My Hero!

I was reading this book yesterday which forced me to think about my father. I have heard this statement many many times from almost everybody that their fathers were their heroes. I am forced to ask myself that what does "hero" mean. Does it mean that the person is not allowed to have any weaknesses or can "heroes" also have their own rough edges. If someone were to ask me about my hero I would say that I have had the privilege of having multiple heroes. People who have inspired me and guided me at various points in my life.
However the one person I aspired to be in my life was my "grandfather" only because of his grit to conquer adversity. However sadly enough he was not my father's hero. As a professional he had big accomplishments but he failed miserably both as a father and a husband. He was able to correct the latter in his old age but the former remained his biggest failing in life. However this is not a post about my grandfather.
As a husband and a father my dad has been extremely successful. I rate him as one of the finest "fathers" a child could have. I guess he did everything for his children which he would have wanted his father to do for him. He lived his childhood through didi and myself and ensured that mom was always well loved and well taken care of, basically things I guess he found amiss in his own childhood.
When I think back of my childhood there is a rush of memories, however if you were to ask me what is the earliest memory I have of my father it is of a serious and angry man. He was not someone who would take to holding and cuddling children and laughing and joking with them. However it did not mean that we did not have our share of fun with dad. He worked in a factory and initially he had the night shifts because of which I hardly saw dad in the earliest phase of my life. However things changed and dad changed his profile, even though it meant slower growth for him within the organization, so that he could spend more time with his family.
I will today just document some of the memories and key learnings which I associate with my dad:

• After coming back from office at 6:30 p.m. in the evening he used to sit down with us and we would have dinner over discussions of the day, school, stories, anecdotes. My dad has a rich gift of telling stories this enriched us on a day to day basis I wish I had inherited some of it. His ability to choose the right anecdote at the right moment never fails to amaze me.
• We were well loved but never pampered. There was this one day every month when dad used to take us out and we could have anything we wanted, whether it was chat, ice cream or dosa; these being the family favorites. But even in those days we never could ask for a second one. I wonder how we learnt discipline even though we were never taught explicitly. This in no way means that we had an oppressed childhood by any standards, we were just learning to be disciplined and live happily in our resources. We often went to the market for long walks but it did not necessarily mean that we had to buy something.
• My dad used to get an annual LTA which was a small chunk of money. As a family it was a joint decision which we took on how we wanted to spend the money. There was this one year when we wanted to use it for a vacation to a hill station. I remember how we as a family discussed and eventually decided to use that money to buy a cooler for the home instead so that we could all have a comfortable summers instead of a week of comfort at a hill station. We learnt to be extremely conscious about our resources and how to best utilize it for the comfort of the family.
• Since childhood we were involved in managing the home, we were asked for our opinions about running the house and they taken seriously and implemented. We as family used to take up projects from time to time, for example to cut our electricity bills we decided that anyone who switches off the light or fan will be paid 10p fine by the person who left it on by mistake.
• As a family we bonded together on weekends over carrom and chinese checkers. What fun it was. We never missed television which was strictly rationed to half an hour on week days and one movie on weekends.
• Dad always encouraged all of us to learn everything possible. He encouraged me to learn dancing, singing, painting, sewing, knitting, cooking, table laying, banking...everything. All this had to be learnt while maintaining my grades in school. Thanks dad I love you for letting me learn all this and more importantly building in me the value and importance of continuous learning.
• We were encouraged to be disciplined since childhood, it meant we had our assigned set of duties for household work along with studies, playtime and a designated half an our of television. No we did not feel oppressed, I feel it just made us more structured in our approach to life while building appreciation for various aspects of life itself.
• Whenever there was a maths problem dad you were always there for me even if it was 10 or 12 at night you never shied from helping me or helping didi with economics, commerce, accounting...whoosh you are a genius dad!
• Dad all this is fine but the biggest thing you gave me is my value system. Respect for elders, basic etiquette and manners, belief in God, value for money, value for education, respect for others accomplishments, attitude to learn from others, patience, learning to live within one's means, hard work and above all this the value for relationships, to hold and wait to meet and love someone and not drift through meaningless relationships which I see around myself often. The courage to believe in myself and stand by what is right even if it means that I stand alone. The ability to give myself completely to what I believe in. I can't document all dad...but I know you know what I mean.
• My ability to deal with disappointments and always push my limit to achieve the next plane is thanks to your setting the highest benchmarks for me dad.

Dad there are so many more and I can write a whole book on this...But all I want to say is that you are my biggest hero. I owe so much to you and like every child I will say " My daddy strongest".You have made me a more pragmatic and well balanced person, you have done a great job as a father, a husband a professional and above all as an individual. I love you for all this and more...

Random thoughts!

The trip had ended with mixed feelings , she thought as the local transport bus hurled down the narrow circling hilly roads. The bus was old with the paint pealing off at multiple places, the cloth seat covers were dirty and greasy, an old Hindi movie song played in the background. Her brand new husband sat next to her talking mundane stuff trying to distract her attention from her motion sickness while her entire being was focused on the rising ball of burning sensation at the bottom of her throat threatening her every moment.

Her honeymoon had left her confused; while sometimes she felt she had found her closest friend in Manoj at the others she felt they were total strangers and they belonged to two different worlds. But then that was expected given that they had married after meeting each other briefly for ten minutes. Even during the time between their wedding and engagement their schedules had been so tight that they had been able to talk to each other over phones very briefly; not that having Conservative parents helped.

Suddenly she was shaken out of her reverie as she realized that Manoj had been talking to her and was looking at her face expectantly. The little boy selling nariyal saved her by asking her to buy some pieces of the same.

I yearn!

For a little bit of winter sun, for the colourful flowers, for lush greenery around me. A burst of laughter, peaceful sleep, a long drive, one evening of music, a cup of warm tea on the balcony, a session of exercise, a lazy Saturday afternoon with maggi, chai and book. A long walk with a friend talking heart to heart, a loving hug, some dreams to live for, a small gift of love, a walk in the rain....one night in the open under the stars. Cool breeze on my face, a pat on my back something which is mine...only mine...

Happy anniversary

Dear Mom and dad,

I know most probably you will never read it however I did want to write it for you. You have today completed 39 years of being together with each other. Congratulations! I hope both of you have many more years like this together and whenever it is time to go I hope it is not too far away from each other.

I know you have lived a happy and fulfilling life with a complete family and both of you have worked hard everyday of your life to meet expectations from each side whether it was each of your parents and of course your children. I know you made sacrifices along the way everyday however you will never regret them because you achieved all your most important goals. I sometimes today wonder where you got so much of energy to do all that i am half your age today and get drained out so easily. How both of you used to walk in the sun to save some money, how everything was made at home to avoid spending it t outside.

You gave both didi and myself the best of education, mom chose not to work so that grandparents were well taken care of. For years you did not sleep full nights to be with grandparents when they were ill. In the last moments you were there for each one of them. However you ensured none of the burden shifted onto didi or myself so that our studies did not get impacted. You loved us without pampering us to keep our feet grounded. I wonder how you found the right balance between letting us enjoy and being strict? How you figured the balance as we kept growing? How u found the faith to let us fly on our own one day? I am sure the realization that your little birdies were ready to fly out of the nest must have hurt you...I am sure it must have worried you like hell, if we would survive our tests, but then i am proud of you for having the courage of letting go of us.

I don't know if i will ever be able to express all that i feel for you. Despite the number of disagreements i have with you, the number of times when I take you for granted and do not talk to you i love both of you a lot...thank you so much for being my parents...

Death is like that!

I often have gone through these questions several times inside me over the last few months since I lost my father in law about:

• Is God cruel for taking away the people dear to us?
• Even if someone has to go why does the person have to go through unbearable sickness and pain before it?
• Does God listen to prayers? Why do miracles not happen even after begging from Him? If everything has to happen as destined then why should one pray?
• What happens to an individual after he/she dies?

I have seen my husband and sister-in-law struggle with these questions every day of their lives for the last six months. To most of these questions i dont think there is a readymade rational answer atleast not that I can think of. SIL has gone to the extent of studying reams and reams on the net to find out about life after death but I guess her findings are inconclusive.

I think these questions are the cause for mental disquiet inside both of them currently; though I do understand that this all stems from their missing papa a lot. Since these questions are being asked by people I love so much somewhere I have been wondering about them. I am also asking myself as to why I did not ask these questions when I lost my near and dear ones. Is it because I did not love them enough? I believe it is also to do with how much acceptance one has of death as a part of life itself. I have had to see death at very close quarters when I was 5 and I lost my youngest uncle to a freak accident. I have a distinct memory of that day in my life. Death did not seem unreasonable or unfair or any of those things to me even on that day. May be I was too young to understand death itself. However I did know then that I will never see my uncle again and I was to say a "final good bye" to him...however I was fine.

Then I lost my nani...I was sad but not too affected by it yet again however my mom went into a depression for sometime. I also lost my mami who herself was quite young when she died and she left behind 3 kids who were too young the youngest being some 7-8 years. I guess when the family came back I was more in the mode of let us get life together. I think one death which affected me was my grandfather's since he was someone I looked upto in my life. However it came down to my wanting to emulate whatever he had done well in his life.

However these have been digressions. The important question is how should one help someone else arrive at answers to these questions because papa's suffering does not seem to be good enough answer.

I guess there are incidents in each of our lives at different points which make us question our entire value system and we have to answer all the questions that come up within us. These incidents change us in ways we would have never imagined..but I guess the key to move on is to learn to forgive and leave behind the anger and bitterness inside us....

Another note

Just to say I could not think up anything to write because of the noise inside me...