How do you call your father, if he is no longer in your life
or has never been in your life or has left you at some point of time? May be it
is very easy: if your father was a painter, you could refer him as my ‘painter’,
the one who painted you. If he was a sculptor, you could qualify him as ‘my
sculptor’. That’s how most of us refer the God, the ultimate father (feminists
may take objection here for them the maker is always the mother. No dispute
please. I too consider, at times, God as a woman, a very black woman; hey
Mamma!!), the maker. The same hands that have made you have made the lowliest
of creature in this earth too. So be humble. But what about the father, your
father, who comes once in a while to meet you and then disappear for so many
months, if not years? Why do mothers cry when fathers come back? Why do fathers
look young and mothers old? What is this father and who is this father? I
remember M.T.Vasudevan Nair talking about his father coming back from Colombo
with a girl who faintly looked like him. Another friend tells me the story of
his father who has taken him to a girl’s marriage. Why did she come and touch
my father’s feet? Why did she look into my eyes before turning them to her
bridegroom? Why her eyes were tearful?
I do not want to go into any Freudian discussion of father
figure. Every son is not out there to kill his father for the fear of him
getting at his mother. Every son is not sexually challenged by his father. It
is one of the ways of looking at things. Theoretical tools, for sure. But what
about the sons who go out looking for their father because he was not there at
all in their lives while they were growing up. He is remembered by an
occasional hug, a peck at the cheeks, some lunches together, some dinner
together, a game of cricket in a play ground where he bowls at you and run
behind the ball laboriously. Father reminds you of the fragrance of shaving cream,
strong arms, hearty smile and glowing eyes. This man who disappears from your
life has to be sought out. His reality should be dug out. He should be
understood and if he is worthless, leave him behind. But the search should be
on. Any son, who has challenged his father in Freudian terms or otherwise,
should seek him out from obscurity. I remember Theodor Vel Wagner, the
protagonist of O.V.Vijayan’s ‘Thalamurakal’ (Generations) coming back to
Palakkad, from Germany to know the roots of his father. Oh good lord, where is
my father? What would I call him?
(Louis Kahn and Nathanile Kahn)
Three of us sit there in a beautifully but subtly decked up
drawing room, sipping small shots of the Balvenie single malt whiskey silently,
feeling the heat of it tracing the inner routes of our self and contrasting the
feeling with the raging cold outside. This moderately lit up room has one large
glass window that opens to a little balcony with arm chairs and so many little
curios culled from all over the world and beyond it there is a large garden where
people, pigeons, dogs, cats and drivers relax. Along the frame of the window
there runs an artificial wine with white leaves and white flowers. Each flower
is a small little light and our host tells that it is brought from Japan. The
lit up creeper adds to the feel of the room and it turns into a bower hanging
between dream and reality. We set up a computer and projector and we are ready
to see a documentary. And the name of the documentary is ‘My Architect’.
This Oscar nominated documentary is about Nathanile Kahn’s
search for his father, to know his father and to understand him. This father
had denied him the right to be his son though he gave him his family/surname.
Nathanile father died when he was just eleven years old and his mother was his third
wife. They lived in a remote forest edge in Philadelphia and occasionally his father
visited them. His mother was a full thirty years younger to his father. His
mother worked with his father in an architectural firm where she fell for his
charismatic father. He was already married twice and was the father of two
other children, who were around twenty years elder to Nathaniel. His father
never wanted to break his first marriage and when the second woman was pregnant
with his baby, and when she mentioned about the child and the physical involvement
they had, he just said in his charismatic way that she should take it ‘philosophically’.
She did not challenge the man nor did the third woman who became the mother of
Nathaniel. But he craved for his father who died at the Penn Station in New
York. He was seventy four years old. When the Police made the inquest and the
following interrogations the identity of the dead man was revealed. His name
was Louis Kahn, the world renowned architect.
Louis Kahn was born to a Jewish couple in a rundown building
in Parnu, which is in present day Estonia. He studied architecture in the
University of Pennsylvania where he became a professor later on. He met with a
fire accident in childhood and his face was deformed. His father said it was
difficult for him to survive but his mother said that he had an ugly face which
would help him to be famous. He did become famous not for his ugly face but for
the monumental buildings that he made in various countries including India
(Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedaba) and in Bangladesh ()the Parliament
building in Dhaka). No 20th century architect could escape the
influence of Louis Kahn. Be it Charles Correa, Balkrishan Doshi, Frank Gehry,
IM Pei or Philip Johnson, they all were influenced by the architectural style
of Louis Kahn. With all his five feet five inches body, Kahn stood tall as an
architect genius and it brought people to him like a moths to a light. Many
perished and many survived and those survived still speak of the burning, the
sweet, cool burning they suffered at the flame of Louis Kahn.
(Bangladesh Parliament house by Louis Kahn)
Nathaniel Kahn grew up as an orphan and he wanted his father
back. It was impossible to get a dead man from his tomb. Hence he decided to
make a journey to the tracks that his father had travelled. He visited each and
every building that his father had created. He met people and interviewed them.
Many broke down when they came to know that Nathaniel was Louis Kahn’s son.
They knew that there was a son like that but nobody knew where he exactly
existed for Kahn did not want to acknowledge that relationship with his mother
and son. Nathaniel came to India to visit the IIM at Ahmedabad. Balkrishna
Doshi could not find words to express his feelings for the departed genius. And
in Dhaka, the chief government architect cried when he spoke of Kahn. “We were
the poorest country in the world. But Kahn gave us democracy through this
building,” says the architect with tears rolling down from his eyes. The film
ends there. Out there the night has thickened and has covered itself with the
inevitable fog. We eat dinner in silence.
We three men, all who have lost their fathers in different
phases of their lives. One has a father who was a great painter who made
miniature paintings and meticulously catalogued each and every painting that he
did. One has a father who was a teacher and a weaver of clothes; a self styled
craftsman. One has a father who was a lost politician and a government servant
and a devoted social worker. One has lost his father when he was in his
twenties. One has lost when he was in his early fifties. One has lost his
father when he was hardly fourteen years old. One runs a foundation on his
father’s name. One recreates his father at every juncture of his life. One
tries to capture his father in his words, each time when he writes about any
father in the world. All three of us are fathers. We shudder at the sight of
the imagined and possible plights of our sons and daughters. Our fathers have
inscribed them in us, irrespective of their time and context of departure. Our
efforts are to know them and may be whatever we do to know them finally take us
to ourselves. ‘My Architect’ consolidates our love for each other. And we pay
tribute to Nathaniel Kahn in silence and Louis Kahn is remembered not only for
his architecture wonders but also for this son’s effort to know his father.
No comments:
Post a Comment