This was a note that Kaushik sent out to friends and family on the occasion of Sunder’s first anniversary, July 17, 2015.
Dear all,
This is a quick note of thanks, love and remembrance from my mother and from me. It is a year since my father passed, and since then we have been incredibly sustained by your support, friendship, love, the memories of my father that you have shared with us, your condolences. Some of you were able to make it to the 13th day ceremonies in Madras last year; others to the memorial we had in New York this March; others have written notes for the website that my friend Kaushik created for him; many of you have written to us, phoned us, spent time with us, through the past few months, in deeply important and sustaining ways.
For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, the website commemorating my father is www.celebratingsunder.com. It is still a work in progress, and more will be added to it. If you have further reflections or would like to remember him in any way on it, please send something on to my mother or to me and we will add it to the site. In your words and thoughts, Appa lives on – and though we miss him terribly in the flesh, his spirit is still burning bright.
I have cut and paste and mished and mashed and put together things that various people have written and said about him in these past months, and attach it here for you. It is a compendium and a montage, from people who have interacted with him in very different ways and capacities – families, friends, colleagues, children, adults, academics, bureaucrats, from around the world – and what struck me in putting it together is just how much love he spread and received, and also how seamlessly the words from such different places and times mesh together. I hope you enjoy it.
with love and thanks,
Kaushik
[Kaushik attached to this email a compendium of the tributes that you have seen on the ‘Remembering Sunder’ section of this website]