Dear baba,
Seven years to that day. I hope you are happy where you are. We never do anything to remember that day, because till now, your absence was lived by us all the time, in varied ways. If I were alone, though, I would have done something. I would have gotten a nice photo of you framed: my favourite is the one of you laughing. We hardly have any photos of you. And I would have done something: lit a dhoop in the room, remembered you, ki jaani. Like I am remembering you now. A status message about Aminia brought back that afternoon, when I was in school, and ma wasn't with us, when we had gone there for food, a rare treat. We ordered the Aminia Special, which you said was their best dish, which you knew from your college days. But what arrived was a piece of meat in jhol, with a floating onion and tomato alongside, and you lamented how standards had gone bad. And I now think that your visits to Aminia must also have been rare treats, money being as scarce as it was then.
It is hard to construct a father as a person, dear father, when he is no more. And there are only memories to be revisited and reconstructed, examined in different ways at different times in your own life, as you feel more tolerant and greater longing for a man who is no longer there in flesh and blood, with his idiosyncracies, malices, anger, demons. Deaths can never be reconciled. Are the dead benign presences, or do they change into malicious gamechangers? One hopes for the former, one hopes strongly that one's parent remains a benign presence, or often, not even that.
Life has taken such a turn, dear father, that one can no longer imagine what it would be like to have you around with me at 30. I would have been another person. Now, we concentrate on keeping ma alive, we grow to love her more even as we fight more than ever. We love our dog, or daughter, the star of our lives who brings two women together. This is my family, baba.
I have thought of you when times were hard, when paths are difficult to tread. I pray for your love, I curse you for leaving me, I think of what you would have said if you had seen me thus. I am sure you would have held me close this time last year, kept the world at bay and condemned those who broke my heart. If you are close by, you must be appalled by the way I have been leading my life these many years, how close to the edge I tread. You would think of why I do this, and you would also know. And you would let me have my way, you would know that each one lives their life, baba. You know, I would accept death the way you accepted death, without thinking of protesting. Like you, I think I accept what life gives me. It feels warm to know we are tied in this, baba.
Oh baba, the mystery of living. Tumi ki more giye bujhte perechho er mane ki? Shei orangutan tar chhobi dekhechho, je matha dheke agun theke bachte cheshta korechhilo: dekhte thik manusher moton. Ei koshter kothay kon mane achhe, baba? Tobu eta notun noy. As long as there has been life, there has been pain and brutality. Are we a particularly despicable species? Would it help if, like the Poor Priest, one were to spend one's life atoning for the sins of others?
I have taken to smoking, though only up to 3 a day. No reason save that I like it.
And as I grow older, I hope I will better accept how dire this living this.
Bhalo theko, baba.
Seven years to that day. I hope you are happy where you are. We never do anything to remember that day, because till now, your absence was lived by us all the time, in varied ways. If I were alone, though, I would have done something. I would have gotten a nice photo of you framed: my favourite is the one of you laughing. We hardly have any photos of you. And I would have done something: lit a dhoop in the room, remembered you, ki jaani. Like I am remembering you now. A status message about Aminia brought back that afternoon, when I was in school, and ma wasn't with us, when we had gone there for food, a rare treat. We ordered the Aminia Special, which you said was their best dish, which you knew from your college days. But what arrived was a piece of meat in jhol, with a floating onion and tomato alongside, and you lamented how standards had gone bad. And I now think that your visits to Aminia must also have been rare treats, money being as scarce as it was then.
It is hard to construct a father as a person, dear father, when he is no more. And there are only memories to be revisited and reconstructed, examined in different ways at different times in your own life, as you feel more tolerant and greater longing for a man who is no longer there in flesh and blood, with his idiosyncracies, malices, anger, demons. Deaths can never be reconciled. Are the dead benign presences, or do they change into malicious gamechangers? One hopes for the former, one hopes strongly that one's parent remains a benign presence, or often, not even that.
Life has taken such a turn, dear father, that one can no longer imagine what it would be like to have you around with me at 30. I would have been another person. Now, we concentrate on keeping ma alive, we grow to love her more even as we fight more than ever. We love our dog, or daughter, the star of our lives who brings two women together. This is my family, baba.
I have thought of you when times were hard, when paths are difficult to tread. I pray for your love, I curse you for leaving me, I think of what you would have said if you had seen me thus. I am sure you would have held me close this time last year, kept the world at bay and condemned those who broke my heart. If you are close by, you must be appalled by the way I have been leading my life these many years, how close to the edge I tread. You would think of why I do this, and you would also know. And you would let me have my way, you would know that each one lives their life, baba. You know, I would accept death the way you accepted death, without thinking of protesting. Like you, I think I accept what life gives me. It feels warm to know we are tied in this, baba.
Oh baba, the mystery of living. Tumi ki more giye bujhte perechho er mane ki? Shei orangutan tar chhobi dekhechho, je matha dheke agun theke bachte cheshta korechhilo: dekhte thik manusher moton. Ei koshter kothay kon mane achhe, baba? Tobu eta notun noy. As long as there has been life, there has been pain and brutality. Are we a particularly despicable species? Would it help if, like the Poor Priest, one were to spend one's life atoning for the sins of others?
I have taken to smoking, though only up to 3 a day. No reason save that I like it.
And as I grow older, I hope I will better accept how dire this living this.
Bhalo theko, baba.
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