That is my father. When he was around, newspapers and greeting card companies and websites did not tell me that there is this father's day business and all that . As I look back, there would have been very little that I had done even if I knew. Partly because I was too young and partly because I had not yet developed a perspective on him and went by the conventional yardsticks. QED he was to me this rather very moderately successful man who always bungled his way from one impending crises to another and occassionally, this too well read man who was sometimes hit by this crazy idea of trying to teach english to a ten year old boy, beginning right from the etymology of each and every word that came up. Well, almost every word that would come up for discussion or what is better described as inflictment of heveier doses of erudition on a soul than it could logically digest. There of course were other selves of this gentleman that I had experienced in course of the nearly twelve years that he had been with us, but it is only now or may be only after a substantial time has elapsed after his mortal disapperence, that these selves have opened themselves up to me with their full implications. In other words, the man has now left me free to imagine what he was like. Funny, how distance makes heart grow fonder in ways that one never manages to anticipate.
He meant stories to me, and travels isdide forests in an open jeep, and archaeological excavations within the Egyptian tombs and curses that reportedly haunted those intrepid excavators. He was particularly insistent that I wear north star shoes when I grow up. I think he bought me one a year before he left us, and later my mother bought me another one, but then new brands took charge of the middle class aspirations and I began to fancy addidases and nikes and went on to get them for myself. Starngely it never occuerd to me that my parents never wore shoes that cost even one fifth of those of mine. Parents, let me tell you, are a most strange sort of people. They willingly suffer lossess themselves to bring a tinge of a smile on the faces of their children. I have not yet reached that level of self denial and so I dread becoming a parent.
Then there was the solitary swimming session. Since my father never looked athletic and even had what may be described as a rather ungainly gait, I had formed this impression that even dozens of boxes of those energy drinks that you see advertized on TV these days could not induce him to get into teaching me swimming or cycling. Imagine my horror on the day he suddenly suggested we go swimming. There was a surfeit of ponds and other waterbodies in the village where I grew up-- we eventually went to one right behind our house--but the very idea of my reticent and unathletic father jumping on to the water and actually swimming to and fro made me more than slightly suspicious. My grandparents and my mother were actually concerened that he might fall sick and so forth. Baba for once cocked a snook at the naysayers and off we went to the pond. For the next hour or so , we had great fun, I shouting my heart out, and he trying to teach me the right techniques of swimming. I had learnt to swim by then but nothing except freestyle came to me. He, on the othere hand hand, appeared good with backstrokes and even breaststrokes. I hade failed to sense then, but realize now that this side of his personality had died by then. It must have been a flicker that he had carefully preserved for me to see, knowing full well perhaps that he might not have been able to stage an encore. The more I keep thinking about that solitary hour of swimming between us, I begin to see the truth in the saying that sometimes even an hour spent in absolute joy may provide you enough succour for a lifetime. Let me not get into the various debates about the measurement of time. They have been bothering me for quite sometime. In any case, I believe it is possible that some memories actually become brighter and more fulfilling with time. Therefore, it's obverse--that some memories continue to hurt more intensively as time passes--is also something that is difficult to rule out. I just hope I am proved wrong in the second instance. If Baba was around, we could possibly be talking as equals today. He does not know but I have read a book or two since then. But we never ever eneterd in to a chat on books. He obviously knew what I had been reading, but neither have I found his collection of books at home--which I am convinced was impressive--nor have I heard my mother recalling my father reading a book. I suspect his tryst with books had been cut short by some massive tragedy about which I would never know. That my granparents soon followed the apple of their eye on their way out of this planet has not helped the cause greatly. Looking back, that day on the pond taught me something very critical. It is very painful to have to tolerate the reality that you have forgotten something that you once knew-how to swim against the tide and still enjoy yourself. I do not recall my father enjoying himself, except during that one hour on the water. He would always draw very deep breaths and it appeared as if he wanted to talk but he never did. Had he done so, we could have had many debating sessions. He would never know how well my brother speaks, and how ably he has trained himself to do well in life. Imagine a chop-muri session with me and my father hammering away with our abstruse philospohical takes on life and my brother punctuating us with one of those devastating one liners of his, and my mother worrying about some new major crisis likely ro befall her family. Just that it will never happen. My brother-who has absolutely no memories of Baba-and I are convinced that he had it in him to make it very big in life. But we will never know what stopped him. Dream he had in plenty and I know for a fact that he never lacked in persistence. Someday of course I'll get to ask him but that will take a while yet. He must know that I could do with some more debating sessions, and those swimming sessions and long walks and private words before we went to sleep. And my brother deserved to know him. Let me gawkily translate my last words to him, from a popular Bengali song that readily comes to mind: had you chosen to stay up/a few more nights/ you could see all the stars shining sharp/ the moon delights/ with its chortle and twitter /but you cannot anymore lend an ear.
His name, translated literally, meant straight, and also simple. I have seen no starighter or simpler man, and I do not believe that nice guys always finish second but he did. I just wish that he transfers some of his gentility to me and withdraws some of his lazyness and lack of killer instinct that I seem to have inherited more than I deserved. But what the heck, he's bequeathed me all his dreams. So what if I have not made it to the Indian Police Service, as he would have prefered? I would ceratinly criscross forsts on open jeeps and visit the pharaoh's tombs and exorcise all those demons. But most of all i'll miss that one hour of swimming together. Someday maybe.....
He meant stories to me, and travels isdide forests in an open jeep, and archaeological excavations within the Egyptian tombs and curses that reportedly haunted those intrepid excavators. He was particularly insistent that I wear north star shoes when I grow up. I think he bought me one a year before he left us, and later my mother bought me another one, but then new brands took charge of the middle class aspirations and I began to fancy addidases and nikes and went on to get them for myself. Starngely it never occuerd to me that my parents never wore shoes that cost even one fifth of those of mine. Parents, let me tell you, are a most strange sort of people. They willingly suffer lossess themselves to bring a tinge of a smile on the faces of their children. I have not yet reached that level of self denial and so I dread becoming a parent.
Then there was the solitary swimming session. Since my father never looked athletic and even had what may be described as a rather ungainly gait, I had formed this impression that even dozens of boxes of those energy drinks that you see advertized on TV these days could not induce him to get into teaching me swimming or cycling. Imagine my horror on the day he suddenly suggested we go swimming. There was a surfeit of ponds and other waterbodies in the village where I grew up-- we eventually went to one right behind our house--but the very idea of my reticent and unathletic father jumping on to the water and actually swimming to and fro made me more than slightly suspicious. My grandparents and my mother were actually concerened that he might fall sick and so forth. Baba for once cocked a snook at the naysayers and off we went to the pond. For the next hour or so , we had great fun, I shouting my heart out, and he trying to teach me the right techniques of swimming. I had learnt to swim by then but nothing except freestyle came to me. He, on the othere hand hand, appeared good with backstrokes and even breaststrokes. I hade failed to sense then, but realize now that this side of his personality had died by then. It must have been a flicker that he had carefully preserved for me to see, knowing full well perhaps that he might not have been able to stage an encore. The more I keep thinking about that solitary hour of swimming between us, I begin to see the truth in the saying that sometimes even an hour spent in absolute joy may provide you enough succour for a lifetime. Let me not get into the various debates about the measurement of time. They have been bothering me for quite sometime. In any case, I believe it is possible that some memories actually become brighter and more fulfilling with time. Therefore, it's obverse--that some memories continue to hurt more intensively as time passes--is also something that is difficult to rule out. I just hope I am proved wrong in the second instance. If Baba was around, we could possibly be talking as equals today. He does not know but I have read a book or two since then. But we never ever eneterd in to a chat on books. He obviously knew what I had been reading, but neither have I found his collection of books at home--which I am convinced was impressive--nor have I heard my mother recalling my father reading a book. I suspect his tryst with books had been cut short by some massive tragedy about which I would never know. That my granparents soon followed the apple of their eye on their way out of this planet has not helped the cause greatly. Looking back, that day on the pond taught me something very critical. It is very painful to have to tolerate the reality that you have forgotten something that you once knew-how to swim against the tide and still enjoy yourself. I do not recall my father enjoying himself, except during that one hour on the water. He would always draw very deep breaths and it appeared as if he wanted to talk but he never did. Had he done so, we could have had many debating sessions. He would never know how well my brother speaks, and how ably he has trained himself to do well in life. Imagine a chop-muri session with me and my father hammering away with our abstruse philospohical takes on life and my brother punctuating us with one of those devastating one liners of his, and my mother worrying about some new major crisis likely ro befall her family. Just that it will never happen. My brother-who has absolutely no memories of Baba-and I are convinced that he had it in him to make it very big in life. But we will never know what stopped him. Dream he had in plenty and I know for a fact that he never lacked in persistence. Someday of course I'll get to ask him but that will take a while yet. He must know that I could do with some more debating sessions, and those swimming sessions and long walks and private words before we went to sleep. And my brother deserved to know him. Let me gawkily translate my last words to him, from a popular Bengali song that readily comes to mind: had you chosen to stay up/a few more nights/ you could see all the stars shining sharp/ the moon delights/ with its chortle and twitter /but you cannot anymore lend an ear.
His name, translated literally, meant straight, and also simple. I have seen no starighter or simpler man, and I do not believe that nice guys always finish second but he did. I just wish that he transfers some of his gentility to me and withdraws some of his lazyness and lack of killer instinct that I seem to have inherited more than I deserved. But what the heck, he's bequeathed me all his dreams. So what if I have not made it to the Indian Police Service, as he would have prefered? I would ceratinly criscross forsts on open jeeps and visit the pharaoh's tombs and exorcise all those demons. But most of all i'll miss that one hour of swimming together. Someday maybe.....
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