I'm
going to make a habit to write on November 10 every year, I've
realised its high time I began acknowledging my dead father's
birthdays. I haven't done it since 2000, so now seems like a good
time to start.
He
would've been 63 today, a grand old asthmatic with two grown-up boys
and a ton of money accumulated over more than 30 years on the seas.
We'd be living in posh Goregaon west, 13th floor of Acme Enclave with Inorbit Mall and stinky mangroves for neighbours. There's
every possibility that Abhishek and I would spoilt rich kids. But then
again, it's also likely that I'd rebel against him and hate him
openly. Latter seems more believable considering that I didn't like
him even as a 9-year-old. Beyond that, I can't imagine what he'd be
like. If the former was to be the story of my life, I'm glad he snuffed it when he did. I'll trade money for morals any day.
On November 5, 2000, five days short of his 52rd birthday, Nandagiri Raghavendra Rao finally managed to give (in no particular
order) his crazed sisters, unhappy wife, young children, mistrustful
in-laws, a dozen shipping companies, his harmonica, loving older
brother, his two rotting Fiats, A-1, Sheetal Co-operative, Housing Society, Seven Bungalows, Andheri west, his drinking partner Donny,
and his own wrecked body the slip.
In the
decade since then, my memories of him have gradually faded, I've never missed
him or a father in general. You can't miss a person who's a visitor in your home and makes
sure to quarrel with your mother during his brief visits. Yet he's
listed as my father on my birth certificate, so biology must count
for something. Ever since I realised he's gone to place where I can't
touch him, and tell him that he wasn't a great father in the ten
years of my life through which he flitted by, I've decided to make
peace with him. This is as close to a birthday present as can
offer and if it brings a scowl to his framed photo back in my room at
home, so be it. If Maa ever read this, she'd be happy to know how far I've progressed in un-hating him, not with the choice of words no,
just the fact that this is actually coming from her error-prone
firstborn. It's a start.
I'm
guessing this change of heart has a lot to do with living in Delhi.
Knowing that I'm in the city he
grew up in gives me a strange sense of belonging and security
otherwise hard to feel when you have to spend a year away from your
family. From the second I arrived, I never felt I was in a
different city, Delhi's become my home sooner than expected.
Delhi's
in my blood, it's where my ancestral home is currently rotting and I've stopped denying myself that. It's hard to do a
complete turnaround on something I've built over the last 6-7 years,
but then, I've done stupider things as a teen.
This
could never have been possible in Bombay. Simply breathing Delhi's
polluted winter air makes me feel closer to pops than I'd ever been
while he was still alive. I can hear my 14-year-old self barfing in
disbelief, but I've learnt to distance myself from him for the stupid
things he believed in. But he's got a point, I've rambled on way
too much.
