My forever friend

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The clock strikes 7am.The sound of the pendulum reverberates through the huge room, where a fastidious father is kneeling down with a pair of crisp white socks in his hands trying to slip them on a four-year-old boy who is propped up on the couch. The father lovingly puts on the socks, stretches them up his shin and then holds out his tiny little shoes. He fits his miniature feet in those small back shoes and ties up the laces. While he is engaged in these meticulous tasks despite the presence of several domestic helpers, he wears an unusually happy expression on his face, full of pride and satisfaction on completion of this stint for his beloved son, who is now ready to go to school.

Before he waves his final goodbye, he casts a final glance at the apple of his eyes. Hair perfectly parted and combed, shoes polished, milk moustache wiped, nap-sack packed and off he goes along with his older siblings. It might appear absolutely incredible to see such a devoted father displaying maternal instincts but, this is true.

A quick sketch of this endearing man reveals an extremely handsome man who exuded a radiant complexion, bright and expressive blue eyes; a humble smile and a modest gait. He was extremely successful in his career and earned his livelihood through civil service; always referring to himself as a civil servant and refusing to be labelled as a bureaucrat. His demeanour and mannerisms exhibited humility, grace, integrity and principles of the loftiest order.

This is a woeful, sad, strange and sordid tale of a man who to my horror as an infant took me regularly to his wife’s gravesite. Why? Why did he have to maul my inner being into shattered pieces of dismay and agony? Could he have avoided it? At that time my innocent self would often maturely, ask me , if this grave belonged to his wife, why in the world I have to be brought to this place whose vastness was filled with grief. Can he not come alone, why is my company so important to him? I wondered!

A time came when I would still be struggling with my supplications at his wife’s grave, he would leaving me alone and walk towards the exit staircase. I had grown and arrived. Decades later, I stood at his wife’s grave alone with my own offspring who was as dazed as I was on my first visit, when he who loved me most had brought me to this site. In his presence, I never broke down at the gravesite. His absence gave me an open license to wail and mourn, at that mound of sand, heaped together and neatly cemented that had housed the remains of my mother, his wife!

I was barely 30 months old when this gentleman befriended me. Not too long before this, I had lost my mother to the Grand Design. Losing his life partner did not estrange him from the responsibilities that loomed on the horizon of his life. He handled with grace the intractable pressures from family and friends to remarry and start life anew. He refused to surrender to the societal and ritualistic demands. A letter from his course mate steeled his resolve. The letter carried a simple yet powerful message. It said, ‘From today, God has combined in you two major roles. You will be both a father and a mother to your children’. This gentleman is my father.

He groomed and educated us in a very different manner. The quality of it surpassed the best classrooms of the world. His classes would be scheduled around the dining table and dinner time; lessons were anecdotes and parables from history, religion, literature, politics, music and a variety of intellectual subjects. He inculcated in us the habit of reading. He never admonished in a conventional fashion, instead he always conveyed the message through a narrative or an allegorical fable and it was this methodology which led to lifelong learning for his progeny.

With elder siblings leaving for greener pastures overseas, the home became an empty nest with just two residents. My father and myself. That was the time that the bonding further consolidated. We would converse on various issues. As a prolific reader, he could speak at length on any subject.

I learnt from him the art and science of bringing up children. Being my best friend, he allowed me the necessary closeness but ensured that the fine line that demarcated respect and discipline was never crossed.

As I grew, I saw my father enter into his youthful 40s, midlife and finally give in to old age. I hated me growing up and equally despised him growing old. On reflection in mature years of my life I have often wondered if you were my shadow or was I yours. My shadow may have given you the zest for living but the shadow I needed most, you gave wholesomely.

I lived all my life in fear. I dreaded the inevitability that someday destiny would rob me off, of this noble soul, just as it had done so to me when I could barely stand on my feet. This fear was written large on the canvas of my existence. And he knew it.

He always knew it - his love for me; my love for him; his dependence on me, for seeking a motive to his own life and my dependence on him to draw from him a dual parental role. My passion for him; his care and concern for me, and above all, our mutual knowledge that we couldn’t be without each other. He knew it… otherwise why would he, every time when I sat next to him, hold my hands, in his palms and declare with authority filled unfathomable love, “Listen son, no parent has come ever, forever,” he knew it. And dad, you were right. He knew that too.

The writer is a senior banker and a published author.