In Memoriam: Abhay Abhyankar
Things that in almost anyone else might have been faintly
ridiculous—carrying a silver cigarette case; getting a barber home every
morning to shave him with an old-fashioned razor kept, of course, in a
special tin box; putting in a keg of draught and a beer-tap at his home
bar—he did with élan, grace and unapologetic relish. Abhay Abhyankar was
the quintessential bon vivant: food, drink, work, play, theatre,
music, travel—he loved it all. Most of all he loved his family and his
friends, and his family grew year after year as it included ever more
friends.
Professional rivalries in law tend to get sharper as careers advance.
Few are completely immune to rancour and professional jealousy. Abhay was
that rara avis: singularly unambitious for himself, and possessed
of a bewildering largeness of spirit and heart, able to take unbridled joy
in the good fortunes of others. The opposite of
schadenfreude—delight in the misfortunes of another—is perhaps
mudita, a term from Pali, Sanskrit and Buddhism: to rejoice
in the joys of another. No other word better captures the essence of
Abhay Abhyankar.
He loved his work as a lawyer, but his success was his own, achieved
neither by promoting himself nor put down others. Stories of his
generosity are legion: one junior tells of the time when Abhay could not
make it to court, and the matter was argued by the junior. When the fees
came in, Abhay passed them on to the junior. Weekend trips to his cottage
were incomplete without an armada of friends and constant fretting about
who would like what special dish, with what particular ingredient and
prepared in just such a way.
People misread his self-effacing temperament and gentleness, and
success and recognition came later than they should, at a time when
he was already reeling under the illness that would eventually claim him.
Fate dealt him an unfair share of cruelties, any one of them enough to
break a lesser man. There must have been days of indescribable despair and
bleakness. Not once did they reflect in his dealings with others, in court
or outside. No one ever heard from him an ill word about another person.
There’s good in everyone, he held, and life is too short to bother with
anything else. Of life’s many ironies perhaps none is more
incomprehensible than the passing before his time of one man who so
completely revelled in life itself. The inevitability of his illness did
not dim his spirit. To the end, he lived his life to the fullest, a day at
a time.
”Like a traveler sailing the Archipelago who sees the
luminous mists lift toward evening, and little by little makes out the
shore, I begin to discern the profile of my own death”—Marguerite
Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian.
He died a few days before Diwali. Perhaps this is how he would have
wished it: for us to carry on, to savour every moment. But for his many
friends, and his family, every Diwali from now on will be just that much
less brighter.
Mea Culpa: This was first sent out in the second week of the Diwali
vacation. I only just realized (thanks to Nitin Thakker) that it hadn't
gone out at all. It seems there was a choke-up at our mail server which
delivered to only three addresses. My sincere
apologies. |