A tribute to my father on this father's day

Today is Father’s day.

My father passed away 40 years ago. He was operated for cancer but when there was a relapse after three years he couldn’t survive that.

Your father influences you in your life to a very great extent, sometimes visible, sometimes not. In my early childhood years, the influence was possibly not much visible. I lived during those days in a joint family with grandfather, his brother, three grandmothers (My grandfather married thrice), my father and five uncles and 17 aunts (all my father’s cousins). Apart from that, my grandfather’s brother and his family also lived in the same house. In such a scenario, who influences who is going to be mostly invisible, I suppose.

My father was the eldest in his generation and had had no formal school education. All uncles had gone to school aunties had a home-tutor, Maloo teacher. I, being the elder one of my generation, was sort of being pampered by aunts and Maloo teacher.

Grandfather would wake me up early morning – around 4.30, I think – and we will go to the family pond and have bath and do all the morning rituals. This includes reciting various mantras like gayatri, and reciting Aanobhadram from Rigveda etc. My father and uncles would do these rituals about half an hour later. Thus most of the early morning hours I was under the care of my grandfather (after the rituals and breakfast, he would recite me Rigveda for me to repeat it)and once free I would run to aunts and teacher. Also I used to spend time playing with the children of our servants, mostly in the afternoons. In the morning, father would have already gone on to the paddy fields and to the estate to supervise the work there. So, there was not much direct interaction I had with my father except that sometimes he would bring some fruits etc. call me out and give me in the evenings when he returned from the fields.

My eldest uncle kept arguing with my grandfather and finally I got the nod to go to school at the age of 8 and I joined the school directly in class 4.

Later after grandfather passed away and I had started going to school, I had started interacting with my father more and more. I would finish of my rituals and then would go to the fields with him and spend time there till it is time to go to the school.

As I was on the brink of entering my teens, there was a partition in our joint family and the three grandmothers with their children and grandchildren started staying separately. That was when the enormity of work my father was putting in everyday truly struck me. Early morning he would walk to a temple about 3 km away to do puja there and come back and go to the fields. By then the work in the fields would have started and he would join in and actually do the physical work in the fields. I would join in the mornings till it was time to go to school, and also on Saturdays and Sundays. I had enjoyed doing this.

In the evening he would go to the same temple for doing the evening puja and will come back by night. Later, probably the family expenses had prompted him to start puja in another temple too.

Whenever there was a big function with feast anywhere, my grandfather’s brother along with my father and a few others would take the contract for preparing and serving the food. This would bring good income and there would be at least one or two occasions every month.  

One such day comes to my mind. We had gone to a big function to a family in the adjoining village. I was also part of the group to assist my father. But as we reached there, I saw that a great classical music concert was going on there, and I sat there among the audience and enjoyed the concert for about three hours. So we lost one person’s earning on that day and I felt very bad about it.

My father lightly admonished me by saying, ‘I don’t say you should not enjoy music or any other program at a function. But you should realize that we are going through tough times and any small earning is a contribution to the cause.’ Small sacrifices sometimes can make a great difference.  

The long years of hard work was slowly eroding his health.

I had started working in Mumbai when the calamity struck. My father was diagnosed with cancer and I brought him over to Mumbai for surgery. With help from my uncle (my mother’s brother who was in Mumbai) and couple of his friends, I could get the surgery done in Tata Hospital in time.

At that time, my father sort of knew that he didn’t have much time to live.

When after three years cancer struck again, another surgery was ruled out. He didn’t survive this relapse.

On this father’s day, I salute him and thank him for the inspiration he had given me with his perseverance and hard work….