Understanding Daddy

My Dad is an unforgettable persona in my life and now after a year has passed since his demise, I thought it’s a good time to put down on paper all that I understood of him and from him.

He was man who liked to love people, but had his own rather strict yardsticks by which he screened and filtered people whom he allowed more closeness.

Though a self-proclaimed atheist, incidents in his life lead him to look for the eternal towards the end.

He was a philosophical man and there were many truisms which he anchored his decisions on. For example, when he was looking for ideas to expand his business, while studying the prospect of chicken farming, I remember, suddenly he said -’No I can’t do this, I can’t take the murder of lakhs of chicken on my soul’. This was during the times when he still was an atheist, and an astute businessman, yet his inner small voice spoke loud enough for all to hear. In fact he seemed to be a person who let his inner intuitive voice come in the forefront often.

His love for looking at things with clarity, be it the Indian economics, or psychology, or politics was a constant with him. He would lap up, analysis on these topics and had some favorite writers too. In these matters, it didn’t take long for him to clear the debris and grasp the truth in the issues.

His love for truth, made him an enemy to many, and he would often say –‘why do people not face the whole truth, why do they live with half-truths?’ He would pride himself in this matter saying-‘Main nanga aadmi hoon’, one who has nothing to hide. He trampled many an ego in his life and always would look behind this with a  ‘It will do the man good’ kind of thought. What I noticed is that the people he had found fault in, seem to still see him as a good person, for he was always courteous to all. I used to think that many a thing he said, might sit uncomfortably on another’s chest, but because it smelt true, people couldn’t reject him entirely.

He had a way of loving his friends with a warmth that the following story will show. Born in 1941, at the age of 17 he joined Jabalpur Engineering college. In the third year, during examinations, the boys had split the subjects amongst themselves, where one who knew the subject, would guide others. The subject that Dad had to teach was a very tough Thermal dynamics and the exam was on a Monday, saturday and sunday being days for learning. But boys being boys, on saturday , voted to see a femme fatale lady hockey player ‘ Naju Dangore’ in a hockey match and much to Dad’s anguish refused to study. So on Sunday morning, these boys were wondering what to do. Dad of course, knew this would happen and had explained to the boys that he had made a study of the question papers and of them he found five prototype questions, of which two were sure to come. So he went about teaching these five questions and answers. One of his friends, said, it was simply beyond him to understand the mathematical complexities involved, so he will just put the answers to memory. Monday morning, the boys were seated in the exam hall. As the question paper was given out, a cry was let out by one of the boys, my Dad got worried that perhaps his five select questions hadn’t come. When the question paper landed in Dad’s hands, he was shocked to find that not only had all five questions come, but the quantities had not been changed- they were the exact same questions! No wonder the boys had cried out in exhilaration. Now the person seated behind Dad was the same person who said he would mug up the answers and Dad knew that they would get into trouble if he attempted the same five questions. The examiner might think the boys had cheated. So Dad chose an essay type question and actually scored less than the guy behind him!  Needless to say the boys lifted Dad on their shoulders, out of the exam hall, in their enthralment. This incident shows Dad’s sensitivity and compassion to his friends.

When he was a young engineer, on his first job at site constructing electrical transmission towers, one worker complained sitting at thirty feet while Dad was directing him from below-‘Sir what do you know what I face here..’. Hearing this Dad decided to learn how to climb these tall structures, and would stop his jeep at isolated junctions and practice climbing until he could climb it like a monkey. This was the way he operated- there was a transparence about him.

One of Dad‘s favorite remarks was his constant quest to have a state of ‘zero contempt’. He used to say that a person can be filled with venom when he starts hating another. This mantra that he followed moment by moment, trying not to be bitter at disappointments and grateful for what life offered him, made his face shine with warm tranquility most of the time.

He would reiterate Krishna’s ’ Karmanaye Vadhikaraste Maphaleshu Kadachana’ – do your karma without seeking fruits for the labour, as his motto in life, doing what he thought was right, acting with clarity and purpose. He would towards the end keep saying ‘I want to leave with a zero balance’- owing no one anything.

He had a way to apply himself to the work or problem at hand with intense concentration and that mental sharpness helped him understand complex subjects and explain it with simplicity to others.

He would often tell us all that when you see the plight of the ordinary man on the street struggling for survival, one must always think-’ But for the grace of God, that could be me’. He had the honesty to say these things, not letting pride get the better of him.

During his last week of life, he recalled an incident which his college friend Ishwar and he were returning from a late night show and were attacked by couple of goons. Dad said with amazing honesty that he had stood completely frozen by fear and told his valiant friend, that he will hold the bikes while Ishwar battled the thieves. He remembered this incident and said he felt deeply ashamed of himself and it seems this was the only time he had fallen in his own eyes.

He was a man of very few almost no friends. He didn’t enjoy net-working-‘keeping in touch’. He preferred his isolation. In his death, many mourned his simplicity, his large-heartedness, his warmth and pleasant personality. He had his own way of loving the people he cared for and he tried to do the right thing by them. He hated hypocrisy and was a firm believer in not having any pretentions.

Many people in the world ranker after a position and an acceptance in society. This bothered him also, in his youth, but as he got older he identified this as a weakness. Towards the end, he seem to relish the clarity that life had offered him- this clarity being his prized possession above all material possessions. His personal belongings could fit in one suitcase- that was how less he was interested in money and its trappings. His life-long quest was the search for the beauty and the truth of all things. His was a soul that seeked no external comforts, except those of the mind.

His struggle in life was to live a life of Integrity in an increasingly corrupt world. He would often talk about movies and how they inspired him. About the movie “Gandhi” he would say only an Englishman could portray Gandhji’s  greatest quality of integrity in such a nice manner. Through our childhood and in adult life, our home would be full of comics and movies. His learning was more from the visual media rather than the written word. He was no scholar and the few truths he had grasped were his constant guide and were also enough for him.

As a daughter, I did fall out with him on several occasions, specially post my mother’s death for I felt he could have taken better care of her. It was also during this time that some of his injustices to me during my growing years seem to cloud my vision of him. If I were to put aside all the effects that those incidents had on my life and personality and try to see him in the human being he was endeavoring to become, I would have say to he had put up a magnificent effort at trying to apply to life, all that he knew as true. He was a man who walked the talk and this was his greatest quality. One doesn’t need an encyclopaedic knowledge to steer the mind to the divine and his life was a proof that even with his limited understanding of the esoteric philosophies, he had lead a noble and useful life.

His manner of death was the most remarkable part of his life as he had managed to predict its coming accurately. He also collected all his brothers and sister, children and grandchildren around him, saying his goodbyes and giving his blessings to all, not leaving anyone with that ‘cheated feeling’. He kept saying that this was the greatest blessing he had received – the firm knowledge that he was going and the joy of being able to see all his loved ones before his death. When he left, there was a palpable glow around the room, as if a great person had gone.

He did his best and it was damn good.