This Father’s day we interviewed two incredibly special people about their unique relationships with their fathers. This piece is about Akkta Pawar, a writer, who is currently working in the art department of various web-series and advertisements who loves the vibrancy of texture and color. She dreams of becoming a film-maker, artist and adores travelling. Thoughts about inspiring people, who you might not assume to be influential, were exchanged between us and I was struck by the profound nature of her answers. She nonchalantly quips “A person across the street inspires me. There’s this antique seller outside NID Ahmedabad and all the 4 years I was there, he was always there whether it was raining or sunny, he was always calm and collected; selling his antiques. He looks content and I just don’t see that with people around me. I want to feel like that at the end of every day.”
Akkta, spoke to me about the intense imprint her father left on her before he passed. Her name, Akkta, was given to her by him. The name itself has no inherent symbolism or definition, she says, however the relationship she had with her father gives her name all the meaning in the world. Father’s day can be hard to swallow when you don’t have your father by your side anymore. It’s difficult and an untimely occurrence. Akkta talks about her lessons her dad has taught her from giving firm almost perfect handshakes to the importance of self-discipline.
Here’s her account of her relationship with her father and how a limited edition Titan watch plays a massive role in it.
Losing a parent at any age is painfully hard, and leaves a significant impact on you. It will change you in ways that you may only fully comprehend many years later when you look back at your life and connect everything that happened after. Unlike a few slightly more fortunate than I for whom this loss would come when they’ve lived a major chunk of their lives, for me it came sooner.On the one hand, I had just entered my teens and on the other, a part of me was gone forever. The years right after were spent piecing life together as it was, never fully succeeding.
The most common instinct any human being will have when a member of their family passes on is to preserve every little piece of them. Every article of clothing evokes memories, any piece of stationary or accessory becomes a treasure and their favourite items become your strength, all extremely hard to part with. Since we had to move countries after our tragedy, there was little time to go through things that my father owned, and so everything was packed all at once and brought back to his own land, only to be stored away in boxes labelled as the past. It was only years later, when I had in some ways come to terms with the loss that I found the watch stowed away in one of the boxes which had items that he was using at the time of his demise.
Somehow, that was the toughest box to open, and although I packed away everything else I found back into the box, I kept the watch for myself not as a clichéd testimony to turn back time but because it made me feel very close to my father. I remember that moment quite cinematically. A sweltering afternoon in my hometown, unpacked boxes from the past spilling their contents into my room, and a younger me crouching in between with a men’s leather-strap watch in hand. If I have to put the creative in me to work, I would probably add a few magazine cut-outs with snazzy metal belted watches with diamonds encrusted (in vogue those days), hidden in some drawer, but that would just me humoring the situation a little. After a few days of sitting with it, I decided to wear it to college and the result was disastrous. I am fortunate to befriend people who have always been honest with me, more than they have been anything else, so when one of them told me how the very masculine watch did nothing to my already masculine style of dressing and behavior, I took shelter in the argument that it was simply important to me because it was once important to my father and its purpose wasn’t to flaunt it like most watches are meant to. But then over the next few years, every time I took the watch for an outing, it was more and more to commemorate my late father’s memory as a statement to the world, or perhaps just to myself that I had grieved enough and was ready to come to terms with the truth. Time would prove otherwise though.
It was right after college, when I was trying to plant my feet in the grounds of independence and meaningful rebellion that I found the first bit of appreciation for the watch. I was visiting a friend whose mother I greatly admired, both for the person she was and for her great sense of style. She exclaimed in the car ride back to their well decorated home that she greatly appreciated my watch and I carried it off very well. Validation always gives one a good kick, and for me it was also the first time the watch felt like my own. Then, along my very forgettable fashion journey and trying to dress up my peculiar body type, the clothes, hair and accessories kept changing with only one constant– my father’s watch. A shard of memory that had slipped from boxes of the past right into my hands, and would firmly take me to the future.
I remember I once took the watch to get the batteries replaced in a Titan showroom and was
quite taken aback when the repair man asked me how I managed to lay my hands on that
particular piece. I had to tell him it belonged to my father, to which he told me that it was a great piece created by Titan with 24k gold plating but very few pieces had been designed and sold, so it was a rare keep and one that I should always plan to keep, he added with a glint in his eyes. I smiled and said that I barely had thoughts of parting with it. And just like that, some more validation from a watch repair man and the fact that there were only a few pieces of it, made it even more special. And perhaps, there’s a way of serendipitous incidents like these having a larger effect on your psyche than you care to admit, because right after leaving that store I knew the watch had become inseparable to me.
I can faintly recollect the time when my father had bought the watch. A family man and father of three, he thought he had splurged when he got home this impromptu buy, not knowing that years later his daughter would pull off a very ‘manly’ vintage watch on every outfit from a saree and lehenga to denim and skirts. I guess it was meant to be my coming of age fashion accessory. Over the years, the watch has been a part of important days and events as much as it has seen the everyday hustle and bustle of life. My local watch guy loves to give me a new belt every few months asking me to alternate between tan, maroon and dark brown according to the clothes I am wearing but I account it to his own whims completely unknown to me. When she finds it lying around callously, my three-year-old niece comes running up to me feeling proud that she has found her aunt’s watch. And then sometimes she insists that I strap it on to her wrist, beaming with joy that she is wearing her aunt’s watch. I try to remind her that it is her grandfather’s watch, but she insists on calling it my watch. Some things just have a way of making their way into your life and becoming a legacy, just like this precious piece of metal has to me.
About Akkta: She is a writer and filmmaker who is trying to make sense of the world around her one day at a time. She is prone to long bouts of procrastination and loves to stay indoors with her plants unless she is stuffing herself with food somewhere on the planet with friends.
You can follow Akkta on social media @akks07 on Instagram and Akkta Panwar on Facebook.
Featured Photography by Rishi Raj for Homegrown
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