Passing The Baton

Dateline: Mumbai
CIRCA January 29, 2003
Year of the Lord 2003


Dear Natasha,


Today you will be crossing the age from teenybopper, to the first phase of adulthood. I am writing this letter, as it is very difficult to explain in words or verbalize my line of thinking. As I reflect my thoughts go back to more than three decades, to an enchanting distant island called Ceylon (SERENDIP) where my own adolescence began. However due to my father’s incorrigible ways, passion for horse racing, my mom’s land holdings in Kerala and the dawn of the L.T.T.E movement we had to return to India. In Kerala specifically in Tellicherry and Payyannur, where my parents belonged to a powerful landed “THARAVAD” (ANCESTRAL HOUSE). I was a mute witness to the steady decline of the family fortune. One by one we lost all our properties, and the once vast paddy fields were lost by a governments draconian legislation and we were left with a few decrepit buildings which were all mired in litigation.

It was a very confusing time, with no family fortune to fall back upon, my parents struggling amidst the rough and tumble of life, concerned with our fortune and not wanting to express their anxiety and disturb our emotional well being. I was lucky to have parents who rose above the commonplace and allowed us to choose our paths, they did their best to chart a course and show us the path; we got lost along the way. They were the most progressive minded parents in that era.

I was a misguided rebel, although my parents and certain people had a profound impact on my life, apart from literature and creative thinking. My adolescent life in the late sixties was a roller coaster ride, yet I had the resilience to take the good and bad in my stride.

It was Bombay that altered my cosmic destiny. It was a different city in an another era very different and a sea change from the palm trees, the sea and bucolic life of Malabar. Gateway of India, Marine Drive, The TAJ, Queens Necklace, Oberoi and Band Stand Bandra were eye openers for me. I spent some of my happiest years in Bombay. As you turn 18 my old Bombay has given way to the present Mumbai which is a different planet, with a changed character landmarks, and names, only remnants and ghosts of the old city remain. Nothing remains the same, today even the old values have changed. We have to go with the flow, change is the essence of life.



SHIFT GEARS

On your Birthday I fondly remember your childhood, how on Sundays in Bombay you and I would drive down to a quaint restaurant in Juhu and I used to have a beer & you also used to partake with a small wineglass much to the amusement of the bearers. Later in Secunderabad, at the break of dawn, you would stand down in your resplendent uniform for the school “SUICIDE VAN” to take you to Nobel School in Banjara Hills & I would peek from the Balcony and go back to sleep. Then on weekends you would accompany me to the Secunderabad club, where you were the cynosure of all eyes.

Anyway the purpose of this letter is not to bore you with an old Fogy’s nostalgic memories of years gone by, but to instill in you the courage to face the storm of the coming years. As an adult you now need no advice but permit me to state a few home truths that were percolated over many years and if you remember will help you weather the storm without us.

We cannot leave you a large inheritance or a family business, the only inheritance we can endow you and FARISHTA are an International outlook, an atmosphere where you can openly voice your thoughts, a lot of independence, (sometimes too much I think) and a willingness to educate you for any higher course you desire wherever you choose .

I realize you will have ideas and thoughts quite different from mine. As long as you have the courage and conviction of your ideas, (and the inevitable responsibility of facing its consequences good or bad) . I will learn to accept your ideas, even if I don’t agree with them. After all these years spent together, educating you, allowing you to have an independent mind, and letting you have the freedom was precisely for your self development. So that you should think, plan your voyage ahead in the vast ocean of life.

As an imperfect father, I have tried to do what is best, and not left you with debit notes, you owe me nothing, no obligation, no need to even explain. You are intelligent, clever, creative even though not hardworking. If you don’t use all these assets in life and have a proper purpose and reach your goal, I will have failed my duty as a father.

My life is over, yours is about to begin. I have lived life to the lees, a card sketch would state.

The last of the Kappana’s / blue blood gentry / globe trotter / amateur rallyist / poet / writer / international lover / marketeer / useless husband / last of the creative spenders – Kappana Vinay Kumar-

So let me try to convey the changing thoughts of my soul and transmit to you the distilled wisdom of the sages collated over the years. You have to leap above the ordinary, meat potatoes, money, disco, cars you can always have enough of the pedestrian stuff. Plan your life carefully, purposefully, proceed positively and pursue persistently. There are two types of growth, horizontal and vertical. Horizontal growth is what everyone knows and aspires for, money, fame, bungalow and cars, but this is not fulfilling. The second type of growth which one must develop along with this is vertical, in the heart, kindness and compassion to all creatures, giving back to society and planet, this is real growth valuable and fulfilling.

There are two things to aim for in life. The first is to get what you want, the second is to enjoy it when you get it. Only the wisest of mankind achieves the second. Fate is what we make, you have the power to alter your cosmic configuration, so don’t compromise and settle for less, don’t give up your dreams and try to make adjustments in an imperfect world. Life is a celebration and each day should be savored as an ode to fulfillment first 25 years learning next 25 years earning last 25 years returning.

If we are dependent on outside things and people for our happiness, we will never be happy. Happiness really exists within. We live in a beautiful world, but we still continue to live in our own created small ponds of misery. Life is actually a journey in the quest of discovering oneself and the world around us, acquire humility, and admire the gifts bestowed on you and all of us.

Mental setbacks are harder to cope with than the physical, because it makes people ineffective. They operate on the ‘I can’t’ rather than I can. Don’t lose your confidence, our minds our very powerful nothing is impossible once we set our minds to it.

You don’t always get what you want in life, therefore learn to like what you get, as they say in that song “ take the weather with you”.

Interestingly if we really examine ourselves, we are often blessed with what we want, however, we don’t recognize it, when we get it, and even worse, we cannot bring ourselves to enjoy it. We don’t realize that life can actually give us what we want. Only the wise can discern the ‘moment’ when they can relax and savor the richness of the moment, the foolish amateur thinks of the consequences and the moment is gone forever.

As a creative person, it is my belief that whatever money I leave as a legacy will not last, but my advice and writing will live on in your souls, something concrete to propel you in your life. If at least 30% I succeed it would be a real achievement.

I never followed rituals or worshipped god. But I have tried to read the Rig Vedas and practiced purity of mind and tried to imbibe the belief of not harboring self-harming, negative and self-damaging emotions like resentment, hostility, anger and jealousy. I have been compassionate and helped as many people as possible. Life you inherit is the chemistry of nature and death is not the end of life.

For the living death is certain and for the dead birth is certain.

I am lost in today’s world of e-Mails, SMS, VOIP & watch a whole new generation admiring their shiny cell phones, palm pilots, digital diaries, a lot of gizmos but no mind of their own.

I feel like I am from an alien planet and as such find it difficult to relate sometimes. I think its time to carve my epitaph on the headstone and it should read


Here lies the last of the Kappana’s
No thriving business, No Mercedes Car
No bungalow, No WAP Cellphone
Cannot SMS, No computer skills
No EXCUSE for living.


Vinay Kumar

Laid to rest


Born 1952 RIP 20?



Doesn’t it look quaint? Perhaps I can rise from the tombstone and say “ MERE PAAS MA HAI” In comic Hindi film relief.

You will never know how much we love you, please love your sister and children even more. So let me end wishing you a happy journey in the adulthood of your life.



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