REMEMBERING ABBA

During the last few days, my wonderful daughter Anu has told me, more than once, that her friends think I am “super-cool”. Because I tease her about her crushes. Come back with some smart one-liners. Am internet savvy and actually have a blog!

Thinking about it, I realized my dad was pretty cool too, though we never thought so at that time.

I remember when I was going through this Rajesh Khanna craze. I was in the tenth and the movie “Mehboob Ki Mehendi” was playing in our theatre – Radhika. It was a Saturday and Abba (that’s what we called our dad), told me to bunk school and come see the movie since it was the last day!

I remember the time when I was trying to learn driving. I think I was in PUC I year and we were coming back from College and I got the driver to teach me. Abba was behind us and witnessed my attempts at driving. When we reached home, he told me: “If you have to do something, do it properly”. He got us our Learners License and ensured that all his three daughters learnt to drive. “He is giving his daughters too much freedom” grumbled our more conservative relatives.

I remember when our Logic lecturer, who hated “convent girls” humiliated us in every class. “No need to attend any of his classes” was Abba’s decree. “And you can tell your principal I said so”. For the next two years, as the hated (and hateful) Logic Lecturer would walk into the class from the front door, we would walk out of the back door. And he couldn’t do a thing about it, because we had informed the principal that our father did not want us to attend Logic classes! He must have been angrier to see our marks in Logic – easily above 90%!

I remember the times – so many times – when we wanted to bunk a class and go for a movie. All we had to do was call him and he would send the car to college to pick us up!

I remember the time he and a friend came all the way on their scooters to pick us up from home and take us back to the theatre to see the movie “Ab Aayegaa Mazaa”.(Or was it Kissa Kursi Ka?) To many Muslims it may seem blasphemous. But I remember during Ramzan, when we actually broke our fast in the theatre!

When we were kids, we had these vendors who would go around selling snacks in hand-pulled carts. One day, there I was buying some stuff when I saw a couple of poor urchins looking longingly at the snacks. I called them over and gave them some stuff. Soon, I was surrounded by so many urchins that I didn’t know what to do. Abba was watching from a distance and came to my rescue, paying for the entire crowd!

There was never any pressure on us to study. But both Abba and Mummy loved to read and surrounded us with such wonderful books and magazines, that all of us became voracious readers. We had the most wonderful collection of Classics brought out by Readers Digest and he let me have some of them.

I remember the speeches Abba would write – they were always short and witty. Mummy wrote longer, more serious speeches. My sister Nasira got dad’s speeches and I got the speeches written by my mum.

I remember his pride in my writing skills. He would tell his friends about my amateurish attempts at writing poetry and actually “commissioned” me to write a poem on his friend Mr Ghani. Years later, I detected that same note of pride in his voice when he told a friend of his: “She has her own flat in Bangalore”.

Of course, it was not always fun and games. There were spankings and yellings too (my brother and I got the worst of it – being the younger ones). I got a royal thrashing once for calling the maid a pig. The lesson was clear: show respect to everyone. It’s a lesson I think I have passed on to my daughter too (without the thrashing!)

My mother never bothered about money. I think she is the least materialistic person I know of. Abba was a little better but I think money per se did not mean a great deal to him. He was careful about spending money but got royally cheated by a whole lot of people. When it came to giving people their due, Abba was very, very clear. By ensuring that his sister’s kids got their share of the ancestral property, by giving them their due without fuss, he set a shining example for his children: “relationships are more important than money”. When I see friends and acquaintances fighting over property, I appreciate what a valuable lesson he taught us.

We did go though our bad patches. He had his faults and there were times I hated him. There were times when I felt he didn’t understand. Or didn’t care enough. But I know I was wrong. As a parent myself now, I know it must not have been easy bringing up three pretty liberal and ‘thinking’ daughters in a conservative place like Bellary.

I was always very protective about my mom and somehow felt I was closer to her than to my dad. But during the last years of his life, it was Abba who made the effort to reach out to me, to build bridges between me and my siblings. It was Abba who would bring me my old diaries and books. Who would make it a point to come and show me his new car and give me a ride in it. Who would call up and remind me that I had forgotten his and mum’s anniversary and was everything okay?

When he was hurt by what someone had said, he would share it with me and felt comfortable enough to cry in front of me. At such times, I never knew how to handle it. You think your parents are tough and you are the ones who will be doing all the crying in front of them…

In another 50 days, it will be a year since Abba passed away. He is in my thought constantly. I dream of him ever so often and I miss him so very much. I sometimes wish I had been nicer, kinder, more loving, more forgiving, more non-judgmental… I know now that consciously or unconsciously he shaped me into the person I am today. And if my daughter finds me cool today, it’s probably because I had a cool dad!