My first memories are of living at my grandpa's house. I remember he was always the first to get up in the morning making tea and chapatis, I remember walking with him some afternoons to Rajanna's milk farm across the parallel road to get fresh cow's milk for tea, playing "who talks last" in the passenger's seat while he drove his old blue left-hand drive around, and listening wide-eyed to his anecdotes about his childhood in the village at Mangalore and of the Arabs and Europeans he worked with in Kuwait. I remember him helping me learn Kannada for school exams, praying at all our family lunches and most recently celebrating my birthday with me along with my Grandma and Aunty Joyce. He was a very friendly and generous man, always giving others and helping everybody he could. He would smile even at strangers and the number of people in just our neighbourhood who knew Mr. Holla and considered him a friend outnumbers my list of so-called "friends" from across the world on facebook. I can vouch for the fact that he made the best chicken biryani, and while I used to grumble about eating his chicken curry as a child, I now miss it and can't imagine growing up without it.
I remember him always coming for every school event, be it sports day, my prize distribution days, my graduation, always reminding us that he built the Flack auditorium at school and always being so very proud to say he was our grandfather. And today, I am proud to say that I am his granddaughter. Proverbs 13:22 says that a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children and I believe that my life is so blessed because of the way grandpa lived. He left an inheritance of the richest blessings for Rachel and I and for Joshua, Jonathan, David, Lia and Gil. There were many hardships he faced and sacrifices he made looking after my grandmom and his six children and he took a difficult stand when he chose to follow Christ as a young man, but God was a father to him and took care of all his needs, gave him a long life, good health for most of it, and provided for every member of this family. God used him to reach others as well, be it through his work with the Gideon Ministry, the Brethren church in Kuwait which first started in my grandma and his home, his work on the board at Elim in Whitefield and the numbers of people he gave lifts to in his car. It amazes me how the choices made by one man to serve God have had such a cascading effect not just on his own family but also on so many others.
A passage which had a profound effect on his life and led him to God as a young man is found in both Mark 8:36 and Matthew 16:26 - "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" I am sad that he is no longer with us and wish I could be there at his funeral, but it is a great encouragement to know that even if my grandpa is no longer in this world his soul is safe with Jesus and I will meet him again someday.
