Goodbye, Dear Father. (Part-I)
Part-I
“A Cage went in search of a bird” - Franz Kafka
Currents of time wiped off his physical existence when I was just 24 years old. For me, he almost came as a drift and then went away all of a sudden, leaving bits and pieces of experiences, unsorted and unbundled. Still, when I remember those days it sometimes feels like a wave of distant memories travelling inside me. His touch of firm yet soft fingers, hair greying with age, silent smile hiding many facts like insects embedded in amber. Akin masterpieces which seem as if should remain silent just to create a feeling of time frozen to nothingness. Distant memories have come alive to me, while writing this.
I was born in a very small town of Shivpuri. My parents had already spent ten years of their life in Shivpuri, and didn’t intend to shift the base from there. He lived in Gwalior, as his work demanded so. As a child I saw him coming late in the night, on Saturdays, staying on Sundays and heading back to Gwalior in early mornings on Mondays. I slept while he came home; I slept while he headed back. I saw him mostly on Sundays. My childhood memories of him are little. He always felt like someone aloof, uninvolved in our daily chores of life, silently doing a duty of coming and going back every week for the sake of a family.
His first gifts for me were small comic books which he brought every week, for cultivating a reading habit in me. I started reading quite early as a child, and picked up hindi alphabets quite fast. Comic books were fun to read. His selection was so interesting, that I can perfectly tell that there was a child within him. Very much alive and making his decisions. I came to know that he adored phantom as a cartoon character. He was special for him, because it fulfilled his fantasy of living independent. Every week, he parceled his love of reading towards me, word by word, book by book. One can never realize the importance of comic books without looking back in time. Those little colourful pages kept foundation of my reading habit. They filled me with lot of creativity, imagination and most importantly basics of language. I loved languages since childhood, words meant a lot to me. They were steps of my understanding of the little world around me.
In the year 1992, we decided to shift to the city of Gwalior. His memories since childhood to college wandered there endlessly, from the huge traditional house in Chawri Bazar which our family occupied, to the MLB College where he studied and got a degree. Gwalior for him was an experience, which had to be understood in different ways. Ways which were scattered all around the city, in its old monuments, central marketplaces, narrow lively streets, palaces and the phoolbaug. He took me to roam across the city, when he wished to. This mostly happened when he was in a good mood, not ready to go again to his isolated self. He loved to wander, explore the world around him in a very different ways. His silence spoke a lot, his eyes kept on contemplating different views around him, and then started telling old untold tales, of his childhood. I have turned into an immature listener many a times sitting on his favorite spot, that silent lake behind Moti-Mahal with its many pavillions. His attachment with me was of a different kind, Unexplainable and distanced. Sometimes he saw me as a child, and sometimes expected a grandpa’s wisdom.
His attitude towards me was a mystery which I am still trying to solve, and he is not there to help me join the pieces. He is somewhere around, with the same silent smile, lost in something, making hand movements and talking to himself.
Currents of time wiped off his physical existence when I was just 24 years old. For me, he almost came as a drift and then went away all of a sudden, leaving bits and pieces of experiences, unsorted and unbundled. Still, when I remember those days it sometimes feels like a wave of distant memories travelling inside me. His touch of firm yet soft fingers, hair greying with age, silent smile hiding many facts like insects embedded in amber. Akin masterpieces which seem as if should remain silent just to create a feeling of time frozen to nothingness. Distant memories have come alive to me, while writing this.
It goes long back, till my birth. I have no ideas what he felt after getting a son after so many years of his married life. I wonder what ideas could have touched his mind. It was almost impossible to find out, because I know he had hidden them beneath his silent smile. He must have been drifted to a mode of super-consciousness, like a yogi talking to himself with hand movements, trying to find a meaning of the world around him.
I was born in a very small town of Shivpuri. My parents had already spent ten years of their life in Shivpuri, and didn’t intend to shift the base from there. He lived in Gwalior, as his work demanded so. As a child I saw him coming late in the night, on Saturdays, staying on Sundays and heading back to Gwalior in early mornings on Mondays. I slept while he came home; I slept while he headed back. I saw him mostly on Sundays. My childhood memories of him are little. He always felt like someone aloof, uninvolved in our daily chores of life, silently doing a duty of coming and going back every week for the sake of a family.
His first gifts for me were small comic books which he brought every week, for cultivating a reading habit in me. I started reading quite early as a child, and picked up hindi alphabets quite fast. Comic books were fun to read. His selection was so interesting, that I can perfectly tell that there was a child within him. Very much alive and making his decisions. I came to know that he adored phantom as a cartoon character. He was special for him, because it fulfilled his fantasy of living independent. Every week, he parceled his love of reading towards me, word by word, book by book. One can never realize the importance of comic books without looking back in time. Those little colourful pages kept foundation of my reading habit. They filled me with lot of creativity, imagination and most importantly basics of language. I loved languages since childhood, words meant a lot to me. They were steps of my understanding of the little world around me.
In the year 1992, we decided to shift to the city of Gwalior. His memories since childhood to college wandered there endlessly, from the huge traditional house in Chawri Bazar which our family occupied, to the MLB College where he studied and got a degree. Gwalior for him was an experience, which had to be understood in different ways. Ways which were scattered all around the city, in its old monuments, central marketplaces, narrow lively streets, palaces and the phoolbaug. He took me to roam across the city, when he wished to. This mostly happened when he was in a good mood, not ready to go again to his isolated self. He loved to wander, explore the world around him in a very different ways. His silence spoke a lot, his eyes kept on contemplating different views around him, and then started telling old untold tales, of his childhood. I have turned into an immature listener many a times sitting on his favorite spot, that silent lake behind Moti-Mahal with its many pavillions. His attachment with me was of a different kind, Unexplainable and distanced. Sometimes he saw me as a child, and sometimes expected a grandpa’s wisdom.
His attitude towards me was a mystery which I am still trying to solve, and he is not there to help me join the pieces. He is somewhere around, with the same silent smile, lost in something, making hand movements and talking to himself.
..absolute depth it has..
ReplyDeletemade speechless.....
No words to express the feelings, shaken up absolutely
ReplyDeleteit is the same as i feel about baba but can't express it. writing is one another talent which you have inherited from baba.he himself was such a good writer but never wrote for others to read.good work keep it up.looking forward for more
ReplyDelete