Old School Man of the World

Om.

Today, I shaved, showered, and combed a full head of hair before putting on my Rudraksha mala, a prayer necklace of 108 beads. It was given to me on one of my daily visits last summer to my grandparent’s flat, M8-12: a 50-year old building that had served home to 3 generations of Jajoos in the now redeveloping neighborhood of Bangur Nagar, Goregaon West, Mumbai. In July, I walked down the stairs of an empty M8 for the last time in my life.

84 days ago, Papa (my dad) and I sat on the rainy banks of Ganga, completely bald save a small knot of hair at the top back of each of our heads, the rest lying at our feet. According to our Hindu tradition, men in the family shave their heads after the passing of an elder, marking a period of mourning and remembrance and instilling humility for the soul’s next journey. Today is that soul’s – my Dadaji’s – 88th birthday.

Dadaji was a force of nature. Shanti Prakash Jajoo was born in the village of Peelwa in the deserts of pre-independence Rajasthan, India as the eldest child to a soon-single father¹; his draw of the ovarian lottery was unfathomable. Yet over the 13 customary days of post-passing rituals, he was venerated by hundreds of family, friends, and well-wishers traveling from city to distant village around the world to his proud home near the heart of the world’s 6th largest city, where a Maharaj (chef) made 3-4 fresh meals daily for every visitor who wished

His son and grandsons (Papa, my cousin brother, and I) scattered his ashes in the Ganga and logged our visit in the same book of ancestral records that held his pilgrimage visits from the last six decades, since before even Papa was born. In his room sat his wife (our Dadiji), grandchildren, daughters-in-law, and sons – all educated, healthy, and more-than-fortunate, with thriving families of their own. Every expense for every proceeding was paid for directly from Dadaji’s order in his will.

This was a man of the old world – a survivor, who despite every reason to succumb to his environment was a practitioner of the hope of opportunity and the radical idea of self-determination. The much-memed story of a daily miles-long walk to school was the least challenging of his realities; in a single classroom that taught an entire region of village children, he not only achieved literacy in both Hindi and English (then-unheard-of) but completed the equivalent of high school, and shortly became one of the few migrants to the fledgling big city of Bombay for a non-menial job. In one rainy summer vacation day full of mandir (temple) visits, we visited Shree Thaker Bhojanalay for lunch – a place that, with its unlimited pure vegetarian thali had been a staple of his singular daily meals for near a decade as he worked and saved to afford my Dadiji to join him. He was recognized fondly by the owner.

These summer visits every 2-3 years, two cherished US trips, and late-night phone calls were how I knew my Dadaji. From his first day in the states despite international calls being tracked by the second and paid for through pricey phone cards, Papa had a mandatory daily check-in with Dadaji –

“Bacche (us kids) and Uma (mama) OK? Check. Health? Check. Some bank account and document chores? Check. Are you praying? Check. Exercising? Check (stop laughing Pawan/Anuj, don’t make me get in trouble)”

– and at 10/11pm CST every day until his passing, these calls continued. I quickly became a big part of them. Despite his famously strict (and short-tempered) personality, Dadaji not just kept up with all my questions, but delighted to. For this, Papa made me pause my homework or video games or even sleep, because after talking to me, Dadaji would be in a way better mood and so lessened Papa’s chances of scolding – especially if he was late or missed a day. So we talked, more than anyone else I cared to from any +91 number. Initially, I learned the basics – his story, his love and fear of God, his demeanor, his values – and slowly, I began to understand the sayings and shlokas I was repeating and why to care about these abstractions at all. Eventually, his knowledge became my first intimate encounters with wisdom – that rare earned wisdom of a lifetime of discipline and curiosity that defines the title “well-read”.

During my life (the last quarter of his), I knew Dadaji as a devout man with near-ascetic routine of discipline (5am waking up, deep religious study, reading and annotation of the daily newspapers, various sets of prayers) and a strict position as head of the family. When we lived in M8 in the summers, I was invited to join: he’d sprinkle water on Bhaiyu and I’s faces if we were asleep after 9am, and then hand off underlined and torn out sections of certain papers for me to read. From Houston, it was tests during the phone calls: “What are the 4 Vedas?” “Man lobhi, man lalchi, man chanchal, man chor– finish the saying* and tell me what it means?”, and subsequent lessons.

When I helped unpack M8, among his many possessions were two cabinets full of books – preserved, hand-annotated, encyclopedic volumes in Hindi and English including the unabridged Mahabharata, Ramayana, Upanishads, talks by Swami Vivekananda, and many I’d never seen before. Those were just the saved copies – much of our calls also revolved around reading recommendations and extracts from his readings, including the texts of the Buddhists, Jains, the Bible, and the Quran. He followed the old Truth – that one should do his own work / reading and make his own conclusions. Dadaji would never scold anyone for spending time reading (unless you were Bhaiyu and ignored him while doing so), especially spiritual and sacred texts.

*Man lobhi, man lalchi, man chanchal, man chor. Man ke mati na chaliye, palak palak man aur.
Mind is greedy, desirous, unreliable / fickle, thieving. Listen and behave not to its desires, watch as it dances

Kabir Das says “Guru Govind dono khade, kake lagoon paay? Balihari Guru aapne, Govind diyo batay” – “Guru and God stand before you, to whom do you first pay your respects? Guru, the one who showed you God in the first place”. My faith comes from the older generations – my Dadaji, Nanaji (x2), Dadiji, and Naniji, both directly and through their installations in my parents.

Nanaji (my maternal grandfather) was a poet (literally) – a joyful soul who obeyed the religious rituals and strictness when needed to appease his wife but who I believe had a more Vedic / yogic / charming view of the world. I received his wisdom across the carrom board, through games of Scrabble, watching cricket and soccer, and taking long walks in nature, amidst lots of laughter and hums of songs. Dadaji was an erudite opposite – above the distraction of games and a proponent of silence but still poetic in his own right. As a kid, I sat on his windowsill and fed pigeons as he taught me the personalities of each bird from their markings, and delighted in my stories – especially in my English.

And sure, Dadaji’s directness was dangerous. It was a canon event for every Jajoo to get his scoldings or far worse, and Papa/Badepapa’s tales have a lot more layers than I’ll ever understand. But this made his explicit joy and praise equally precious. He was immensely immensely proud of Papa and our American sect of the family. In 2007, him and Dadiji were the first to ever come to the US to visit us, a grand journey especially for a world right before the ubiquitous Internet / phone access era that’s since made everything approachable. As a family, we also visited New York City and Niagara Falls for the first time – and Dadaji felt at home

His story and ambition (he was elected the top post of community Secretary for near-3-decades in M8’s Bhanumati society / apartment complex) was in many ways America. His worldview – of deep familial duty, faith, fierce independence, education and intellectual openness, distrust of politics, and yes his desire to earn and enjoy material possessions – was so definitely. In that trip, he gifted Bhaiyu and I our first video game (the original Xbox console), and he gained another appreciation for the independence and effort of living here (especially to my mom, as he for the first time understood her and Papa’s daily work compared to the world of servant-assisted housekeeping they’d come from). When he came back, I think half of Mumbai received the trip postcard – and it was the only picture alongside a portrait of him and Dadiji that hung in his bedroom for the next 16 years:

In their second and final visit, we were proudly living in our new townhome and I’d grown up enough to participate in our conversations more than just listen. Every day, I’d go for walks, often on my RipStik, with both Dadaji and Dadiji around the lake. He’d love to practice English on whatever familiar face he saw after the first week and say hi and ask questions about how everyone lived. He loved the diversity of faces and outfits and styles and personalities of this place – and after this trip, he was sure we’d the right choice in coming here. When we had a big puja with dozens of family friends and fellow kids waiting for dinner, he had the entire crowd silenced out of respect (and maybe some fear) while he continued on for an extra 15 minutes with mantras no one else could keep up with.

In one of my favorite memories, we showed him and Dadiji the movie 3 Idiots one evening, pretty anxiously given the generous dose of modern Bollywood content that could offend his sensibilities. To our surprise, when Chathur’s speech (a 2-minute ode to gas release) came on, he laughed more than we’d ever seen him in my entire life – literally crying laughing. And to our last WhatsApp phone call, he called me the most hushyaar (smart) in the family and told me to take care of my brother and always, always obey my parents.

Time doesn’t wait for anyone. The steel glass I’m drinking water from while typing is engraved with the name S.P. Jajoo. It took me almost 3 months to dance with these memories and write across flashes of inspiration, sadness, bittersweet joy, and an unexpected amount of tears. I knew Dadaji as my grandfather, aged 65 to 87, fully settled and in his eldest stage of life.

It turns out we shared a lot more than our curiosity – alongside the spiritual books in M8 were an overwhelming amount of personal writings, possessions, newspaper clippings, and memories or keepsakes from his life before then. Dadaji had a taste for watches (brands and prices and mechanisms tracked over decades that he never got to truly pursue), film, music (vintage preserved records of the greatest 60s-80s Bollywood and bhajans), and finance (hand-written logs following companies). He cared to lead, he enjoyed the importance that came alongside it (folders of awards, recognition, and thank-you letters from Bhanumati throughout his years), and he aspired to more. And, especially after the last 6 years of worldwide craziness and family losses, he’d lived more than a full life.

Now, the shift feels quiet generational. We were fortunate to receive the blessings and wisdom of our elders for longer than most, and yet it never feels enough. I’m grateful my parents are young relative to others my age, but this means they also have more years without that support – and I’m seeing how hard that can be. And while the world has a way of producing the wisdom its young need, it’s easier than I thought to lose the ways that produced so much of the good that supports me. Dadaji and Nanaji’s wisdom and blessings come with a serious responsibility of comprehension and preservation, one that requires a focused discipline. Their and now, my, heritage is unique – proud, sustained, and rich beyond the limits of individual lives and cultures. It’s through pursuing this path that I will earn the right to eventually make my contribution. Om shanti.

1. Life Expectancy in India ↩︎