The Summers We Carry

“Try to remember it always,” he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. “Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.”

― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake

It is perhaps my favourite moment from the book—and the film. A father hoping his son will remember. A quiet plea for permanence in a world that forgets too quickly. This summer, I carried that plea quietly in my heart.

Now five years of grand old age, this was perhaps the first summer vacation my son will remember—at least in flashes, in colours, in movement. So I tried to make it worthwhile. All the while, comparing it, inevitably, to the ones I had.

The calendar turned to May, and I felt it again: that inner leap. A reflex from a childhood long folded into memory. Nearly four decades ago, my summer vacations began with a tidy sprint through vacation homework, so the rest could sprawl loose and lovely. Days unmarked by routine, filled with reading marathons and long hours of daydreaming in the corners of our big, colonial-era home. Yes, there were toy cars, action figures, and books—but my truest companion was boredom, and the imaginary worlds it opened. I disappeared into them as only a child can.

Now, I watch my son run into his own summer, and the excitement is just as fierce, though it burns differently. His days are driven by motion. His dinosaurs rule the living areas, his toy cars zigzag under furniture, and he barrels through his world with a joy so physical it nearly hums. Books are companions, yes—but the dino roar always wins. I don’t mind. It’s his summer, not a replica of mine.

Back then, we didn’t take many pictures. My summers are stored in smells and sounds: the taste of phalsa and jamun, the creak of a ceiling fan, the murmur of Doordarshan in the background. His summers, though, are being chronicled—clips, clicks, snippets of now—for a someday when he may need to remember.

And when he does, I hope he finds me there. Not as a blur in the background, but fully present. Creating imaginary Jurassic Parks with him. Going out on evening walks. Movie nights, vacation trips, adventure stories of Adwitiya and Crexy. Bathing, singing, listening, photographing—or if nothing else, just sitting still. Sometimes just watching, just being.

This summer has passed in a blur. And now, as the days begin to fold back into structure, I can only hope I was there enough. That I was part of his summer the way he was once the centre of mine.