Fatherhood…!

No Sunday in my life till yesterday was in so pure Black and White…! Only two primary human emotions of absolute anguish and gross gratification prevailed the Sunday. Such a strange and profound mixture of emotions that sets you on a roller-coaster would either build a much strengthened persona out of your being or has all the potential to shatter you apart and feel more aloof than attached. I am counting on my endurance and hoping for the prior possibility with crossed fingers as I just hate to get abandoned by the powerful flow of negative emotions. In fact I hate the negative energy so much that I am very much positive about getting it released in the ether of outer space beyond the gravity…!

Anyway, I will just report the two incidences responsible to take me on this roller-coaster and I won’t get into detailed analysis of either as there is a serious threat of me being getting so engrossed in those overwhelming sentiments once again that I might lose the track of everything around.

The Sunday started normally with all the morning chores until I received a call from my best friend asking me to come to the hospital that I have never heard of. The urgency and shake in his voice warned me of the imminent and the detailed knowledge about his father’s situation only deepened the concern. Although I tried to reach the unfamiliar hospital with the best possible human effort, it was late and my friend has lost his father already. A chilled gust went through my spine as I headed to see his father and however deaths on the hospital bed I have seen till date; I felt like remorse this one with all the vigor for three reasons –

1. ‘Appa’ was my, probably only living and reachable Idol and I used to paint my own developed personality by borrowing shades of his well-read, all-composed and almost yogic persona.

2. I never had the real interaction at length with him that I always imagined since I first met him.

3. The falsifying concept of ‘Karma’ that doesn’t seem fair anymore with the undesirable, unexplainable and very grievous conclusion of such an intellectual noble and selfless being.

All I can do now is wish and thrive to inherit values from his disposition like serenity and pursuance.

In the White side of the Sunday afternoon, it was my daughter’s First Stage performance of her passion for now – Bharatanatyam – that she really seems to enjoy and endure. Being a kind of unorthodox middle-class father, as my wife likes to put it, I never cared about my daughter’s academic reports except for making fun of the marks, remarks, evaluations and handwriting's of the teachers authoring those, which both of us enjoy thoroughly with her furious mother overlooking. As I always preach Mark Twain’s philosophy of not allowing the schooling to interfere with learning, I can pity or have mercy at the most for the parents running around their pupils irritating them for the numbers in Report Cards. I prefer to celebrate my daughter’s otherwise achievements like her expertise with PowerPoint presentations or even FB, creativity put in preparing Greeting Cards or even any mundane school project, practicing badminton for a reverse shot, mastering riding a bicycle, having a great eye behind the camera… the list would eat-up all the space in the post.

Her recent initiative of Bharatanatyam was just a curiosity for me as I used to see her hurrying to attend that class with a fervor and enthusiasm. I never imagined that she will be performing on the stage so soon with her Tai and other dance-mates and will enthrall, awe and gratify the father in me…! It was an experience and I never felt like a typical father before and when the senses returned the pain of the morning also returned with exhilarating force as at this moment I was enlightened with the epiphany of 'fatherhood'…!

Stay tuned and maintain the B-A-L-A-N-C-E…!