Anil Lyall

1944-2021 Much loved husband, brother, father, grandfather, uncle, and friend.You found or created something new to appreciate and share about the world every day. You are an everlasting inspiration to us.

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This is not a comprehensive account of his life, nor does it cover most of the many people who touched it and made it special , just snippets from a life lived and loved. We are grateful and thankful to all our family and friends for being there for him and for us. 

Growing up in the lanes of Aligarh, Daddy perhaps could not have imagined all the things he would go on to see, do, share and even write about.   As children, we heard stories of his childhood from our Dadima and some from him. From cleaning the birds from Dadaji's hunting, to summer holidays with his grandparents, to the taste of the dal biji/ bedmi/ kachori,  to the mess hall biryani at Aligarh Muslim University  (revisited in Ashima's few days at AMU) - there were quite a few!  Of course, the ones he seemed most fond of but told quite staidly , were stories of what his sisters and cousins would be up to as kids, The buajis were much more frank in sharing those escapades.

Post his Masters, he was off to study in Canada at the age of 21, in a world that was incredibly different from the one he had just been in. From learning the basics of physical geography (and how the water cycle really worked) to a PhD in Marine Geology accomplished with the department van transitioning to his blue volkswagon beetle, fresh seafood and Bay of Fundy storms - this was a big step in Daddy's everlasting quest to learn and do more.

While we coaxed stories of witnessing Beatlemania in real life out of him, and some stories of the change to Halifax (so cold, you kept your bread in the window instead of a fridge), we had to wait for his friends to tell us about the biryani making, noise complaints and the Indian film club.  And the friends he made in this time, have stood the test of time. It gave him immense pleasure to call them in the early hours of the morning from Bhimtal and catch up on the latest. While he wrote weekly to India , it took more than a week for the letters to arrive. Phones were in short supply in Aligarh, so in 5 years there was only one phone call.  A year at the Smithsonian, an offer from EIL and then Daddy was on his way home to his family.

Of course, the drive from Normandy to Kabul was on the way (was supposed to be Delhi but border tensions meant no driving through Pakistan). This is the era without phones and GPS , with many languages and conflicts along the way, and we are still not quite sure how he managed to get across Checkpoint Charlie, or got the car changed in Yugoslavia. But that's Daddy.

Delhi in the 70s was well, the 70s.  Daddy, caring for and being taken care of by his younger sisters, had many a memorable evening with friends in those early years.  His work life at EIL was both enjoyable and rewarding in its entirety, with many friends at work who kept in close touch over the years.  Finally deciding to settle down,  he met mom; they got married, many cassatas were eaten in Connaught Place in the evening, ship voyages were accomplished, sweaters were knit as a results of bets between them, and after many trying years we happened (trials and tribulations on the way , but we insist they got excellent kids at the end of it all) .

We are incredibly lucky to have them as our parents, and for our childhood that always had its certainty of love and care through any time. Along with all the things that come with being Dad's kids - attending plays comedic and profound when he was chairing the Hindi promotion council, watching birds with his old, beloved and very heavy binoculars and a much thumbed Salim Ali book, as a kid learning entire tracts about extraction of petroleum and lecturing adults for reliance on non-renewable resources for his petroleum conservation research association, eating omelets with eyes in Thailand because we told the chef we were hungry enough to eat anything, visiting Jarava tribes in Andaman - because he wanted us to see how wonderful the world could be and care for it.

A housewarming gift sparked his interest in growing his own plants early on. While his work and family kept him happy and content in Delhi for a long time with a host of indoor plants, post retirement he was ready for some gardening. Linked is an article he wrote for his EIL magazine - his own words to describe the tremendous satisfaction he got from caring for his plants, superseded only by caring for and bringing up his very loved grandkids in between (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xncc_r4VBJjRRH8uHZC_S9xptKWuxENa/view?usp=sharing) . He enjoyed his little abode in Bhimtal every day, and learning and writing about everything from planting every fruit tree that could grow in that weather, keeping a snake, watching for tigers, harvesting bolete mushrooms, extracting honey from his bees to just the simple joy of watching a flower unfold its petals over the day. While he was snatched away too early from us, many of you know, from the pictures of the bee swarm he shared over that weekend, that he passed away doing all the things he loved and looking forward to every day.

There is a hole in our hearts with his passing and while it pains us, it's only how much we love him that causes that grief.  And while he may be physically gone, the care and love he gave us and the appreciation of the world he instilled in us is all still here, for us to live and pay it forward.

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Anil/ Daddy/ Nanu,

You remain the most incredible person to us. We love you.

Rani, Ashima and Aditi, Vinay, Vansh and Abir