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Culture

My Father, Mr. President, and I

1/28/2017

12 Comments

 
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​Some of my most vivid memories of my father are those of him watching the presidential debates, listening intently to NPR in the mornings, consulting me for sizes when ordering candidate T-shirts, explaining contentious issues to me across the dinner table. Though he raised me, we didn’t have a lot in common, a 49 year old man and a 17 year old girl. But we found our commonality on the political floor. It was there that I was my father’s daughter, so aware of what was happening in the world because he took it upon himself to make me an informed, global citizen from the first day I started elementary school, when he began quizzing me on state capitals on the drive up.

I was young, but I have one of those flashbulb memories of watching the Kerry-Bush debate with him, the way that the camera panned across the audience and back to John Kerry’s face. I remember my father’s interjections as they spoke, and I remember the day he told me that his candidate had been defeated. I didn’t feel a sense of loss then, only a curiosity that one could lose at this political game. There was a big mass of land, cut into sections, and men with fair skin and grey hair fought over them—that was what I knew then. I remember sometime before Obama announced he would run for President, my father holding up his second book, The Audacity of Hope, in our living room and telling my mother that he thought this man might run for President. I remember blinking, because he didn’t look like what I thought a President was supposed to look like. But I remember how thrilled and excited my father was when he did run—this young man who was about his age, and whose skin color was not so far different from his own.

My father was a software engineer who should have been a politician, a people’s person who cared about the welfare of communities and the extermination of corruption. He probably would have been one, had that been a viable career option for a middle class student in India, or had he been of the same skin color as all the leaders that line the hallways of the White House. I am certain it meant a lot to him, that someone who looked more like him than the white men that seemed to grip this country sat in the highest office of the land. I remember his energy, his unbridled enthusiasm during the campaign, the “Yes We Can” magnets and hats, the “Obama 2008” T-shirts in multiple sizes, the silent watching and post-analysis of the rallies and interviews and debates. I couldn’t help but feel it too, as we watched him take the stage at the DNC, that contagious energy, that personal stake in all of it. When Obama won in 2008, I remember that it mattered to me. I remember the nervousness before the victory, the vindication when my father came into my bedroom the next morning, a broad smile on his proud face as he informed me that the man we had believed in had done it.

My father’s happiness bred my delight, and we spent those next eight years of my life, my formative, teenage years, watching our President grow as well. We admired his stance on marriage equality, we argued about his positions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and through it all, I became an intelligent consumer of news and an equal peer to my father. In the Obama years, we found an unshakable common ground, and it was inextricably tied to the man who had inspired in my father the enthusiasm that inspired me. When he was away on business and called, we would talk about the headlines, which were not often without mention of our President. When he drove me to school in the mornings, NPR often directed our discussions, again rarely without mention of President Obama. It was the three of us, sometimes, riding to school in that white Lexus—me, my father, and the President.

When my father began his involvement in the Indian political process, Obama was his guide. He was still the same believer in that grassroots, “yes-we-can” mentality, and it drove his vision of a corruption-free political system in India. I watched him work to energize people, often sitting in the back of auditoriums in college campuses where he went to talk to students, energizing and electrifying them the way Obama had done in 2008. He was not the kind of father that could talk to me about boys, or school plays, or dances, but we could plan to race home early to watch the State of the Union together on January evenings, and in the pauses between our President’s words, feel our shared comradeship.

When my father died, in September of 2016, when I was seventeen years old, one of the greatest oddities that had struck me about the fact that he was no longer around was that he would never know the outcome of the election. Of everything I would miss about him—those rides to school, those frenzied discussions about the state of this-or-that in this country—that had seemed the worst of it. That somehow the man who had believed in Obama the most would not know how his chapter ended. In the months leading up to his death, he had been traveling for work, and whenever we spoke, despite the fact that our lives existed oceans away, we always found common ground in the election. He would ask me if his order from the Bernie campaign had shipped yet—two T-shirts, one for me and one for him—and if I had seen the latest debate, what I thought of it. In the months after his death, I watched the news obsessively, some combination of CNN and MSNBC and The Daily Show, his regular networks, because somehow the discussions that happened in those TV studios made me feel closer to him. Often times I would turn to him to scoff at something someone had said, discuss my incredulity, but of course he wasn’t there. That was painful, but it would have been more painful still to avoid that world altogether—it was as much a part of me now as it had been of him.

And when I watched Obama say goodbye to the nation on January 10th, my reaction was more than sad. It was deeply emotional, visceral. Because he was more than just a national leader to me, he was the first time I saw my father as more than my caretaker, as a man with hopes and dreams and steadfast beliefs. Obama was a great achievement for people of color everywhere, one that I, so young, could take for granted but whose power I saw in my father’s eyes. I will miss that—looking to the highest office in the land and seeing a man that my father could believe in, did believe in. It was a reassurance that no matter what happened, no matter who was so cruelly ripped away from me, there was someone at the helm of this great ship whose grip was steady and honorable. In believing in Barack Obama, I met the man behind my father, a complex dreamer and believer, and his goodbye on January 10th meant officially saying goodbye to eight beautiful, shrouded, nostalgic years of a father-daughter relationship that would have been far different without the common bond of Obama’s America. For that I am forever grateful.  

​Sarisha Kurup
12 Comments
Alexis
1/28/2017 10:08:37 pm

❤❤❤

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sanjay
1/30/2017 01:38:03 pm

Awesome article.
I could have never conveyed Obama's years with such eloquence.

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Ruma Sen
2/5/2017 09:17:36 pm

Sarisha, I am from your parents 's alma mater, IIT, KGP. This is a very well written article. Heartwarming to read about the special bond you had with your dad. May God bless you and hope to see your writing skils thrive.

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Aditya Nath Jha
2/6/2017 09:42:40 pm

Sarisha, wonderful -and, delightful - piece. Pran was a friend from Kgp (and later). I am sure you will soar higher and higher. My email is aditya.thejha@gmail.com - drop in a line if you ever need anything. Love and blessings.

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Shashank Shekher
2/6/2017 10:53:26 pm

Awesome writing skills and such mature thoughts at such a tender age. Your father was preparing you all throughout for this day... God bless you Sarisha.!!

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Vinay Pai
2/7/2017 10:04:43 am

Dear Sarisha, I too am your dad's two years senior at KGP. His hostel was just next to mine. You are a very smart girl. I see your vision and goals much farther than what you may ever think. God bless you, child!!

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Krishnan (Nan)
2/8/2017 12:23:28 am

Sarisha, beautiful piece. Looks like you got your writing genes from dad as well. Keep up the good work!

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Shamik K Bose
2/8/2017 02:31:42 am

Dear Sarisha, Pran is my batch-mate at IITKGP. I was from RP Hall, he from Nehru. Pran was a bright fellow, in myltiple affairs. I am sure, you have inherited his genes. All the best! Shamik uncle

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Ajay Tandon
2/8/2017 07:10:47 am

Beta Sarisha, my daughter is your age. Have no words......God bless you.

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Anand Srinivasan
2/8/2017 07:10:08 pm

Sarisha, That is a beautiful essay. You certainly have all the talents Pran had in writing and more...

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Mihir Biswas
2/9/2017 05:29:07 am

Dear Sarisha, What an awesome article! ..Am a batchmate of Pran.. frm Patel Hall..Hv not met Pran since 1989.. my memoirs of him r still strong..he & jindal ( sekhar) wud pass by our patel hall gates togther on their way to institute and nehru hall every day during our college days...we used.to exchg smiles but nvr had a lenghty discssn....recently hv bn in touch wth our batchmate Saluja plnng launch of Pran's book on our CM friend Kejri in Mumbai..I hv a dotr elder to u ..20 yrs...she is studying engg but more interested in bollywood..Am really amazed at d intense level of yr understanding abt politics ( which I even at 50s find it not v interesting!) and yr meaningful rendition of political battle at such an early age is really a pleasant surprise to me..Wish u all d best! In case I can be of any help anytime..wl be always glad to do so..my email: mihirbiswas@hotmail.com..thanks & best wishes

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Soumyo Mukherji
4/12/2017 03:21:46 am

Dear Sarisha:

Both my wife and I were batchmates and somewhat department mates of your father. We kept track of each other through your Mom and the SN group.

You surely have posted one of the most moving, thoughtful and multidimensional tributes to your Dad. You captured his very essence and brought back so many memories, that I am overwhelmed.

Thanks and lots and lots of good wishes for a great literary future,

Soumyo (uncle)

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