My Father, Subhash Goyal. Vaishno Devi Temple premises. Jammu & Kashmir. 1979
Image & Narrative contributed by Sayali Goyal, New Delhi
My father Subhash Goyal was born in 1968. He grew up in Bathinda, Punjab with four of his siblings (two elder sisters and two younger brothers) and a large extended family of 19 cousins, innumerable aunts & uncles, all of whom lived on the same street. This photograph of him as a young teenager is special to me and when I asked him about it, he tells me that it was taken when he had gone for a trip with his parents to the much revered Vaishno Devi Temple after his Board exams. He spent half of his pocket money (5-Paisa) to secretly get this photo done in a studio in front of an old camera in Kashmiri attire. The idea of a solo photograph was fascinating to him.
My great grand father, Roshan Lal Katia was a senior advocate in Punjab. He had 11 children who multiplied the family gene further with 24 more – my father being one of them. He recalls that my great grandfather had a taste for luxury and was a forward thinking man. He educated all his children, including the girls – all of whom became renowned doctors and lawyers. My father primary school was Summer Hill convent and then high school was St. Joseph’s Convent where all his cousins studied too. When he grew up, he chose to become a business man.
My father has always been immensely fond of travelling, and often reminisces about his family’s expeditions to several places including Agra and Rishikesh in Uttar Pradesh. He enjoyed travels on trains for simple pleasure of buying tea and snacks whenever the train would halt. He and his two younger brothers would buy small toys like marbles from vendors on the platform.
Returning from a holiday would also mean bringing back sweets for the neighbors and telling them stories of their visits. He remembers he used to get 10-paisa as pocket money that would be spent on snacks and sometimes to buy kites. The back lane of his home would clog rainwater during monsoons and all the children would make paper boats to sail in clogged waters.
He tells me, the children would get new clothes on special occasions, and like in many Indian families it would be made from the same roll of fabric, making them all look identical. On those special occasions Samosas were a delicacy.
Interestingly, he remembers his first birthday celebrations, where Samosas and Chola Bathura were served with ice cream made of milk fat. My grandfather, he says had a special fondness for him, for he was the only one who had a cycle and that too it was red. The day that cycle had to be delivered, he went to the cycle shop at 7 am in the morning and sat all day at the shop to make sure it was modified according to him. He would clean his cycle everyday after school and run errands on it.
In 1984, my father went of his first international trip to Nepal with school friends and later to Thailand in 1989. In 1987, his first trip to Bombay (now Mumbai) was a special one as he went to the famous Taj Hotel at Gateway of India, for High tea and attended a Bollywood night. My dad’s uncles, and my grandmother still live in Bathinda and we migrated to New Delhi when I was born in 1991.
In a small effort to capture that curious spirit to explore, travel and small pleasures, I have documented my father’s journey through his childhood in Punjab here.
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