The man with a full heart: my wonderful father-in-law

STUPID! IDIOT! SHEEEESH! HIT NA BABA, HIT!! SHEE! USELESS MEN, USELESS!

AHHH… PARADISE, PARADISE! SO BEAUTIFUL RE, SO BEAUTIFUL! THIS IS HEAVEN, JUST HEAVEN BABA!

These were just a small sample of words that you would hear often, from my one of a kind father in law, who sadly passed away on the 24th of March, 2023, after nearly two months of illness.

In the last week alone, we have heard, as a family, so many tributes to him, from dozens of people. People have described him as kind, simple, humble, loving, devoted, religious, pious, affectionate, selfless, and more.

To me, he was a man with a full heart.

These two words probably describe a lot of what he did, how he conducted himself, and how he thought.

Firstly, everything about him was ‘full’. There were no half measures. He watched a game of cricket or football (his passions, other than hockey) with gusto. He poured all of himself into every game, and gave us his own live telecast from that perspective. He screamed his guts out when batters played too slowly, bowlers bowled too wide, or when strikers missed. Unless his side was winning, you were guaranteed a different type of entertainment – he never swore, but boy were his words sharp.

Another side of the full heart was how he felt gratitude. Even when someone barely opened a door for him, he would thank them with genuineness that was a sight to behold. It was so genuine that you felt a spiritual energy had transferred over from him to the other person. The ‘thank you baba, thank you’ was seldom profuse, but I have never seen or felt that much warmth.

That gratitude came alive even when he enjoyed the most wonderful sights the world had to offer. He was well travelled – Japan, South East Asia, the Middle-East, USA, and of course Europe. I was with him on several of those trips. Whether it was admiring a beautiful blue sky, the most wonderful gardens, a mountainous landscape, it was the same – a full sense of enjoyment, and at the same time, a full sense of gratitude. You could be sure of the words that were coming that evening – I feel like I was in Paradise, and this is purely and only because of my wife and my daughters. Had it not been for them, I would not have had a chance to experience any of this.

For context, he had a tough life. He lost sight in one eye, several decades ago, and nearly lost the other, had it not been for an amazing doctor in Chennai. That, perhaps, made him a person who would take nothing for granted, but also a person who could enjoy what life had to offer, fully. It also made him deeply conscious of the role his wife and daughters had played in his life, and how much of her life his wife had dedicated to him.

Not everything about him was good though. Many things about him were impossibly frustrating. The first among them was his love for a Mexican artist called Pepe Jaramillo. Call it a generational gap, but despite being a musician I could never relate to him, and my father-in-law would never stop trying to convince me to listen to him. It became a family joke – my wife went to great lengths to search for vinyl records or CDs of Pepe, and presented it to him. Could that stop this saga? Nope, that was nowhere near enough. I’ve lost count of the number of times I said ‘No daddy, Not Pepe Jaramillo!!’ and he would patiently say ‘No baba, listen to him, it’s so beautiful, so lovely re!’ Ooof.

Even worse, what I particularly hated about him was his impossible ability to consume copious amounts of chocolate, but not having a milimetre of fat to show for it. How did he do it? His love for chocolate was supernormal, but somehow, no matter how much he devoured them, he always stayed the slim and trim dapper gentleman. Could he not have shared his secret with us , or at least with me? Nope. That he kept to himself.

From the consumption of chocolates, to saying thanks, living a life of someone with a full heart is perhaps the legacy he leaves behind. He taught us much. Be grateful with a full heart. Love God with a full heart. (He particularly felt devoted to Mother Mary.) Pray with a full heart. (He named family, friends, acquaintances individually, and prayed for them on a daily basis.) Enjoy life’s wonders with a full heart (and be grateful at the same time.) But most of all, love with a full heart. The love we felt, in the tightness of his hug, was something I have never experienced with any other person. Thankfully, his daughters have inherited some of this. I hope that after nearly 2.5 years of living with him, spread across nearly 3 decades, I have imbibed some of it too.

We have been incredibly lucky to have had his presence. For that matter, everyone whose lives were touched by his were incredibly lucky too. Everyone, except those poor cricketers or footballers who batted slowly or missed a shot.

Colin Adrian Cardozo: 1938 – 2023