun of your accent you wondered, do they not realize you taught yourself English at the age of fourteen? “My elite status in India did not apply here in the United States,” you wrote in your diary.
When I came to New York City, I came by car. I was fourteen, and I had my mom, my dad, my sisters. I had my cousins, a couple hours away. I had you, a couple hours away. My dad and I walked the streets that first night and I looked at all the different people. All the stories they must have to tell and cultures they must bring. People like you.
When you flew into your new life, you had no idea what it would bring. You had no idea the prices you’d have to pay. Would you have left if you’d known? Your grandmother, your beloved grandmother who’d made you warm milk with honey under grey growling skies. Your grandma who made you listen to Bollywood music (you always have it playing in your home today). Your grandma who’d picked you up and tended to your scabbed knees and kissed them and then sent you back out to play. You never saw her again after boarding that ship. She sang to you a song that day. A prayer. She told you to sing it if you ever felt lonely, homesick. You scratched the lyrics onto a piece of paper and you sang that song to yourself over and over on that boat, till it was buried deep in your mind.
When you talk about moving here, you say you did it for us. I used to wonder if there really was that connection, because it was you who left your home and your family, in their house of brick and mud, on a boat that night. Now I realize that you exist as a bridge between two lands. That this story starts with you. That maybe, in a way, all of my stories begin with you.