It seems like yesterday that dad replied to my very first letter to him...I started my letter with a simple Dear Dad...!! It was a term that I myself was not familiar with!! Those days, the influence of the West was more through books and magazines, not movies or travel. It was hence strange to start with a set of alien words to me as we, my sisters and I usually referred to my father as "Anna", or elder brother in Kannada.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I had decided that I would be an obedient son and write at least two, if not three letters a week. Dad & mom suffered from lack of communication from both my sisters when they graduated from school to college and moved to Mysore and Kolkata. I would watch them silently suffer from the lack of communication. And so, deep in my mind, I was firm that I would not like them to go through a similar pain. I decided to fault on excessive communication instead.
It was quite an interesting day when I entered the college to get admitted, all on my own. Parents of my fathers generation, I guess, were far more adventurous and willing to take chances, than parents of today. Why else would my dad leave me on my own to join the college at Tiruchirapalli, 1,600 KM's away from my cozy home at Durgapur? Not knowing the language was another hurdle that I had to cross. It was a nightmare during broad daylight as, after getting down at the station, I had to switch buses at the Main Guard Gate (City Center) to reach college. After meeting the Principal and later the Registrar, I was asked to join by filling a set of myriad forms and pay up the fees. To my utter disbelief, when I submitted all the relevant forms and triumphantly handed over all the money I had, the cashier nonchalantly said that it was short by Rs. 40 from the bare minimum of Rs. 960, which included caution deposit and the annual fees. My heart just sank at the prospect of being denied a seat in the most prestigious college amongst the REC's for want of Rs. 40. Although at my wits end, I gathered enough courage to ask the cashier for a hand loan of Rs. 40 with a promise that I would repay as soon as my dad sent a money order. My logic was innocent and simple: I would any way be a college student and the cashier could always trace me from the college roll number assigned against my name in the register. Well, to my bad luck he politely refused saying that I would have to try my luck elsewhere at borrowing money. The only positive thing was his promise to hold the seat and the roll number until I returned with the balance.
I sat at the footsteps of the imposing Admin. Building for a good 30 minutes wondering 'what next' and faintly recollected my father speaking about a colleague of his at Durgapur getting transferred to BHEL Tiruchirapalli. BHEL's Boiler Division, manufacturing seamless stainless steel tubes was situated just 4 KM's from my college, but towards the city. I decided to give it a try and locate him at the plant. I was stopped at the main gate being still a minor at 16. The Chief Security Officer was a big help as he quickly located the name and telephone number of my uncle (any colleague or acquaintance of my dad was always referred as an uncle!). With bad luck, now firmly entrenched on my back, the CSO informed that my uncle was away on an official tour to New Delhi. Having come this far, the last thing I wanted was to give up! Quite often I had heard my dad talk about his own PA a number of times and decided that my uncle, who was in a fairly senior position, should be having one likewise. I made another request to the CSO asking that he allow me to talk to his PA, all the while praying that he be available at his desk and not disappear for lunch. The CSO must have wondered who this rudderless and wandering teenager was and who he would con next. He however masked his emotion pretty well and with a somber expression on his face readily obliged. He must have been gleefully thinking that this call too, would fetch no results, like in the past. This time, aha! I was lucky and Bingo! I was talking to my uncle's PA. The excitement and relief at my new found victory was so strong that what came out of my mouth was a confused string of words that sounded like gibberish and made no meaning to the PA. He was however patient and took control of the call by asking some basic and simple questions. Having satisfied himself with my identity, he asked me to pass on the phone to the CSO and left instructions that I be given Rs. 100, on a returnable basis of course! Triumphantly, I walked back to the campus and the rest is history.
This was the story of my first letter to my dad - not that I wanted to move him to tears, but tell him that I was able to find a way out of a situation. Ten days later I received an MO from my dad for Rs. 250 with a short congratulations note on having successfully crossed life's first hurdle. My predicament coupled with the cultural and language shock must have shook him too, as my mom summed up years later that she had seen tears in his eyes when he read my first letter.
My dad's command over English was pretty well known amongst his friends and colleagues and after he died while still serving at the steel plant, I heard from his PA that his dictations were absolutely immaculate; perhaps the best amongst the various people he had worked with. There would be no shorthand and no draft...it would be a direct dictation with his steno-typist hammering the keys of the typewriter and churn out letters that required no correction. Compare this to the ease with which we make corrections while typing on the computer keyboard these days! Have clarity in your thought process, my dad would repeatedly say, with a single minded determination to do it right the first time!
It was an absolute pleasure reading his letters. His lucid style of writing and the easy flow of words, the choice and diction seemed as if he had planned long hours before penning those letters. I tried imitating his style and the best I could achieve was to copy his hand writing and not his style in writing. I had carefully preserved all his letters during my 5 year stint at the college, but lost the entire bunch when we moved from the old house to the new one at Durgapur. This has been singularly the biggest loss in my life so far.
I started my career with Graphite India in Bangalore, moved to Batliboi in Mumbai and finally settled at Kolkata for 10 years. While I lost all his letters written to me during my college days, those written during my early working life are safely preserved to this day and with technology advancement, I have even scanned these and stored them in the hard disc of my computer. To this day they are a big source of inspiration.
I consider letter writing as the best form of communication, as one gets to understand each other so well. Indeed, seven years of our letter writing brought us very close as we learnt to express our feelings and thoughts; something that seldom happens between a father and son. This made us respect each other that much more! I understood him first as a person and then more as a friend than a father.
As a kid, the earliest that I remember of him was the time he would teach me arithmetic and algebra in particular. It all seemed so easy when he would sit down with me, trying to help me understand, that forming an equation and solving for particular conditions was more a test of English than just mathematics. While it was cool with him by my side, on my own I would get that sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach when I couldn't make sense of the English, let alone complex quadratic equations. Never known to be harsh to us kids, he would loose his patience when he found that I could not find solutions to simple equations and a whack on the back of the head would be his fitting finale, summarily dismissing me as a 'good for nothing idiot'.
I used to be a quiet, insecure and immensely shy person as a kid. Being a no. 3 can have its own challenges when the two above are talkative girls, one very smart and intelligent and the other having the gift of the gab. If asked a question by any of the visitors to our house...and this is quite common in townships when friends of parents drop in to spend some time in the evenings, I would either remain mum or look the other way. It kind off conveyed the impression that either I did not care or was an absolute dumbo...my dad used to get upset at this behavior. He did question me a few times but then just gave up saying some kids are good at talking and some good at writing...but I was good at none!! I would become a recluse was his final verdict, if I did not make the right efforts!
He would review our performance by going through the question paper after each examination and ask questions about our answers. During one such review I got a whack for a true/false set of question. Our teacher had cleverly used English to confuse the students...lucky for me I had got it right, but while reading the question my dad got it wrong! I mustered enough courage to point this out to my dad but got a second whack on the back of my head...he said "this is for taking back the earlier whack!" That was the first time I realized, what's laughter with tears in the eyes!!
My eldest sister had picked up his reading habit and I in turn used to copy my sister...I would try and read what she read. I tried my hand at reading Hindi novels too...those written by Gulshan Nanda...some of his stories were later made into Hindi movies as well, Kati Patang, a yesteryear hit released in 1970, is an example. With no TV and computers around those days, books and comics were a favorite pass time. Tarzan, Mandrake the magician and MAD were my favorites. Enid Blyton and Capt W E Jones were my favorites authors during childhood and later Agatha Christie, Nick Carter, Earl Stanley Gardner, Alfred Hitchcock to name a few...Radio Ceylon was another attraction those days and the Wednesday 8 PM slot lasting for an hour was the most widely heard radio program called "Binaca Geet Mala and the RJ was the inimitable Ameen Sayani. His voice had a magical lilt and his talk show interspersed with the weekly hits or chartbusters was a treat to hear. The beauty of this show was, if a song appeared in this show for 18 consecutive weeks, it was given a grand sign-off as a sartaj geet with a signature tune played on the trumpet. Another typically Radio Ceylon thing was renowned K L Saigal's a song played as the last one of the 30 minute "Bhule Bisre Geet" every morning and "Loma Time" being announced precisely at 8 AM. Loma used to be a brand of facial moisturizer, available in the 60's and 70's...I don't see it on the shelves of the malls these days.
My reading habit continued during my college days, RE Trichy had a very well stocked library and through a close friend and batch-mate got introduced to A J Cronin, Somerset Maugham, Daphne Du Maurier, Taylor Caldwell, Mario Puzo, Ayn Rand, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lawrence Sanders, Isaac Asimov, Alister MacLean, Fredrick Forsyth, Irving Stone etc. My father suggested that I read Nevil Shute's books. In a couple of his books the main characters were engineers and this made a special appeal in my mind. His novel 'Trustee from the Toolroom' and 'No Highway' are by far the best I have read so far.
All the same, I felt my dad was the greatest when it came to writing. I remember reading his reply to my sister's yet-to-be-father-in-law to the subtle question on the height difference between my sister and her would-be husband: 'So what if she is short, I'm sure she will reach great heights!' He had carefully selected a birthday card for my eldest sister - his favorite child and it read: 'Whenever I build Castles in the Air, there will always be room for you.' He went through considerable pain when my sister was adamant on pursuing BA in History when he was more than willing to put her through a medical college. I recollect the heated arguments that each would put forth at the dining table every night and with neither relenting, both failed ultimately to achieve their objective. It was a historical blunder trying to impose his academic pursuits on his rebellious daughter. With this experience fresh in his mind, he completely relented to the wishes of my 2nd sister who not only got what combination of subjects she wanted, but also the city of her choice - Kolkata. when it was my turn, he was quite thrilled when I told him that I would follow his footsteps and get into the engineering field. Being No. 3 had its advantages too...learn from the others mistakes!!
My dad was not in favor of the private sector; he had a socialistic bent of mind and was an admirer of Indira Gandhi and the politics surrounding nationalization of the industry, banks and insurance companies. He firmly believed that only the Govt. had the money muscle to invest on developments and that the private sector was just bent upon hoarding and amassing personal wealth. It used to be interesting to sit with his friends in the evening hours after their return from the plant listening to them talk of the Govt. Politics, Development, Education, Movies and Books. There was never a dull moment or boredom. My dad was also a great admirer of Lal Bahadur Shastri and his slogan "Jai Javan Jai Kissan" created during the 22-day war with Pakistan in 1965 had caught his fancy. During the food crisis, while leading the country as the 2nd Prime Minister of India, to encourage people to evenly distribute food, he urged his countrymen: If one person gives up one meal in a day, some other person gets his only meal of the day. My dad, a true patriot, decided for all of us that we should forgo dinner at least one day every week, on a Saturday and so it was...!! Apart from emphasizing a green revolution, Lal Bahadur was also instrumental in kick starting the white revolution. Based on the success of AMUL in Khaira district of Gujarat, he was instrumental in the formation of NDDB - the National Dairy Development Board.
Just recently, as I went through the motions of performing his annual ceremony, these bits of random thoughts kept streaming in my mind. More a friend than a father, he would ask a few pointed questions during my weekly visits home to Durgapur from Kolkata, and patiently listen to whatever anecdotes or stories that I told him from the events in the past week at office. Reflecting on this part of my life, I feel that it is important for us to have a mentor who will just give a patient ear, listen to us when we pour our hearts out and not use it for any manipulative purpose. How I wish I could write to him again the same three letters that I used to write every week and eagerly await to receive his reply; as always starting with: My dear son.......
Somewhere in the back of my mind I had decided that I would be an obedient son and write at least two, if not three letters a week. Dad & mom suffered from lack of communication from both my sisters when they graduated from school to college and moved to Mysore and Kolkata. I would watch them silently suffer from the lack of communication. And so, deep in my mind, I was firm that I would not like them to go through a similar pain. I decided to fault on excessive communication instead.
It was quite an interesting day when I entered the college to get admitted, all on my own. Parents of my fathers generation, I guess, were far more adventurous and willing to take chances, than parents of today. Why else would my dad leave me on my own to join the college at Tiruchirapalli, 1,600 KM's away from my cozy home at Durgapur? Not knowing the language was another hurdle that I had to cross. It was a nightmare during broad daylight as, after getting down at the station, I had to switch buses at the Main Guard Gate (City Center) to reach college. After meeting the Principal and later the Registrar, I was asked to join by filling a set of myriad forms and pay up the fees. To my utter disbelief, when I submitted all the relevant forms and triumphantly handed over all the money I had, the cashier nonchalantly said that it was short by Rs. 40 from the bare minimum of Rs. 960, which included caution deposit and the annual fees. My heart just sank at the prospect of being denied a seat in the most prestigious college amongst the REC's for want of Rs. 40. Although at my wits end, I gathered enough courage to ask the cashier for a hand loan of Rs. 40 with a promise that I would repay as soon as my dad sent a money order. My logic was innocent and simple: I would any way be a college student and the cashier could always trace me from the college roll number assigned against my name in the register. Well, to my bad luck he politely refused saying that I would have to try my luck elsewhere at borrowing money. The only positive thing was his promise to hold the seat and the roll number until I returned with the balance.
I sat at the footsteps of the imposing Admin. Building for a good 30 minutes wondering 'what next' and faintly recollected my father speaking about a colleague of his at Durgapur getting transferred to BHEL Tiruchirapalli. BHEL's Boiler Division, manufacturing seamless stainless steel tubes was situated just 4 KM's from my college, but towards the city. I decided to give it a try and locate him at the plant. I was stopped at the main gate being still a minor at 16. The Chief Security Officer was a big help as he quickly located the name and telephone number of my uncle (any colleague or acquaintance of my dad was always referred as an uncle!). With bad luck, now firmly entrenched on my back, the CSO informed that my uncle was away on an official tour to New Delhi. Having come this far, the last thing I wanted was to give up! Quite often I had heard my dad talk about his own PA a number of times and decided that my uncle, who was in a fairly senior position, should be having one likewise. I made another request to the CSO asking that he allow me to talk to his PA, all the while praying that he be available at his desk and not disappear for lunch. The CSO must have wondered who this rudderless and wandering teenager was and who he would con next. He however masked his emotion pretty well and with a somber expression on his face readily obliged. He must have been gleefully thinking that this call too, would fetch no results, like in the past. This time, aha! I was lucky and Bingo! I was talking to my uncle's PA. The excitement and relief at my new found victory was so strong that what came out of my mouth was a confused string of words that sounded like gibberish and made no meaning to the PA. He was however patient and took control of the call by asking some basic and simple questions. Having satisfied himself with my identity, he asked me to pass on the phone to the CSO and left instructions that I be given Rs. 100, on a returnable basis of course! Triumphantly, I walked back to the campus and the rest is history.
This was the story of my first letter to my dad - not that I wanted to move him to tears, but tell him that I was able to find a way out of a situation. Ten days later I received an MO from my dad for Rs. 250 with a short congratulations note on having successfully crossed life's first hurdle. My predicament coupled with the cultural and language shock must have shook him too, as my mom summed up years later that she had seen tears in his eyes when he read my first letter.
My dad's command over English was pretty well known amongst his friends and colleagues and after he died while still serving at the steel plant, I heard from his PA that his dictations were absolutely immaculate; perhaps the best amongst the various people he had worked with. There would be no shorthand and no draft...it would be a direct dictation with his steno-typist hammering the keys of the typewriter and churn out letters that required no correction. Compare this to the ease with which we make corrections while typing on the computer keyboard these days! Have clarity in your thought process, my dad would repeatedly say, with a single minded determination to do it right the first time!
It was an absolute pleasure reading his letters. His lucid style of writing and the easy flow of words, the choice and diction seemed as if he had planned long hours before penning those letters. I tried imitating his style and the best I could achieve was to copy his hand writing and not his style in writing. I had carefully preserved all his letters during my 5 year stint at the college, but lost the entire bunch when we moved from the old house to the new one at Durgapur. This has been singularly the biggest loss in my life so far.
I started my career with Graphite India in Bangalore, moved to Batliboi in Mumbai and finally settled at Kolkata for 10 years. While I lost all his letters written to me during my college days, those written during my early working life are safely preserved to this day and with technology advancement, I have even scanned these and stored them in the hard disc of my computer. To this day they are a big source of inspiration.
I consider letter writing as the best form of communication, as one gets to understand each other so well. Indeed, seven years of our letter writing brought us very close as we learnt to express our feelings and thoughts; something that seldom happens between a father and son. This made us respect each other that much more! I understood him first as a person and then more as a friend than a father.
As a kid, the earliest that I remember of him was the time he would teach me arithmetic and algebra in particular. It all seemed so easy when he would sit down with me, trying to help me understand, that forming an equation and solving for particular conditions was more a test of English than just mathematics. While it was cool with him by my side, on my own I would get that sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach when I couldn't make sense of the English, let alone complex quadratic equations. Never known to be harsh to us kids, he would loose his patience when he found that I could not find solutions to simple equations and a whack on the back of the head would be his fitting finale, summarily dismissing me as a 'good for nothing idiot'.
I used to be a quiet, insecure and immensely shy person as a kid. Being a no. 3 can have its own challenges when the two above are talkative girls, one very smart and intelligent and the other having the gift of the gab. If asked a question by any of the visitors to our house...and this is quite common in townships when friends of parents drop in to spend some time in the evenings, I would either remain mum or look the other way. It kind off conveyed the impression that either I did not care or was an absolute dumbo...my dad used to get upset at this behavior. He did question me a few times but then just gave up saying some kids are good at talking and some good at writing...but I was good at none!! I would become a recluse was his final verdict, if I did not make the right efforts!
He would review our performance by going through the question paper after each examination and ask questions about our answers. During one such review I got a whack for a true/false set of question. Our teacher had cleverly used English to confuse the students...lucky for me I had got it right, but while reading the question my dad got it wrong! I mustered enough courage to point this out to my dad but got a second whack on the back of my head...he said "this is for taking back the earlier whack!" That was the first time I realized, what's laughter with tears in the eyes!!
My eldest sister had picked up his reading habit and I in turn used to copy my sister...I would try and read what she read. I tried my hand at reading Hindi novels too...those written by Gulshan Nanda...some of his stories were later made into Hindi movies as well, Kati Patang, a yesteryear hit released in 1970, is an example. With no TV and computers around those days, books and comics were a favorite pass time. Tarzan, Mandrake the magician and MAD were my favorites. Enid Blyton and Capt W E Jones were my favorites authors during childhood and later Agatha Christie, Nick Carter, Earl Stanley Gardner, Alfred Hitchcock to name a few...Radio Ceylon was another attraction those days and the Wednesday 8 PM slot lasting for an hour was the most widely heard radio program called "Binaca Geet Mala and the RJ was the inimitable Ameen Sayani. His voice had a magical lilt and his talk show interspersed with the weekly hits or chartbusters was a treat to hear. The beauty of this show was, if a song appeared in this show for 18 consecutive weeks, it was given a grand sign-off as a sartaj geet with a signature tune played on the trumpet. Another typically Radio Ceylon thing was renowned K L Saigal's a song played as the last one of the 30 minute "Bhule Bisre Geet" every morning and "Loma Time" being announced precisely at 8 AM. Loma used to be a brand of facial moisturizer, available in the 60's and 70's...I don't see it on the shelves of the malls these days.
My reading habit continued during my college days, RE Trichy had a very well stocked library and through a close friend and batch-mate got introduced to A J Cronin, Somerset Maugham, Daphne Du Maurier, Taylor Caldwell, Mario Puzo, Ayn Rand, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Lawrence Sanders, Isaac Asimov, Alister MacLean, Fredrick Forsyth, Irving Stone etc. My father suggested that I read Nevil Shute's books. In a couple of his books the main characters were engineers and this made a special appeal in my mind. His novel 'Trustee from the Toolroom' and 'No Highway' are by far the best I have read so far.
All the same, I felt my dad was the greatest when it came to writing. I remember reading his reply to my sister's yet-to-be-father-in-law to the subtle question on the height difference between my sister and her would-be husband: 'So what if she is short, I'm sure she will reach great heights!' He had carefully selected a birthday card for my eldest sister - his favorite child and it read: 'Whenever I build Castles in the Air, there will always be room for you.' He went through considerable pain when my sister was adamant on pursuing BA in History when he was more than willing to put her through a medical college. I recollect the heated arguments that each would put forth at the dining table every night and with neither relenting, both failed ultimately to achieve their objective. It was a historical blunder trying to impose his academic pursuits on his rebellious daughter. With this experience fresh in his mind, he completely relented to the wishes of my 2nd sister who not only got what combination of subjects she wanted, but also the city of her choice - Kolkata. when it was my turn, he was quite thrilled when I told him that I would follow his footsteps and get into the engineering field. Being No. 3 had its advantages too...learn from the others mistakes!!
My dad was not in favor of the private sector; he had a socialistic bent of mind and was an admirer of Indira Gandhi and the politics surrounding nationalization of the industry, banks and insurance companies. He firmly believed that only the Govt. had the money muscle to invest on developments and that the private sector was just bent upon hoarding and amassing personal wealth. It used to be interesting to sit with his friends in the evening hours after their return from the plant listening to them talk of the Govt. Politics, Development, Education, Movies and Books. There was never a dull moment or boredom. My dad was also a great admirer of Lal Bahadur Shastri and his slogan "Jai Javan Jai Kissan" created during the 22-day war with Pakistan in 1965 had caught his fancy. During the food crisis, while leading the country as the 2nd Prime Minister of India, to encourage people to evenly distribute food, he urged his countrymen: If one person gives up one meal in a day, some other person gets his only meal of the day. My dad, a true patriot, decided for all of us that we should forgo dinner at least one day every week, on a Saturday and so it was...!! Apart from emphasizing a green revolution, Lal Bahadur was also instrumental in kick starting the white revolution. Based on the success of AMUL in Khaira district of Gujarat, he was instrumental in the formation of NDDB - the National Dairy Development Board.
Just recently, as I went through the motions of performing his annual ceremony, these bits of random thoughts kept streaming in my mind. More a friend than a father, he would ask a few pointed questions during my weekly visits home to Durgapur from Kolkata, and patiently listen to whatever anecdotes or stories that I told him from the events in the past week at office. Reflecting on this part of my life, I feel that it is important for us to have a mentor who will just give a patient ear, listen to us when we pour our hearts out and not use it for any manipulative purpose. How I wish I could write to him again the same three letters that I used to write every week and eagerly await to receive his reply; as always starting with: My dear son.......
Sir,
ReplyDeleteThat was a beautiful article. It was very poignant and made me remnisence about the events in my life. many a times we tend to forget that our parents play an active and nurturing role in our life.
In our endeavour to prove that we need the space and our desire to be treated as adults we tend to remember only the disagreements and tend to forget the good things that our parents do for us.
I will not bore you further with my life story. I just wanted to say that it was very touching article.
Regards,
Subash