In Memory of Ashok Chandra: 2020

Remembering Dad

Not to take away from his accomplishments, but I wanted to remember my Dad today how I remember him. When I think about my dad, he was an ordinary person who was my dad- a person who was human, who with all his flaws and his strengths, came to a new country and lived life the way the best he could. He raised my brother and I the best way he knew how.

In life, it's easy to take for granted what happens in the past. It is over and done with. We live in such a competitive society - in all ways - we leave the past behind and focus on what matters in the present day and what lies ahead. But the past matters.

What people did for us in the past also matters. I think back to the sacrifices Dad made for me - both as an adult and when I was a kid- the time he took out, despite how busy he often was.

Separately, I often wonder why as human beings we sometimes focus instinctually on the negatives of the past. A minister once pointed out how often we unwittingly "dig through the boneyard of our miserable memories". One consequence of this is we forget the people who loved us and all of the good things people did for us. I wonder if that's because those good deeds blur together in our memory. Or that we paid nothing for them, and at the time, selfishly thought of them as automatic. All the things someone else did for us, that they didn't have to.

Appreciating and Being Grateful

Chris Rock once said the following of Dads:

“Nobody appreciates Dads. I’m talking about the real dads that handles their ..... business. Nobody ever says, ‘Hey, Dad, thanks for knocking out this rent!’ ‘Hey, Dad, I sure love this hot water!’ ‘Hey, Dad, it’s easy to read with all this light!’

Funny and true, maybe we don't appreciate Dad's enough.

The way I think comes from my Dad and from all the conversations we had. Sometimes people say "we learn to think at school" but I never felt that was the case. Sure I learned what makes up an atom and the quadratic formula in school - subject matter - but how to think?

Dad would always bring up interesting topics, often scientific, at the dinner table. More than anything I found it interesting how he had a structural framework for how he thought about anything. These weren't seat-of-the-pants opinions; the kind that are seemingly so popular today, even at the highest levels of government. He'd often ask Ankur and me questions- that compelled us to use critical thinking (not to mention to make sure we were actually listening and not dozing off 😀). It taught me to be informed, to dissect a matter to get at the heart of the issue; and has proved so useful to me in so many areas of my life.

Dad would drive me to debate tournaments (where parents also had to judge other debates). He would play catch with Ankur and me when we were in little league so we could practice at home. When I was an adult, he would be a sounding board on so many things. He did all these things because he loved us.