4. My Father’s House
When my father first moved us from Chennai to Delhi, everything began to change for me. We still had to live in close quarters, but soon afterward we moved to a larger home. Our new home was in a government housing complex, built in what is called the “D2 style,” which was reserved for a certain level of officials.
There were four flats to each building, two upstairs and two down. Ours was a ground-floor flat, and my siblings and I couldn’t believe our great fortune. No longer were we confined to two rooms. Inside this home was a living room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms. There were also a front veranda and back veranda. Best of all, we had our own yard in both front and back. That meant makeshift cricket games or playing with marbles in our yard at any time of day. We really thought we had made it big. Actually, it all sounds bigger than it really was. When I go back and visit now, I wonder how we kept sane in those small rooms. But that is reality, and that is recall.
To celebrate, I planted two mango trees, one in seed form after I had just enjoyed its juicy morsels, and the other a small sapling I picked up that was growing on the side of the road. I was bicycling home when I saw this little mango plant. I came back with a little spade, dug it up, carried it home, and planted it several feet away from the seed I had planted. Forty years later, when I visited, they would greet me at towering new heights of thirty or so feet, with the present residents telling me they harvest a huge crop of mangoes each year from those two trees. They now shade the back lawn with the rich aroma of mangoes in season.
Just around the corner from our home was a little park where we gathered with the other children from our neighborhood. There was always a game of cricket to be joined there or a game of field hockey to be played in the street off the main road. And I particularly remember the Muslim grave nearby, where a man came at sunset every evening to pay homage to his departed loved one, bowing down and kissing the headstone while we quietly watched. Down the block was the milk stand, where I or one of my siblings often went on errands for my mother, standing in line to get the allocated ration for our family.
Best of all, I was surrounded by friends. I had them in virtually every home in the neighborhood, and there was always someone ready to play. In that culture, you build a relationship with everyone around you. You don’t operate too much as a loner or stranger. Your friends come into your house with the same ease as any family member would, and the adult neighbors know you as well as they know their own sons and daughters. The doors are literally always open. Everybody goes to the same grocery store and shops, and the shopkeepers know your family’s order before you even walk in.
Our favorite shop was called Sweets Corner, a little café with a handful of tables and two long, refrigerated glassed displays holding dozens and dozens of handmade sweets and savories. It’s still there, in fact, with the same delicacies I loved back then. A typical Indian sweet is made purely from milk and sugar that’s repeatedly reduced until it’s thickened and then loaded with pistachios or coconut or almonds or other genuine flavors. In its preparation, as the mixture is boiled down to fudgelike consistency, it is then emptied into a thin baking sheet about an inch deep. While it is still hot, the thinnest shining sheet of pressed silver (pounded so thin that you can barely hold it without damaging it, but now made edible) is draped over it to give it that glistening, eye-catching, mouthwatering look. The silver just sinks into the surface of the delicacy as it hardens and becomes part of it, giving it a glimmering surface. A mouthful of that sweet, and you’d think you had died and gone to heaven. In those days, since I had no pocket money, I stared at the displays and wished somebody would just buy me one. Today, as I look at it and can afford it so easily, I have to hold back (not without an inner struggle), thinking of the hours on a treadmill a moment of such pleasure would demand. Life just isn’t fair, is it?
Every Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon, my father would order a pound of treats from Sweets Corner, with a sampling of various things. Being part of a large family, each would only get a piece or two, but it was worth the week’s wait. Every evening, my mother would have the household help make some kind of treat for us at teatime. We didn’t eat dinner until late, around 8:30 p.m. or so, so she tided us over with sweet puff pastries and other treats.
Our marvelous new home was located on Cornwallis Road, a major boulevard now called (thanks to new nationalistic impulses) Subramania Bharti Marg, after an Indian political leader. It was on this street that I met my three closest friends — Baby (his actual name was Vinod, but parents in India do not hesitate to give embarrassing nicknames), who went into business; Ashok, also today a businessman in Mumbai; and Sunder, who would become a mechanical engineer and a nuclear physicist, marry my sister Sham, and thus become my brother-in-law. Maybe it was the warm, neighborly spirit of our block, but it seems we all knew, even then, that we would be buddies for life. Friendships go deep and are treasured.
We were cricket buddies, hockey buddies, tennis buddies, table tennis buddies. My friends also were the reason I became fluent in Hindi, because that is what they all spoke. And their friendship provided me with a wonderful respite from school, where things were always tough for me. I barely squeaked through each level or grade, and at times I was punished severely both at school and at home.
All through school, from lower kindergarten to high school, our classes were held in open-air tents. Therefore, you were very vulnerable to the seasons. In April and May, the heat was always fierce, consistently over a hundred degrees, with a hot crosswind blowing through our classes. When the dust storms came in July, everything was covered in grit. You could actually see the dust grains swirling in the air around you. And as the monsoon season approached, if you sat near the tent’s edge you would go home soaked. Every desk was weather-beaten and at the mercy of the elements. You couldn’t leave your books there overnight, for fear that they would be soiled or damaged the next day. Needless to say, my favorite time of the year was when the schools closed because of the intense heat during summer vacation, even though we were saddled with about three hours of homework a day.
My brothers and sisters and I walked the mile and a half to school each day. In the hot months, classes started around 8:00 a.m. and ended by 1:00 p.m. or so, because beyond that the heat became so unbearable. Then, in the winter, classes started at 9:00 a.m. and ended around 3:30 p.m. My mother used to put coconut oil in our hair to keep it soft and shiny. That was as far as its benefit went. The problem was that in the winter you would leave home with the oil caked and hardened in your hair, but by afternoon, when the temperature had risen, the oil began to melt and would run down the back of your neck. It did not make for a feeling of pride as you tried to covertly dry it off with a handkerchief.
The school I attended, Delhi Public School (“public” actually meaning “private” in the British system), had about two thousand students then. Today, the enrollment is closer to five thousand, and it is one of the city’s top schools. In fact, it now has several branches across the country. Its standards have always been high, as they were when I attended, and we studied in a British system called the “Senior Cambridge.”
Yet, from my earliest days, there were signs in my life that I just lacked the disciplines of study. I never adapted to a routine, and, of course, that was not a good thing in a highly competitive culture like India’s. I know if I had worked hard, I would not have suffered as much as I did. I continually pushed the lines, although never in the realm of immorality. Instead, I was just irresponsible.
In Delhi Public School, corporal punishment was very severe. When I was nine or so, my teacher in the third standard, Mrs. Nelson, was as tough as they came. The school’s worst students were always placed in her class, because she had a reputation for straightening them out. I was one of her students.
One day, when I came to class I hadn’t done my homework — as usual. She decided to make me sit on the bare dirt outside the tent during class. Then, during lunch hour, I had to stay there on the ground, humiliated, doing my homework as my classmates walked by me enjoying their lunch.
The next day, I hadn’t done my homework again. This time, Mrs. Nelson called me to the front of the class. When she asked me where my homework was, I told her I’d forgotten it. I suddenly remembered that Mrs. Nelson had a reputation for slapping a student’s face until his ears rang. And at that moment, I thought I saw her rearing back to do just that.
I braced myself, tilting my head to the right. But, unknown to me, my teacher was left-handed. Her palm came up with lightning speed and a thunderous force against the side of my face. She slapped me a couple of times so hard that my head rang and my body trembled. It was punishing in force and embarrassment.
“The next time that happens,” she warned, “you’ll be in the principal’s office. And you’ll get the cane.” Thankfully, I never let it go that far, but Mrs. Nelson’s name and ferocity remain ever in my memory. A few months ago, I was sitting in a plane heading to Dallas, when an Indian gentleman sat down next to me. We got talking, and to our utter surprise we found out we both had gone to Delhi Public School in our school days. “Were you ever in Mrs. Nelson’s class?” he asked.
Somewhat embarrassed, I said, “I’m afraid so.”
“So was I,” he said. He reached out his hand, shook mine, and said, “Congrats! We both made it!”
I think now of the wisdom of a statement by the famed writer Professor E. M. Blaiklock from New Zealand, who said, “God alone knows how to humble us without humiliating us, and how to lift us up without flattering us.”
Unfortunately, in those days, the Indian culture was plagued with the methodology of humiliation, and that plague has wrought many suicides throughout the years. It was also a culture plagued by flattery — “Yes, sir”; “No, sir”; “Very well, sir” — people always saluting the high-placed to make them feel honored, but there is a thin line between respect and undue exaltation.
The move to Delhi had been a significant promotion for my dad. Industrial relations was his field, and he was involved in negotiating settlements in government-owned corporations. At first, he was mainly doing that in the hotel industry across the country. Later, he became the government’s chief industrial relations officer in the Indian Airlines Corporation, bringing his skill in mediating to that strike-prone corporation.
All the high-powered union men would come to our home to see my father. These were men you wouldn’t want to see within a country mile as acquaintances. They were known as thugs and shysters, people who would have no trouble putting you away if you stood in their path. Seeing them come into our home always made me feel a little uneasy.
How my father developed the skill to deal with those men, I’ll never know. But they always respected him — which was remarkable, given that he represented the government. They weren’t embittered toward him, so there was never any trouble. On the contrary, we would peek into the room where he was meeting with them and hear these thugs saying, “Yes, sir. No, sir. Thank you very much, sir. See you tomorrow then, sir.”
He was tough, yes, yet he obviously had the ability to be fair. One thing I remember about my dad was that he was very honest. Because of the power of his position, he was given all kinds of gifts — which were actually baits and bribes — from people who wanted to corrupt him. But he never brought those items home. If someone gave him a beautiful gift, he would leave it in a cabinet in his office. That also was remarkable about him. In a culture given to corruption among officials, my dad stayed above reproach. He was undoubtedly threatened at times, but nothing ever happened that caused us to worry.
He was very influential and could help many a person make a living. Every morning, there would be a line of people outside our front door, waiting for my father to emerge on his way to work. They were there to get just a few seconds with him to ask for a job. Invariably, he would walk straight to his car without looking at the person and say, “Come and see me at my office.” Sometimes he acted as if he were going to bypass them, but my mother would plead, “Please, see this man. He has been here since six o’clock this morning.” All sorts of people attained key positions because my father made a single phone call for them. He had those kinds of connections. That was the philanthropic side of him.
Twenty years after his death, I still encountered my father’s reputation in surprising places. Up to seven or eight years ago, whenever I flew Indian Airlines, at least one person would see my name on the ticket and ask, “Are you the son of Oscar Zacharias?” He was widely admired for being a great mediator, a man with a skill for reconciling sides. I sadly used to think how wonderful it would have been if he had directed those efforts toward me, his middle son.
He moved up the career ladder quickly, shifting from the Department of Labor to the Department of Defense. Eventually, he went into the Home Ministry (which, as I mentioned, in the United States would be the State Department), where he served as deputy secretary. At that point, he became very much the State Department man, always present at important functions.
Though my father held these coveted government positions we were not wealthy, even in Indian terms. Comfortable, yes — money to spare, no. The simple fact was, my father was helping to pay off a lot of family debts he had inherited. Only on special occasions would I ask my parents for something — say, if I wanted to go to the movies. But they rarely were able to meet my request.
Some of my buddies were from wealthy, well-to-do homes, and they often paid my way. Whatever they were doing, they always wanted me to go with them. They were always good to me. That made for some pretty close friendships, because India is quite the moviegoing culture and I would be at the movies at least once a week — courtesy of a friend.
My buddies were also brilliant, always at the top of the class. I was never up there with them when it came to school. Yet, as it turned out, this was the only area in which my father ever interacted with me. He never asked about my sports activities, at which I excelled. He only asked about my studies, at which I faltered. The worst time in every semester was the day report cards came. I feared his arrival at home those nights. There was a lot of red on the report card — and now I quip in good humor — “as well as on my face when he was finished with me.”
My father’s violent temper took its toll very heavily on me. When his rage would peak, he would become quite irrational, both in what he would say and in what he would do. It made for some heartbreaking moments in the home. One afternoon, a buddy and I were talking while, in the next room, my father was trying to take an afternoon nap. I guess he thought we were a bit too noisy, because he stormed out of that room and toward us. I took off, but my buddy wasn’t so fortunate. My friend came out shaking with shock after getting the brunt of my father’s fist in his back. To this day, my buddies remember, whenever they heard the horn on my father’s car, signaling that he was in the driveway, taking off as fast as they could if it were past my curfew.
To some extent, we can joke about that a bit now, and in our adult years we would remember those incidents with some lightheartedness, even in my dad’s presence. But there was a serious side and a traumatic side to it that was solely mine. He had his own way of trying to make up after a night of severe reprimand or thrashing. Two or three days after an episode, he would obviously feel some sense of remorse. He would never tell me that he was sorry or that he hadn’t meant to do it; he would just call me to the bedside, where he was sitting, and ask, “You OK, son?”
“Yes, Dad,” I’d say.
Then he would sort of pat my face or stroke my chin to say, I think, “Let’s get over it and move on.” All it meant to me was that I had a few days of reprieve. I would breathe a sigh to myself and think, “I’ll have a respite now.” But I was never convinced it wouldn’t happen again. I would replay the scenes, still wondering why it had happened.
Having said all this, I must honestly add that I have never felt any bitterness toward my father. That is the absolute truth. I have never resented him or thought hatefully of him. I loved my dad, warts and all. I truly believe that he always wanted me to succeed, and that he thought this was the way to whip me into shape and make it happen. Also, he was a victim of his own time and temperament. I must say more about this later, because it took me to ends I myself hadn’t envisioned.
The one escape I had other than sports was the movies. I enjoyed the Westerns, where the bad guy was caught because the good guy had tracked him down. I liked some of the old classics, such as South Pacific, and I thought the World War II movies were great — films such as The Guns of Navarone. I was never quite a fan of Hitchcock; I liked a strong story line more than a film that tried to scare you. And I really liked historical movies. For me, good entertainment fell back on history.
That’s why my favorites were Indian movies. I loved the romance stories, which were portrayed with such innocence. There was never any kissing on-screen, just a chase around a tree to preserve Indian modesty. That was funny to us, but it was intended to be very romantic. When an Indian comedian was asked to give the difference between love on the Western screen and love on the Indian screen, he answered in one word: “Trees.”
Mostly, I loved every movie that applauded the human spirit, which is at the core of most Indian movies. The very best of them was Mother India, which I saw in the 1960s. The story focuses on a family from a small village that was struggling to make it in their world wracked by tragedy, deprivation, and conflict. It is reflective of the larger picture of India’s struggle for survival as a people. It is truly a masterpiece, and I do not believe it has been surpassed, even forty years later. Its story of the indomitable human spirit had such great appeal to me, and I saw it again and again. Mother India starred an actress named Nargis, who became famous after that role, and her son in the film was played by the actor Sunil Dutt, who also became a famous matinee figure in India. The movie portrayed a significant age difference between the pair, but in real life they later married. I was in my young teens when the movie was released.
Another one of our favorite escapes was to a centuries-old place called the “Old Fort.” It had been an actual fort built by the Persians in the 1500s, and it was only a short bicycle ride from our neighborhood. It provided a great place to wander around, scale walls, and spy out from the minarets at the top. It was also a great place to find some delicious food on Saturdays, when vendors and hawkers set up their food stalls along the inner wall.
Even as I nibbled on snacks of bread, potatoes, and chickpeas, history again made all the difference for me. I loved knowing that the Old Fort had been built by the Persians after they attacked India. The Mughals also invaded and established India as a major center for themselves. I actually had to study all that in history class. But I associated it with the great food we got to eat, because it was during the Mughal period that Indian food became essentially what it is today. The Mughals used almonds, cashews, and crèmes to marinate their foods, while India supplied the spices. Combined, it became known as Mughlai food.
I also used to love riding my bike up a steep hill into the fort and then come tearing down at a furious pace. This was actually quite foolish, because most of the time my bike didn’t have brakes that worked and it put both me and the motorized rickshaws and masses of people cluttering the road at risk. That was youth in the name of bravado — in reality, being foolish.
There is a memory, though, from that steep slope that I remember only too well. One Saturday, I was on my way into the Old Fort when an older man came riding his bike out through the front gate at a good speed. As he came down the slope, his bike hit a stone, flipped over, and threw him to the pavement, cracking his head severely. I quickly dismounted because, in an instant, the man was lying, totally unconscious, in a widening pool of blood.
I stood frozen, not knowing what to do, while people casually passed him by. Some stared and tittered with embarrassment, while others turned around as they walked by. But nobody stopped to help. No one called for the police or for medical help — no one did anything. Not knowing what to do, I slowly remounted my bike and moved on. Several minutes later, I came back, and the man was still lying there. By this time, the blood had congealed, and those in the area were just muttering, “He’s dead. They’ll come and pick him up.” I was horrified. I had thought that an adult, someone who could rise to the task of confronting this tragedy, would have stopped to help. But they hadn’t. It was an early taste of life in the raw for me. I remember the thought registering with me that life was cheap.
Finally, in a daze I rode home and frantically told the servants in the house what had happened. They told me that sooner or later the police would be there, not to worry. Years later, when I read the story of the Good Samaritan for the first time, I remembered that old man and his horrendous accident, and I thought how real such imagery from the mind of the Lord was — people walking by and leaving a dying man even more destitute.
One of the memories from those days well sums up what was going on inside me and who I was really leaning on. I had a daily practice that I wouldn’t have been able to explain if anyone had asked me. But my mom often commented, even in my young adult years, that she remembered this too.
There was a bus stop at one of the main intersections near our home. As I visit that spot today, I see it is such a brief walk from our home, really just a couple of blocks away. But back then, it seemed like such a long way off.
My mother used to teach at a school a short bus ride away, to help earn income for our family. She used to come home every day at about 3:45 in the afternoon. For some reason, out of all five kids, I was the one who would always wait outside the front of our home until I saw her get off the bus. I wouldn’t let myself go into the backyard to play or head off to meet my friends at the park until I was completely certain that Mom was coming home. She arrived almost spot-on-the-button every day at 3:45, so I knew I was safe in predicting when I would see the bus rolling around. I could see it coming in the distance. And that’s when I told myself, “It’s OK. I’ll be able to go now.”
She was a very small woman and very slightly built, barely five feet tall, so she was easy for me to recognize from that distance. And only when I saw her step down from the bus, clutch her purse close to her, and start walking toward home did I feel everything was OK. It is so ineradicably etched in my memory that I can relive that scene vividly. She later told me she always wondered why I was the one who would wait there. But she must have known.
I did that until I was fourteen or fifteen. Although the reasons may be apparent now, I still don’t think I could explain exactly why I did it. At the time, I might have felt I wanted to make sure she was OK. I suppose I was afraid of losing her, as she was my only hope in a young life stalked by failure and haunted by shame.