Smitu was one of the first Indians I met after falling in love with Ravi. He and his then wife Poornima were living in the US in a sort of exile (it was during the Emergency in India and they had left the country rather than face almost certain arrest and imprisonment) and they spent a lot of their time in Ravi’s apartment in New Jersey. I will associate him forever with the joy of first love and the excitement of new beginnings.
He was a darling man with a puckish sense of humor, a delight in beauty, food and goodness and graced with a charming sense of the absurd. I remember going to The Cloisters (an amazing museum in New York) with him and Poornima and on another day to a concert of Latin American music, introduced by Leonard Bernstein! One evening we made paranthas together, another day it was chocolate chip cookies and once I taught him how to make bread. He enjoyed eating.
He and Pu were both gifted photographers and Ravi and I never quite forgave them for leaving the US three weeks before our wedding – we had hoped they would take the pictures for us, but they said they couldn’t bear to stay in the country even one more day than they had to.
When we got to India ourselves (18 months later), we stayed with Smitu in his flat in Model Town. It was a two room barsati, only one of which had a functionong fan. So we all slept in one room, on mats on the floor. By then, he and Poornima had split up and Smith (as Ravi called him) was heartbroken. It was then, during his most vulnerable and tender days, that I felt I really got to know him. During those days, I became violently ill with an intestinal bug and he and Ravi took turns nursing me, finally shifting me to his parents place where he thought I would be more comfortable.
Over the years, our lives took us in different directions and we lost touch. But whenever our paths crossed again – with Karin when they lived in Nizamuddin, with Bindya when they came to see us in Dehradun – the connection was strong and immediate. He was a dear man and a wonderful friend. He believed in all the right things and he lived his convictions until the day of his death. I am sure he is at peace and I pray for his family, his daughter and his many, many friends – that all of us can bear the loss of this good and gracious man.
