AMOL RAJAN: Why We Should Never Take the People We Love for Granted | GREAT MOMENTS

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2:10Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Lange and this is Great Moments.

2:17Hey guys, welcome back. Yesterday was my first ever Father's Day, so congratulations to me and all the dads out there. And it got me thinking about my conversation with the brilliant Amal Rajan. Okay, I knew this was the perfect great moment to share with you today. Now, you know Amal as a journalist, a broadcaster, a podcaster, presenter of the University Challenge, and also a friend of mine. And when Amal came on Great Company, we had one of the most honest and moving conversations I've ever had on the podcast, truthfully. In this great moment, he opens up about losing his dad and shares what he has learned from grief.

2:48So if you like what you hear, you can check out the full episode in the show notes below. Just go and click on it. But here it is, our next episode of Great Moments with Amal Rajan.

2:58Your relationship with your dad is so thick for you, right? In so many incredible ways.

3:04Amol Rajan: It's the story I told myself about myself. And when that story goes, you've got to tell yourself a new story. And that's really hard when you're 38, as I was when he died. My dad, the thing about it was that was so shocking. I didn't think he was going to die. He was 76, annoying, had that slightly kind of elder, sort of tedious thing where he hated medicine and doctors. And he had type 2 diabetes. And out of nowhere, he got pneumonia. And he went in and he went into intensive care for five weeks. And it was the worst five weeks of my life. And at the end, it looked like he was getting a bit better.

3:38Amol Rajan: It was a time of Omicron, so he couldn't visit. And that was the thing that was so hard about it. And suddenly, all of the crap for five weeks, the infections he was getting, the tubes, the pipes, his kidneys weren't working. And it was all too much. He had a catastrophic heart attack. And if I'm honest, that was three years ago last week. it's still really, really raw, you know? And, um, last Friday I went to the place in Chiswick in West London, where I first came in this, I was born in India and lived in Chiswick from the age of three to seven. I went with my mum and we looked at his house and we talked about all the memories of being there and it was incredible.

4:14Amol Rajan: And then I went back to Tooting and there's, which is where my parents' house is in South London. And there's just a picture of my dad and he's smiling. And there's something about that, which I just, it kills me, man. It kills me. And, you know, my dad was, you know, I think we'd nowadays probably medicalize it and say he was depressed for years. He was a downbeat guy, an introvert, but there's something about when someone is your dad and they're a downbeat person and you have kind of private access to them smiling. There's something about when they smile at you, it's just so overwhelming. And yeah, I went to pieces.

4:47Amol Rajan: Um, and if I'm honest, you know, it's a weird thing to know how blessed and how lucky you are. You know, I've won the lottery so many times in my life and all the big things I'm paid really well. I have a fantastic job and yet to feel in a bit of a funk. And I was so unprepared for grief. And I've been in such a pit of grief for such a long time. And one of the things that I really want to do by talking about it is to tell other people that this is coming. Your parents are going to die, man. And it's going to be, you think it's going to be bad. It's going to be a million times worse than you think it's going to be.

5:22Amol Rajan: And you have to get ready for it. I don't think I'm prepared for that. You can't prepare for it. But the one thing you can do, which I know you've talked about a bit, is you can make sure that you minimize the regret. And what do you mean by that? Well, you say the things you need to say. A couple of years ago, before my dad died, I decided to go on a little walk with my dad and I asked him some really basic questions. You know, dad, are you happy with how things are turned out? do you feel like the sacrifices you and mum made in coming to this country you know he was 41 the age I am now when he ripped himself away from kind of everything that was familiar and beloved you know do you feel it came out and you know my dad didn't say you know what son I'm proud of you and it was absolutely justified but he kind of intimated that and I'm so glad I did that walk and there are certain places I wanted to go with him you know I've got a son called Winston me and my dad were both very interested in Churchill I really wanted to go to the house in Kent where Churchill spent most of his life with him I didn't get to do that and so if there are things that you want to do with your parents and you're lucky enough to have your parents around you've got to do those things they are top priority because you know it's the height of arrogance to think your parents be around forever but yeah I've been in a complete funk really for three years and people see don't they they see they see kind of they see you on University Challenge they hear you on the Today program or on a podcast so they see he's a pretty upbeat guy and what they don't see is that internally you're trying to write a new story you're trying to kind of tell yourself that this is why you do it and you're trying to tell yourself what there is to live for in the absence of your dad you know if people listening to this are going through grief i'd say you've got it there was a thing that johnny bairstow the england cricketer right and i get all my moral tips from cricket players johnny bairstow is absolutely legend amazing guy his dad um died by suicide when johnny bairstow was eight he talked about when you're going through grief, he said, you just got to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

7:13Amol Rajan: Just keep buggering on, as Churchill said. And I sort of feel like people need to know that time will change things. It will soften the grief. It will change. It will stop being so raw. You know, you might suddenly go five hours of a day without thinking about that person. You might suddenly go to bed, wake up and not have dreamt about him. I remember the first time I woke up and thought, oh my God, I've not dreamt about dad. I must be moving on. But also grief can come back from anywhere it could be a little trigger like my dad was the only person i've ever met because he was an old indian man who used a shoe horn you know when you could put you like to get so you don't doubt because he was so poor growing up he thought if you get a pair of shoes from mark suspenses like 25 pounds back in the days like you don't want to mess up the thing so you use a shoe horn and i went to his that's such a beautiful image it's shoe in old indian men of my dad's generation loved a shoe horn because they didn't want to you know they wanted the shoe to last my dad was so proud if you got a shoe from marks and spencer and like it lasted for like 15 years and like i mean i feel ashamed i get trainers all the time and so it's grief is like it can come back from anywhere and also grief is this weird thing in that it's completely universal you're going to go through it and you know god i hope we can talk when you do uh but it's also particular you know every particular every grief is a grief for a particular relationship and so you you can't prepare for it but the thing that you got to do if you've got the relationship with your dad that i had where my dad was kind of my story you know born into extreme poverty gave up everything came to this country dreamt that his children would do well and I wanted to make him proud and when the person that you want to make proud is dead you've got to work out why you get up in the morning and I'm sort of doing that you know I'm actively doing it now partly coming here talking to such an inspirational dude it's it's it's all the same shit you know I'm trying to work out what it's all about and I do know the answer you know i know about the meaning of life and i know why i live but it's it's hard work i definitely fall into that sort of category where i'm i'm a fixer trying to fix things the whole time and i think you probably do too you could fix it i'll do that i'll sort that out no i'll do that i can do that i can do that whatever and when you can't fix something that's very hard and then when you're not distracting yourself and you're sitting in that place which is grief and you don't know how and also you can prepare yourself to do that leg spin ball you can prepare yourself to be an editor you can pay yourself to be a broadcaster you can prepare those things and i think you are you prepare yourself yeah into everything that you do you listen to this podcast probably because you were new coming on and you listen to it and things like that you can't prepare yourself for grief no because that's an emotion you can't understand until it happens and also you can't work harder at it you know with you know playing cricket or being a broadcaster or whatever you can work really hard and that hard work hard work gives you confidence grief is not like that it's not something where you're like, do you know what?

9:56Amol Rajan: Today, it's Tuesday morning. I think what I'll do is I'll go and chat to Jamie and I work really hard at my grief. He's like, no, no. You look at a shoehorn or a comb. My dad, it's such an irony. My dad, bald as anything, always combed his hair. Combed his hair at the side. It's like, it's not that much hair, especially at the top. It's like, why are you combing your hair, dude? It's like, you haven't got any hair. If you, I mean, or maybe you do, but that's a hell of a parting you've got there. You know, but you comb it down the side and who do you know that's got a hair comb. I mean, I don't know.

10:25Amol Rajan: I've never known anyone that's got a comb. And I went to his top drawer last week, last Friday. It was the third anniversary. I looked at his picture of him and I cried my fucking guts out. And I went to his room and there's a little kind of devotional prayer area, which we often have in Indian heritage. And I opened his drawer, which I've not dared to look at. And there was a shoehorn. And it killed me. And a comb. And I just remember thinking, why did he comb his hair? You know, he didn't have any hair. You know, and I'm like, yeah, you can't, you can't work at that, man. You can work at everything else.

10:58Amol Rajan: You can work at building a company. You can work at being a better conversationalist. You can work at everything. But yeah, grief, you just got to let time do its thing, I think. Did you say goodbye to him? No. And the thing that, um, one of the things that upsets me most is that, you know, you had this five weeks where, yeah, cause it was COVID and Omicron and so many people who had ill relatives in that period, particularly elderly relatives will know visits, visiting times were like really screwed up. So you had to like book it in with this. There was this wonderful nurse who was like, just, he had like an iPad schedule and you'd get to talk to him on an iPad.

11:36Amol Rajan: And he, because he went into a coma, he never really came round. Um, so he didn't really get to talk to him and he moved to this other ward. I remember saying to my son, watching some God awful TV. I remember saying to my son, by the way, granddad's getting better. and my son was on some, he was, he's a bit of a chat box and he was ranting about something. And as I said this, he just stopped and went, yes. And I tell you, I meant so much to me, man. That really meant so much to me. Um, because in that moment I knew that he had a relationship with my dad and, um, yeah, just sucks that after that he didn't get to get to see him and the funeral itself, even more painful than the day he died.

12:19Amol Rajan: There's a famous poem called Elegy written in a country churchyard, which I can do mostly verbatim. And it's all about the kind of nobility and brilliance of the poor. And I can do it verbatim. And I always wanted to make sure I delivered it without having to look at the notes. But on the day, I just went to complete pieces. And in a way, that was when I said goodbye, when I kind of read this poem to him. What is the poem? So I'm getting like, this is. Oh, mate, the poem is Thomas Gray and at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire, which is in a churchyard. Thomas Gray, this is the mid 18th century, looks at all these gravestones.

12:58Amol Rajan: And he basically does this long poem where he talks about how history shouldn't forget the bravery and the brilliance of these people. And there's a particular stanza where my dad, the story of my dad's life, which is why it's so ironic that I present University Challenge. So my dad was a genius. He was like off the scale clever. But my dad was so pretty. He was one of 11 children. He had six sisters and he was extraordinarily clever. He's the only one of the 11 that left India. But he couldn't pursue his academic ambitions because he had to get his sisters married. You know, this is 60s and 70s India.

13:32Amol Rajan: and so he asked his father if he could pursue a further study. His father slapped him around quite a bit and said, you've got to get your sisters married. But there's a very particular stanza, which is the most important to me, where he talked about chilled penury because chilled penury, like extreme poverty, stopped him doing what he wanted and it stopped him pursuing knowledge with a capital K. And there's a stanza in Grey's Elegy where he says, but knowledge to their eyes, her ample page, rich with the spoils of time, never did unroll. Chilpenuri repressed their noble rage and froze the genial current of the soul.

14:05Amol Rajan: And that idea, that one stanza combines the knowledge with a capital K and Chilpenuri. And you know what, I would have just loved to... University Challenge, which I am so proud to do, is about knowledge with a capital K. And that pursuit of knowledge, which brought him halfway across the world because he wanted his kids to get a great education. Um, that's what university challenge embodies. And so I feel that by presenting that program, which I wouldn't, you know, work really hard at, I want to do really well and want to do for a long time. If I'm lucky, I feel like I kind of fulfilled some of his sacrifice and yet he wasn't there to see it.

14:42Amol Rajan: And that sucks, man. Thank you for sharing that. Honestly, again, man, thank you for bringing out. I'm rambling, man. No, are you kidding me? Keep rambling. Are you kidding? This is everything, but, but it's so it's beautiful, right? that that um firstly it's so beautiful that you have that relationship with your father yeah like i would try that man like are you kidding me for for so many years in my 20s i just i just ignored my parents and i was just a dickhead and i just you know i miss christmases because i wanted to do more fun things and i just didn't do anything you still got time man yeah i know but still got time you know yeah but but i but i now realize this family is just everything it's it's it's completely everything in so many beautiful ways and i think anyone listening just take note right because i i can't remember who we were chatting to but someone said life a little bit at the moment feels temporary at this age like my parents were invincible exactly 10 years ago they were invincible they're like these enormous trees in the forest when you're growing up they're huge yeah and then suddenly you're like oh they're gonna go mate your parents I know and that for me it feels temporary now for whatever reason so if I called you tomorrow and said Jamie I'm really sorry but dad's got cancer and he's got three months to live what would you do?

16:14fuck got me I would probably say to him I have a huge uh oh I have huge guilt towards my dad

16:27Amol Rajan: um well mate you've still got time to fix things you know you've still got time to fix things you know you've won the lottery right listening to you and seeing how you feel about it like it's obviously incredibly important that guilt that you feel towards your dad is obviously a very big part of how you think about your relationship with him let me just from from my pocket let me just take out this absolutely amazing gift i've got for you here it is i've got this gift yeah on the table it's called time with your dad yeah yeah yeah there it is right you've got it you've got it most people don't have that time with their dad yeah you've got it yeah and the reason why i had that is because um i sort of had a narrative in my look my parents got divorced and um you've still come to understand that as you get older and i think that i jesus christ i've never spoken about this what the hell's going on well maybe he's going to listen to this and I hope he doesn't because yeah I don't know but I feel guilt because I blamed him for a lot it wasn't his fault maybe it was his fault it wasn't as much as I thought it was and you know I said things and yeah have you said sorry to him no no I said I love him well why have you not said sorry to him

17:45Amol Rajan: mate do it man if you think hang on it's got to be sincere it's got to be i'm so sorry because um because it would be admitting to myself that i was just a bit of an idiot for a long time you just admitted it to me i know but it's easier don't know why the fact that it's easier makes it even more important you do it to your dad Listen, if you do feel guilt and you feel you want to say sorry to your dad, what an amazing conversation to have. If anyone listening to this, if you've got the chance to chat to your parents before they go about the stuff that matters, do it. Because I tell you, I mean, you said this.

18:30Amol Rajan: You said this in your chat with PJ towards the end when you're talking about how it's like it was with the girl that you didn't kiss. and then you were like I should have just kissed her I should have just kissed her because the regret later what happened you didn't kiss her I didn't kiss her and then it was my but then you told yourself she was like what are you doing I'm just going to kiss her so ever since then you've been lunging it's my metaphor for life though right it's my metaphor for life like and I've always lived by this is that the regret I felt by not kissing her I was like what was I I was praying rejection, failure all these different things and it would have been over with and who would get so I thought well I'm never gonna to ever regret something I've never done.

19:13So I'm going to go and try and do everything.

19:14Amol Rajan: Well, the conversation with your dad is like a billion times more important than not kissing that girl. By the way, I feel sorry for her, man. She missed out on a kiss from Jamie Lang. A young Jamie was ready to smooch over.

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