Kalwinder
Kalwinder is a teacher, author and poet.
His dad died by suicide in 2006.
“I thought ‘no one wants to read about my Dad, a Punjabi man who died by suicide. Who wants to read about suicide?’ But I wanted to look at who he was before he died; not how he died, not why he died, I wanted to remember how he lived.
It was difficult for me to write. It was brutal.
The first chapter is the day he died, and chapter 10 is called ‘Dead’ where I explain how he died. It took me seven years to get to chapter 10.
My moment of realisation was when I thought of the book title.
“It’s not about forgetting the person and saying you can move on it’s about accepting what has happened”
I’m a big fan of Doctor Who and when the Doctor reaches the end of his life, or a particular manifestation, he regenerates. And I’m a Sikh - we have 10 gurus, every time one passed away that body regenerated into another and the next took on the mantle.
My realisation really did feel like a regeneration and that feeling was crazy it was like a glow inside of me and the glow just emanated from me – an absolute feeling of joy; I knew something had happened to me and I knew that whatever this feeling was, provided I go with it and stick with it, something good was going to come out of it.
I didn’t know what the end was but I knew I had to remember that feeling and go with it, so that day I opened my laptop and I wrote the title of the book ‘My Father and the Lost Legend of Pear Tree’ and I wrote chapter one. I called it D-Day; D for Dhindsa; D for Dad; D for death. My D-day was the day he died.
I was writing non-stop. I had all these thoughts in my mind, and I kept writing them all down thinking ‘I’ll put that in my book’.
Eventually I pulled them out, extrapolated them, and made them into poems. Since November 2018 I’ve written 270 poems.
Neil Gaiman said, ‘when bad things happen make good art’. I started making good art, joining forces with great sculptors and artists, getting things done and getting things made. Poetry is a part of that, writing is a part of that. I draw now as well.
I wrote this book for my Dad and everyone that needs someone that can relate to what they’ve gone through or are going through, to help them understand and get through it.
It’s not about forgetting the person and saying you can move on it’s about accepting what has happened.
I wanted to do something that would make my father proud and I guess I have done. I became an author, a writer, a poet.
Art kept me alive.”
You can purchase Kal’s books via his website: www.khalsir.com
Written by Faye Dawson