----- Original Message ----- > From: Shoba Narayan <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Cc: > Sent: Friday, 14 June 2013 8:03 AM > Subject: [silk] Atul Chitnis RIP > >> >> This, by his brother, was also well done: >> http://arun.chitnis.com/2013/06/08/my-brother-atul-chitnis-1962-2013/ >> > > Ingrid, thanks. > This is such a lovely piece, about fathers and sons. > > Love these lines: > Like it or not, sons live their adult lives in a manner which is directly or > indirectly dictated by their fathers. We may either spend our entire life > complying with our father’s wishes or rebelling against them. We may either > do > exactly what the old man taught us to do, or do exactly the opposite. But > either > way, the fathers of sons hold the reins from beyond the grave. > > Throughout the Indian part our childhood, our father was a person to be > feared > and steered clear of. He was a hard and peculiar man – brilliant in his own > way, > but driven by his own demons and completely oblivious of how his ways > affected > others. > > I tackled our father in a very different way – not very original, but > effective. > Atul met him head on – he gave him the middle finger and waited till he could > take charge of his own life. He did that much sooner than I did. But he did > not > walk away a free man. The specter of not being good enough, for not meeting > expectations, haunted both of us.
And so, so dreadfully familiar...... >
