Hi Dad

Hi Dad

You must be wondering how I missed writing on you last december whilst I remembered to write about Gafs on his first.

Dad… I have kept you under wraps for my memoirs, if not for my forthcoming novel.

Dad… I still remember all the events of our life.

My first memory, of the pair of black buckles, when I was a toddler.

A smile on the poker face, every year , on receipt of my report card.

The scolding you had to face, when I told the eye doctor that I have been complaining about my eyesight to you since two years. (It had deteriorated to -4.0) My first pair of spectacles and a whole new world at 11 years.

All of us children lining up to say “Wish you safe travelling” followed by the handshake, as taught by you, on your innumerable rail journeys.

I still hate you for all the letters that you forced me to write to my uncle. So what if he was a professor in English Literature?

I still hate you for making us go through your religious rituals twice in a week.

I still hate you for being physical with us.

I still realise the pain that you went through to get your daughter married.

I still respect the meeting we had on the day after I had come home the night before, totally plastered.

I still want to forget the first time that I retaliated.

I still reminisce the Sunday afternoons, we shared, with meat and mcdowells.

I still feel the pain that we all went through for almost a decade with your battle with life.

I knew that you were alone, that you had nobody to talk to, I knew but …

I still marvel at your strengths, your discipline, your duties towards your family and the clan.

I still remember our very intense, intimate and nostalgic conversations at the hospital. You, getting fired in GM because you did not wish your Brit boss. The Quit India Movement, the railway job, the miserable goods train journeys, waiting endlessly beyond platforms without food, and then getting hooked to tea and endless cigarettes.

I still remember the final struggle, the failing lungs, the dying muscles, bed sores, helplessness and a continuous prayer for ultimate relief.

I hope you remember the night two years ago, when I walked in late, into your room. I gently wiped your emancipated body full of bloody sores. You wanted to be moved up a little on the bed. I tried but stopped when I realised the intensity of pain, it involved. I ran my fingers through your hair, trying to ease the pain.

I still remember you nodding your head like a child when I said “Papa, go to sleep and everything will be alright.

I remember the morning when I tried waking you up for tea. You shook your head in the negative. Maybe, for the last time.

Dad... In these two years nothing has changed, except for the calendar. We all assembled on Friday to remember you, so what, if at least once in a year.

Dad… We miss you, and you will miss Bhagya who was just six months old when you left.