Remembering Sundar

–Gaura

To remember Sundar is to remember Raji smile without reservation. It is to remember a time long ago and yet recent when we were all together and Sundar was pouring drinks and insisting on dessert. It is to remember happy gatherings in which he was always the one who loved the most and was loved above all. I remember Sundar from my own youth when he would drive me home after parties at Niru’s in Saket and then I remember him last Spring as he poured my daughter one of her first glasses of wine and helped her feel grown up and beloved. I remember Sundar from my Uncle Grish’s conversations about him from the eighties and I remember him from the last time we met at the talk by Romila Thapar last May. I remember Sundar always as the one who created a sense of family for us all with Raji. We will miss you more than we can say, Sundar, but we will never let you go.

[Gaura, Rajender and Nira are the ‘Miranda House group’ in New York, former students and colleagues of mine at Miranda House College in Delhi with whom we have stayed in touch over the past thirty or forty years, and who have come to be our family in New York. They spoilt Sunder rotten, and in turn he adored them and their kids.]