The Love of a Grandmother
October 27, 2023
My grandmother passed away peacefully this week in my family’s ancestral village in India. She was 97, and I’m so grateful that my father and aunt were by her side in her last days. 97 is a very long life, and one can happily celebrate that. After she passed, my mom said to me, “Remember how blessed you are to know a grandmother’s love.” And as I’ve learned, there’s perhaps nothing quite as strong, genuine, and everlasting as that.
Her name was Induben, but almost everybody called her “Motiben,” which translates to “big sister.” This is ironic because she was *tiny* (like, four-foot-five-tiny the last time I saw her). My brother and I always opted to call her by the American “grandma,” though we should’ve called her by the Indian version, “Ba.” My fusion kids gave her the fused nickname, “Great Ba,” which I loved and can imagine she loved as well.
I’ll always remember her hands: large, powerful, earthy. Hands that make me smile considering how small she was. These were the hands of someone devoted to the work of family- hands that looked the part of dignity, pride, love, and strength. Hands that could open a pesky jar, fearlessly touch a hot cooking surface, shell peas better than any classically-trained chef, sew a button for her grandson, hands that could make killer samosas. She, like many grandmothers of that generation, was a quiet hero- one who taught through her selflessness and devotion, one whom I never heard a single complaint from. I remember when my grandfather, near the end of his life, attributed everything he ever achieved to her. Through her simplicity and devotion, she simply made him, her kids, and so many other people better versions of themselves.
In the Hindu tradition, one expression of faith is known as bhakti- an intense love and devotion to God. She was single handedly the most devout person I’ve ever known, and her unshakable faith and the people in her simple life kept her grounded, at peace, and happy. I can imagine that in her last days there was not only joy at being reunited with her kids, but also a feeling of joy at her imminent unity with the beyond.
The Patels Go to Washington
July 28, 2023
At the end of May, a message came through my manager, Earl Blackburn, that Shannon and I were invited to the State Dinner at The White House for the Prime Minister of India. My initial reaction was that it was a scam, of course, but the messages checked out, as did the official reservation form on the White House website. Apparently, a policy director in the First Lady's office read some recent press articles about me and brought our names to the attention of the First Lady and her staff (what?!).
Over the past few weeks, Shannon and I had to get quite a bit in order: confirming travel, arranging for childcare (thank you to Shannon's parents for watching the kids!), dealing with the bizarre question of, "What exactly does one wear to the White House?" My parents in Michigan helped find the beautiful Indian dress Shannon wore, and in the past ten days there were numerous errands to run and affairs to get in order (cutting back on carbs was chief among mine)... click here to continue
On the Pandemic
March 24, 2023
When I found out that the San Diego Union Tribune wanted to profile me about the pandemic and how I've attempted to tip-toe out of it, the photographer asked where we might take a photo. For me, the answer was natural: the Big Fig Tree, as Devan calls it to this day.
Balboa Park is steps away from where we live, it's hallowed ground where my shoes touch just about daily, it's where Shannon and I got married, and it's where I now have the privilege of working with the San Diego Youth Symphony… click here to continue
In Memoriam: Bernard Haitink
November 21, 2021
The great maestro Bernard Haitink passed away last month, and I am grieving this immense loss. Without a doubt, passing at the age of 92 is the sign of a long, rich life, but there are those you secretly hope will live forever. For me, he was one of them. I worked with him once, at a conducting masterclass in Lucerne almost a decade ago. He was kind and encouraging, and he invited me to keep in touch and see him whenever the opportunity came up. So, over the years, I made several trips to see him at work in Chicago, Boston, and, most recently, Amsterdam.
His rehearsals were a real masterclass in action: He was soft-spoken and a man of few words, and that was one of his greatest gifts, I think, in a profession where we conductors are all too well known for loquaciousness. Theatrics, too, were not part of his gestural vocabulary, and he had no time for flattery. Instead, the rehearsal process was about one hundred people on stage finding that selfless, sacred path together, with the highest musical integrity. When you saw one of his performances, you felt like everybody on stage and in the audience was communing together with the spirit of the music; all of us as conduits perhaps, for something greater which momentarily inhabited the hall. You were not hearing Haitink’s Beethoven, nor the Chicago Symphony’s, nor the Berlin Philharmonic’s. Nobody had ownership. You were simply hearing the composer — at their best…
A Pandemic New Year’s Greeting
December 31, 2020
Before we collectively take 2020 out to the dumpster, I wanted to give you all a heartfelt shoutout—
In a year of economic hardship, painful suffering and unfathomable loss, I've also seen a great vulnerability that I find hopeful and inspiring.
I've seen you march on the streets, bang pots and pans at the appointed hour, stand up for something you believe in. I’ve seen you vote like nothing else mattered and selflessly wear a mask for a stranger. I've watched you perform Bach in a streamed concert from your living room. I've seen you brighten your aging grandmother's day with a conversation through the window of her assisted living facility. I've heard how you courageously taught a class full of deer-in-headlights students on Zoom, eventually mastering this strange new reality. And I've felt a kinship with those parents out there who were also genuinely surprised to make it through yet another week while juggling the seemingly impossible.
I've seen you struggle, try, pivot, push a bit harder, try not to lose your mind, push even more, find your groove. I've seen you do the best you can, and then some.
You all have taught me a lot this year. About resilience and patience, about courage and kindness and empathy. About how teachers are superheroes and nurses and doctors are divine and moms and dads are miracles and how those that create beauty in this world are nothing short of essential.
You’ve helped me find the hidden joys in the little things: a FaceTime call with a friend, the sounds of children on a playground after months away, how you can see someone smile under their mask by the crinkle of their eyes.
And in all those moments where things felt like they just couldn't get any worse, you've reminded me that nothing really matters besides our health and our love for each other and our decency towards one another.
Tonight, friends, before I go to bed at 10pm (dad life...), I'll be toasting to all of you, to the hell of a year we just went through, and to the promise of renewed hope in the New Year. Oh, how sweet and real and full and timeless those first hugs will feel when they come.
With gratitude, love, and all my best wishes to you and your loved ones for health and happiness in 2021 and beyond. Always.
On my Father’s Retirement
October 1, 2020
Yesterday was a bittersweet day for us. My father, Anil Patel, retired after almost 36 years in practice as a medical doctor in Port Huron, Michigan, where he specialized in Geriatrics and Internal Medicine. He's been a doctor for much longer (47 years!), and on three continents. I wish we would have been there for yesterday's celebratory event, but the travel situation and the impending birth of our little girl made it impossible. I shared a letter with him yesterday, and if you have the desire and patience to read it, I'd like to share part of it with you, with the hopes that you can see what an incredible figure he is in my life and in the lives of so many others.
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Dad, I think part of the difficulty with the concept of retirement for me is because, like your teacher father, I've seen how you've devoted your entire life not to a job, not to work, but to something deeper, something sacred: a calling, a profession, a standard, a duty. How does one say goodbye to that?
Long before I was born, there was Dr. Patel. And I know that long before you were born, there was a dream in your parents' minds of a future Dr. Patel. My memory is speaking to me now, creating images only known to me through stories:
When I look hard enough, I see a boy sitting at a table with his father meticulously checking over his homework. I see a teenager, who, rather than studying or attending classes, is running around Bombay indulging in street food and Bollywood movies. I see his serious side, observing a dissection lecture, only to return to his dormitory afterwards and write it all out verbatim, from memory. I see a superhero saving a young boy's life in Voi, a village daktari bringing Kenyan babies into the world, a young man with long hair and bellbottoms that meets the young, beautiful woman that changes his life forever. I see that same person, no longer just a kid, leaving behind the two continents of his life's story for a new, uncertain path. I see him stepping off a plane at JFK Airport without a proper coat and little in his wallet. (How did he have such courage? How was he so brave?) I see him working in a hard, crime-filled city, the Detroit I've never known. I see him helping an Indian doctor, who like himself, was once new to this land, this place. I see him dropping his wife off in the early morning hours to wait at McDonald's before her own job started across the street, only to not see her until late that night. And I see them navigating a life in this new land: buying a bed, searching for a place that sells basmati rice, saving up to buy a house, and meeting friends and colleagues who, also so far from home, would take on the role of family.
And then we came along, and the floodgates of my memory are now wide open… click here to continue
On my Grandfather’s Passing
May 18, 2019
My grandfather, who passed away this week at the age of 93, was cremated in India today in accordance with Hindu customs. He spent his career as a teacher in Nairobi, Kenya, but spent the vast majority of his retirement years in his ancestral village of Dharmaj, India. I remember when Shannon and I went there a few years ago and I innocently asked him, "Grandpa, where were you born?" And he looked momentarily confused but started laughing and said, "I was born right there," pointing across the room from where I was sitting. Yes, in the home that was more than 100 years old, in the village where our ancestry goes back more than 500 years, and in the home where he passed away earlier this week surrounded by my family, including my dad and aunt, who felt the tug to selflessly take care of him in his final weeks.
My grandpa was a math teacher (or "maths," as he called it, in the British tradition), and when he wasn't teaching in school he was tutoring students… click here to continue