In November 2021, somewhere in the badlands of outer Delhi during a snack break at work, I bit into a hot, crisp jalebi. Syrup filled my mouth and tears pooled in my eyes instantly, like an uncontrollable reflex. Growing up, my father would bring back piping hot jalebis for us from the canteen at the government hospital where he worked.
In August 2016, five years before that cold November evening, my father passed away suddenly and without warning. Grief had taken a pair of shearing scissors to my life. With my father gone, the coordinates of my identity had become scrambled. I could not remember who I was prior to his death or immediately after. I was utterly at sea.
My father was an introvert, incapable of truly expressing himself. Others would often describe him as “simple”. He rarely made his preferences known and as a consequence, barely took up any space. It made me wonder if I really did know him. The facts of a person’s life are abundant even in death – he was a doctor, he was an only child, he married young. But what of his interior world, the stuff of personhood? What was his favourite colour? Did he have...
