The jacket on the man in that picture is nearly fifty years old, only a little younger than I.

The first time I saw it was in a photograph sent back by my father from a long trip to the United States; it is the colour of lightly burned ochre and it has leather buttons on it the size of baby chestnuts.

That man is Janardan Thakur, my father, and the boy on the arm of the chair is me.

Journalist Sankarshan Thakur's essay on his father. Read