Gaurish Naik was given a cell phone by his son Harish because Gaurish’s need to help others often made him a hard man to track down, even at 70 years old.
“We got all of these surprises [when he passed away] about what he did, because once he left the house, we didn’t know,” said Harish last week.
Harish and his sister Falguni described their father as someone who constantly wanted better for his children. He decided as a child that he wanted to be an educator, and worked to become one by tutoring other students so that he could pay his tuition.
From a small village in India, he became a mathematics and science teacher in a high school in Gujrat. He became that school’s principal for the next 28 years and always told his children that education would be the key to their success.
Falguni, now a lab technician living in Missouri, said that when she told her father she wanted to become a nurse, he spent every moment giving up his hobbies so that she could follow her dream.
All of Naik’s five children received their master’s degrees in India.
“He was very educated, and he always warned his own children to get a good education and stay independent,” said Falguni. “He didn’t want us to depend on someone, and he always pushed us to go and get an education.”
Two weeks ago, Naik passed away at home at the age of 70. He died of a heart attack the very morning that Harish was planning to book a hall for his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.
Family and friends said he left a legacy of helping others in the community.
Bought a convenience store
Naik moved to North Bergen in 1990 with Falguni when she was 19 years old and helped her adjust. Son Harish moved to North Bergen soon after.
Naik worked hard before purchasing a convenience store on Kennedy Boulevard and 67th Street.
Harish explained that his father sold the store when he decided he wanted to donate his time to helping two groups of people he though most needed representation: senior citizens and immigrants.
He was elected as the vice president of the Indo-American Senior Citizen Organization and volunteered in Union City at an adult daycare center for the disabled.
He dedicated himself to the senior community, helping them with social security, immigration, human services, “whatever they really needed for the citizen exam,” said Harish. “He made his own cassette with the questions and the answers [for them].”
Harish explained that his father’s will to help everyone around him inspired him to do the same with the Hudson County Indian Association, of which Harish is now president. Harish is also a payroll clerk for North Bergen.
A constant calm
Falguni explained her father never complained about feeling ill. He always went for a nightly walk.
He also famously fended off two robbers at gunpoint at the age of 67. The incident occurred on 79th Street, and he fended them off by smacking one of the men and throwing him into the other before running away.
Naik’s father is 96-years-old and still alive in India. Harish explained that his father said he wanted to live to 78, since then he would see his father turn 100 and still have time to help the seniors struggling in Hudson County.
Now Harish will try to fulfill his legacy.
Harish also said his father was a constant calm in their family. He said that his son, who is not yet 2, still waits for grandpa to come home. Naik had nine grandchildren.
Fixer-upper and editor
Harish said his father had the uncanny ability to tear things apart and put them back together again.
“I got a toy for my son, a [helicopter], and all of a sudden the fan wasn’t working, so he opened that plane from 6 o’clock at night and figured it out and put it back together, and at 2 a.m. it was working,” said Harish.
“He was very progressive coming from a small town.” – Harish Naik
________
“He was very progressive coming from a small town, a small village basically, and he made it to the principal in the big city of Gurat,” said Harish.
Harish said that one memory he will never forget was how his father saved his tongue, literally.
“At one and a half, I fell down from a big wall [and bit part of my tongue off], but I came with my tongue in my hand, and he ran to the hospital,” said Harish.
No one would stop to take Harish and his parents to the hospital because it was late at night, but eventually Naik got someone to stop and help, just like he always managed to do throughout his life.