MY SECOND FATHER (TALES OF INCLUSIVITY) #Blogchatter #WriteAPageADay
Fate has a strange
way of juxtaposing certain dates together in such a way that they become
unforgettable. The 13th of February is one such day that remains in
our hearts and minds, one day after our wedding anniversary, and one day before the
birthday of my second father.
Our wedding
anniversary falls on the 12th of February. My father-in-love, (as I
have often said before, there are no in-laws in our dictionary!) celebrated his
birthday on the 14th of February when the whole word, and much later,
India celebrated Valentine’s Day. Since he was a man of simple tastes, the
celebrations would consist of a card, a little gift and a sadya
with his favourite dishes.
My second father was
a highly erudite person, and his greatest passion was reading the newspapers (I
don’t know of anyone who read so many!) and watched the news. At any time of
the day, you could walk into the house and the television would be quietly
informing you of the latest happenings in the country. This was because he had
worked in the Information & Broadcasting Ministry and had served for a long
time with Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The habit of reading newspapers started there and
it continued all his life.
There were certain
topics that he loved to speak on – current affairs (there were diaries and
diaries filled with his crabbed handwriting, all of which he wanted destroyed
in his lifetime because he felt that they would be safer out of the way),
elephants and panchavadyam, his father’s family and of course, Mrs. Gandhi. The
extent of his knowledge on all these topics, and many more, was prodigious.
I knew for a
certainty that he was proud of me and my writing. He would read all the
articles that I wrote in The Indian Express, The Hindu, the interviews and the pieces that
I did when I was a freelance journalist and of course, my books. He would tell
me exactly what he thought as he was a man who did not mince his words with
anyone. There were times when my mom-in-love would be red-faced trying to stop
him from uttering certain things that, she knew, would not go down well with the
listener.
I feel that the
quality that set him apart was his straightforwardness and his absolute incorruptibility.
He was a Polonius in real life as he believed in the dictum, “Neither a
borrower nor a lender be/ For loan both loses itself and friend.”
Health had always
been an issue with my second father. He had suffered major heart attacks in his
forties and hence, he led a frugal lifestyle, and was extremely careful of his
diet. He was brave enough to have cataract surgeries in both his eyes at one
sitting when we were posted in Baroda, and I still recall him sitting, his back
towards the television, listening to the news with utmost concentration.
It was later in life
that he was diagnosed with cancer, and he was shifted to a palliative care unit
so that he could be made comfortable. Throughout his life, my mom-in-love had wrapped
in in cotton wool, taking care of his every need even before he asked for it.
She was the ideal wife, burning the candle at both ends, spending days at the
hospital, while all of us took turns. Their eldest grandson had been born a
month ago, and when the little one was shown to him, he was overjoyed, though
stoic. The young man is now eighteen.
That year, on our
anniversary, we were at the hospital. As a nurse went into his room, I whispered
to her that it was his birthday in two days. I can still recall her reply to
me.
“He may go before his
birthday.”
I was shell-shocked,
deeply saddened. However, I stuck on to the belief that nurses were human and
did not know everything. Whether it was fate or just a coincidence, the day
before his birthday, his breathing worsened and as my mother-in-love prayed,
holding on to his hand, and we stood around in sorrow, he breathed his last. He
looked peaceful, lying there, as serene as he had been his entire life.
I consider myself
lucky at having had two wonderful fathers. While I spent only seventeen years
with my father, I spent many more years with my second father. They were both
gentle, erudite and incorruptible. I learned many life lessons from them both, and
I do not think I will see their like again.
God keep them both
safe!
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