A heart attack does not look like what it does in the movies. My father never clutched his chest, never cried out in pain. He simply fell f...
A heart attack does not look like what it does in the movies. My father never clutched his chest, never cried out in pain. He simply fell flat on his back, looked up at the sky in wide-eyed wonder, and let out a sound I can still hear at night sometimes, when I’m struggling to fall asleep.
In 2009, we went on a family vacation to a hill station in Madhya Pradesh known for its dramatic waterfalls and pristine jungle. The only hospital in the whole area was twenty minutes away from our forest location, a small army unit with one doctor and a seldom, if ever, used defibrillator. Death was called quickly. They wrapped my father up in hospital bed sheets and put him in a freezer.
My father, who only a few hours ago was smiling for my photographs, his foot balanced on a giant boulder, hands in the pockets of his khakis. My father, whose name for me was Piglet, who liked to hassle babies because he said they looked cuter when they cried, who loved guava cheese and Parsi maleeda, who kept a bowl of mogras by his bedside because he was soothed by their smell.
We brought my father’s...
