First class

This early morning that is still night,  I make myself a strong cup of tea, flavoured with mint leaves and lemongrass. It has been raining and the sound woke me up at 3 a.m. The jetlag hits harder when it mixes with a grief disoriented by distance. I distract myself with searching for recipes for parsi style Poro (omelette), something I’ve been hankering to eat after two weeks of insipid breakfasts. But the steady rain and the smell of the lemongrass force me to remember that my dad has been gone for two weeks now, a fact that I pasted a smile over while celebrating a family wedding. He died quietly, much as he lived his private life. I had spent a few days with him, trying to persuade him to live a little longer. But this time, the iron will to make the best of things was gone. He was tired and irritated to be still living when all those he loved best had left him. He kept saying he wanted to go. Still, the child in my mind couldn’t bear to let him slip away. Because to lose him would be to cut the last thread to my past life. He was home, even after thirty years of making my own home in another city. He was family, even though I have made my own family. These are facts that I had avoided thinking about. But life keeps grinding along. I had to leave him in the hospital and fly half a world away for a happy family occasion. I think we said our goodbyes. I know I told him that I loved him, and hugged him close, two things I hadn’t done in a few years. Mea culpa, mea culpa. He waited for my brother, rallied a little, promised to eat a little scrambled egg and died peacefully in the early hours of the morning, as I was landing in the US.

To the end, he was independent, cheerful and alert. He ran his household, looked after the helper who was supposed to look after him, and did his best to live his life in an increasingly alien world. To the world, he showed his best and bravest face for ninety years. He was a loyal and loving husband, son and brother, the best father he knew how to be, a fierce and loving friend, and to many, he was a rock of gentle support. He was loved because he was an example of how to love. My dad always showed up. In times of sorrow and happiness, he made sure he was there for family and friends. In earlier years, he was the first one to arrive, offering concrete help and support. More recently, when younger friends had disagreements with their own parents or their children, he would staunchly take up for them and if needed, put in a word or two with the injured parties. When his contemporaries took ill, he would fret and worry that he could no longer be of any use in a practical way. His ninety years sat lightly on him. Just recently, he called me to discuss a menu for a lunch party he was hosting. He was worried that the old man who was accompanying his friends might not be able to chew the food. It turned out that the old man in question was six years younger to my dad.

We remember his catch phrase: Samajyu né? Do you understand? This is how all his stories, and he had a treasure lode of stories stored in a sharp memory, began and ended. We used to tease him about it, sometimes the constant usage irritated us, but it was a part of my dad’s personality. He loved being teased by his wife, his children and his friends. Under the moustache, his mouth would twitch and his eyes would gleam to know how precious he was to us all. No one teases a man who is not loved.

The stories! About his earliest childhood in Bombay, losing his own father and relocating to Baroda where he was brought up by his beloved maternal uncle. About his summers spent in Secunderabad with cousins. Meeting the love of his life at age fourteen, a love that lasted for fifty five years, overcoming a temporary separation when my mother left him in charge of their two young sons to pursue her dreams in the US, then the loss of a child, and finally her illness and death. The adventures of moving with his family to South India, all the hilarious escapades of those halcyon years. The stories of his youth, spent with friends and family in a little university town, all these stories lovingly told and retold until they were polished with his love and shone brilliantly in all our memories.

On the flight home, I watched The Sound of Music while everyone slept. As soon as the abbess began to sing of climbing every mountain, the tears came. My dad would have said, Wah ji wah, another catch phrase of his to applaud the music he loved all his life. Anytime a singer moved his very sensitive soul, he would say wah ji wah to himself and nod his head. Kishore Kumar’s Aanewala Pal was one such song, Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma another. He loved all music, especially My Fair Lady and the other musicals of that era. Every time he would visit us in the last several years, I would search for My Fair Lady on all the television channels so that he could laugh delightedly at Eliza’s antics and Higgins’ humour. But I was never able to find it. Never mind, he would say, I’ll watch it the next time I’m in Bombay. Then he would tell me the entire story of the movie in his own inimitable way (Samajyu né?) as if I had never seen it myself…

He was a true gourmand. He was ready to try anything, as long as it wasn’t moving on his plate. The insecurities of a childhood without his father’s presence might have been a factor in his obsession with canned food. As long as there were a dozen cans in his pantry, Dad felt ready and prepared to deal with any calamity. My gloomy predictions of Death by botulism were proved wrong after all. His love for eggs is legendary. In his forties, he was told by his cardiologist to stop eating eggs. This was a body blow to Dad. Twenty years later, the same cardiologist informed him that eggs were no longer considered a danger to heart health. Dad hadn’t stopped making up for the lost twenty years until the day he died. He loved Bombay duck and white pomfret and desi ghee mithai, all of which were hard to find in Madras. It would irritate my mother to hear him extol the fish markets (and fisherwomen) of Bombay, and any mention of the superiority of the piscine produce of his childhood would lead to raised voices and arguments, with him capitulating in the end as always, and cajoling her into smiles and laughter. I sent him mohanthal every year at Diwali time, or if he was staying with us, he would savour a piece every morning with a cup of hot milk.  A simple man of simple pleasures.

But what he loved most in his life, other than my mother, were his friends. He looked forward to his annual visits to Baroda, where he was made much of and indulged by his childhood buddies. He loved his community in Madras, the friends who took him out for ice cream or to the clubs every now and again, the evenings spent at the Royapuram Parsi club, or at the little Dar e Mehr (fire temple). He had friends in Secunderabad, Bombay, Coonoor and Cochin. Friends in the US and Canada and in Sri Lanka. The wonderful thing is that my dad kept up all these relationships. He was not fazed by the passing of time or the distance. His conviction that his friends would always welcome him, even after years of separation, held true over and over again. I think the loss of his best friend last year was too much for this old man to bear. Though he hardly ever said a word about my dead brother or even Mum, his friend’s name was constantly on his lips. He made sure, at the end, that he wasn’t around for Uncle’s first death anniversary.

My dad. Made up of equal parts Mum, us, friends, family, music and food. He lived well, loved hard, died peacefully. A man I thought was close to perfection as a child, and too soon got to see that he was just a man after all. He had his faults, though most were endearing idiosyncrasies. He wasn’t perfect but he was first class. Samajyu né?