He seemed to be writing for posterity in the way that he talks about “breakfast” and documenting time, yet so intimately for his one reader. Long distance calling was out of the question for his humble budget, so maybe he documents these details out of necessity, for her to feel near him. Could he have predicted that his daughter would seek solace in his words and that writing to his wife would lead to this pilgrimage of sorts in Copenhagen?
I am grateful to my mother for carefully keeping these letters safe across three continents, so that fifty years later, we can experience the lost art of putting pen to paper, of holding crisp stationery in one’s hands, filling feelings to the edges. My father tucked his communication in an envelope and licked the back, it traveled across time zones, into his love’s hands weeks later, who would then hold this very same paper in her hands, trace the letters with her fingers, brush the paper across her lips, smell it.
I was eight months old when Pops left India to build a life for us. As an adult, when I traveled to Denmark for the very first time, I felt compelled to go to Hotel 3 Falke where he writes her on a Danish September morning.
The anticipation of seeing the place where he penned this letter is hypnotic. We park next to an old Triumph Spitfire. Mozart is playing in the parking garage. The day takes on a magical quality where time starts to bend and fold into itself.
As I approach the hotel (the name translates to Three Falcons), I see the majestic bird alive in my imagination. Falcons are a symbol of the Sikhs’ tenth teacher. I wonder what they mean to the Vikings? The swan is their national bird. My heart fills with this spirit of strength and elegance. I imagine my young father in a turban, in his best suit and tie, among the Danes. What must they have thought of this handsome Sikh in the '60s? He was thinking about my mother.
We pass a Frellsen Kaffe truck, a dog walking his owner, Cafe Vivaldi is on the corner, a 7 Eleven on the other. I want to inhale this moment. I am at the edge of tears standing in the hotel. I tell the tall woman at the front desk his story. She shares she came to the hotel as a little girl, her father was the manager. Everyone is a story in bloom.
It is a Radisson now. One-of-a-kind treasures are taken over by twenty-first century franchises. What must it have been like when my father stepped foot on the property? How could I have explained to her the force of his dreams or what it meant for me to be standing here? I want to reach back in time and be with him, but there is a business conference and men in suits with lanyards around their necks are forming a line behind me, so I politely conclude the conversation. She is exceedingly gracious. My father ends his letter in the margins, Kisses, Amarjit.
Maybe because he left when I was so young, I retrace his steps to find him over and over again throughout space and time, in different parts of the world, his love letters as my guide, his young hopes my compass.
