To Live Beyond Life..

This was going to be one of those posts that are heart rending and sad because that is exactly how I feel right now, however, I dont think the person who this is for would approve, so instead of a feeling-sorry-4-myself post..here's a post that hopefully celebrates life and all it has to offer.

My grandfather (Dada) was born and grew up in pre-independance India and yet in thought and nature he very much belonged to modern India. Each of us passes thru many phases in life and and in each phase we play a very specific role, my grandfather was the master of each role..


The Student : He studied engineering in Benaras one of the better places to study in India at that time, kudo's to him for following his dream and his English was perfect! Maybe a result of growing up in British India.. :)


The Family man : This role more than any others I am most aware of, Dada together with my grandmother, raised 3 great sons. As the son's grew up and got married, the new daughter-in-laws also were brought into the family with a lot of love and respect. Till date, I have not seen 3 brothers who respect and love each other as my dad and uncles do and the same goes for my mom and aunt's. The one person responsible for keeping everyone together this way, the one person who commanded everyone's respect and love the most, and the one person who through his letters of advise and gentle guidance made this family a model joint family was my Dada.


The Grandfather : On every single birthday or every small achievement the one thing we could be sure of was that we would recieve a letter from Dada. Till the very end, he wrote us letters on every important day in our lives. Each letter was filled with advise on how to live life and what was most important to us at that point in our lives. The letters as always were only meant to guide, we were never pressured into following anything we did not believe in, and in-fact Dada and our parents always encouraged a healthy debate on things we did not commonly believe in. Dada did not only write letters to us grandkids,but also to his sons and daughter-in-laws, and these letters were all compiled into a book a few years back and distributed among our friends and family, everyone loved reading them..they were great pointers to leading a simple trouble free life!


The businessman : Dada started his own business (P.C. Gandhi and Associates) and till he fell sick recently, he used to go to office every single day. Never once did he talk about retirement, this I believe kept him sharp in mind. He was very aware of the goings-on in the world and always had examples and ideas to throw at us on possible things we should do with our lives.


The Religious Man : From the above, it should be very clear that whatever dada did he did with all his heart and soul and the same held true as far as religion was concerned. He used to pray every morning and go to the temple as often as possible. We used to have many healthy discussions with him on religion, god and blind faith and being true to himself, he held his own in our discussions but never inflicted his opinions on us. He always accepted our arguments with a twinkle in his eye.


Dada fought many health battles in his life, he was even taken to London early on in his life for a Major operation. However, he never let any pain show or stop him from leading the life he wanted to lead.


Recently, when he passed away, we were all lost .. it was like loosing the hand that was guiding us through the woods.. then we found his last letter, it was not addressed to us but to God. In the letter dada said he was happy with the life he had led and was ready to move on.. so even his death was on his own terms!


But who says he's gone? Dada lives on through his lovely letters, he lives on through his values that are imbibed in all of us and he lives on through all of us.. he prepared us for life and gave us a headstart..and now he lives on forever through us..


We LOVE YOU DADA..