A LAST WISH

  “Ravi...Ravi..."

The sound of my name keeps on ringing in my head. In the day it forces me to daydream and in the night, a sound sleep eludes me.

“Ravi...Ravi...Ravi!”

The voices in my head keep on ringing an eternal knell; thrashing the rhythm of my heartbeats. Strange! The voice... it's familiarity squeezes the sanity of my mind. It is my father's.

“Ravi!” It sounded like a call from beyond, a word spoken with a reason.

In Hindi, Ravi means “The Sun”- a God, a sustainer of the kingdom of the Earth. Some see it as a benevolent entity out in the heavens, radiating warmth and illuminating the sombre lives of one and all encumbered by its aura. The harbinger of the daylight has its bindings with the joys,sorrows and the very nature of all who have the opulence of its endowment in their dependent lives.

Well, this is what my father thought of, when he decided to name me as its incarnation - a personification of these expressions, when I was born. I was born in my ancestral home in a quiet and a small town. Declared as a healthy boy of 10 pounds by the family doctor, I breathed my first when my mother cradled me in her arms.

Memories of the past although obscurely reminiscent, some incidents and events have deeply been sketched on the shores of my mind. High tides of youth and the treading of people come and gone in my life have but erased those deeply engraved pictures of childhood. After-all, childhood is the only time when people admired and loved you for saying or doing things which would later be deemed as stupid or 'childish' once you come of age. Subsequently, the moment when you become conscious of the events elapsing around you, the “official studio recording” of your childhood commences. It happened for me when I was 3. I have always regretted the fact that in spite of straining my mind enough to find even a fragment of my memory about me playing in the laps of my mother or if she carried me around in the house in her arms, I have found none but blotches of murky images. In fact, I have no idea how she looked in blood and flesh at all. She left us for a place in heaven when I was still a kid. My father said that she looked exactly like the woman in the large photo in his room with a heavy garland on its frame. She was an elegant lady, had beautiful blue eyes and her hair which brushed her waist seemed to have their own mind when they unfurled and swayed in the hair. Consequently, my father said that I had her eyes and the dimple chin which he loved pinching out of affection. She was a brave and a helpful woman, always remained happy and lit up the world of those whose lives revolved around hers. But strange are the ways of the God that she bowed down to everyday after her morning shower. Her 'God' had beckoned her too soon into his kingdom. She had to leave behind the duties by right, to her loving husband and an oblivious infant whom she had to nurture and care for.

Since that day, my father had donned the role of both the parents for me and set on a journey all too daunting at first but necessary nevertheless for the upbringing of his only son - me. Of course he looked after me, nurtured me and tried everything possible to make the absence of my mother more bearable but he had the responsibilities of a father too. On one hand, a mother's love has no substitute. On the other, a father's care is irreplaceable. My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. He was the one big influence in my life which inadvertently chose the way I have become as a person now. I couldn't have become half the man he is, but I wouldn't become anything else.

I still remember the day when my father had hit me for the first time – a gliding slap on my plump cheeks when I was a little boy in school. I had dared to snatch the tiffin box of a meek girl in my classroom and tossed it into the garbage. I vaguely remembered the incidents which occurred in the classroom but I could definitely not forget the deafening smack below my earlobe. I think, I was 8 years old then. I seldom brought a tiffin box and rarely a water bottle even. 'Papa' , as I called him, used to give me a 5 rupees note to but my tiffin and snacks everyday before I left for school. However, I handled my money well and knew every waiter in Hotel Radha from where I used buy it on my way to school.

On a particularly gloomy day, I returned home in the evening just as it had started to drizzle. I hated rains. It would always pour when we were having an interesting cricket match in the meadows behind my house. I heard a faint cry calling for my name coming from the direction of our main door. It was papa. He came storming into the house through the door. I was in my room, visualizing his mood from the manner he opened the gates and his fast paced footsteps on the front porch. I concluded that he was dripping, unsettled and a bit angry perhaps. My father was a man who called a spade, a spade. He loathed hypocrisy and hated two faced personalities. That made him a man of clear actions. Usually, it was fairly easy for me to know his mood and temperament just from the time he took to reach the main door from the street outside.

He straightway went to his room and sat on his chair.

“Ravi! Where are you!?”, he shouted once, firm and resolute.

“Yes papa?”, I replied back inquisitively as I was perplexed at his sudden outburst.

“Where are you? Come here now!”

I had barely entered his room when he turned towards me and shouted, “You are a boy and you snatched a girl's tiffin box and threw it into the dustbin? “

I was frenetically shocked! How could he possibly know that? It was highly unlikely that someone in his office knew about this incident.

“No papa...I did not...I was pushed by someone...And I fell down...” I managed to stutter.

Papa looked at me from the corner of his eye and before I knew it, a thumping smack was served hot on my right cheek below my tiny earlobe. For a minute, I was dazed, more by the fact that my papa had actually hit me for the first time in my life than the force with which it was hit. I stood stunned and shuddered with fright. My eyes got watery and I burst into tears at once.

He looked at me, sank back in his chair and said, “Your class teacher met me in the market today. He told me about it..and you...you have the audacity to lie to me? Your papa?”

I was already sobbing like the little girl who had been the victim earlier that morning.

“Did” you do that?”, he asked me once more, hoping to get a reply in between my heavy and uncontrollable sobs.

“Yes.” I somehow managed to blurt out the word, hoping not to get a smack on the other ear.

Papa caught hold of one of my arms and brought me closer to him.

“Then why did you lie?”, he asked sternly.

I had no answer to that. Maybe I had used it someplace before for saving my skin or getting out of trivial troubles. Not this day. Not before this man.

“Do you lie to anyone before?”

“Yes...”

“Look at me when you speak!”, he shouted.

I hesitatingly looked at his face and said in a firm voice,”Yes, many times.”

There was little to speak other than the truth. When speaking the truth,I had just realized, there is little to explain and little to be afraid of.

“Sit down there”, papa pointed at the chair on which my mother used to sit on breezy evenings in our verandah.

“The reason I hit you because you told me a lie. You did not think of the consequences. You never thought about it before because you had never faced any.”

I stood mum and listened.

“You are not a liar , not even a bad one. I have not taught you to speak lies. So quit it altogether. Do you understand?”

I nodded my head in approval, not sure if that was the thing he was expecting of me at that moment.

“There you go again! I know you did not get anything that I just said. Did you?”

I hesitated for a moment. But then there was nothing to be afraid of now.

“I am not sure of what you said papa”, I replied.

My father looked me in the eye and kissed my swollen cheek. It was again a surprise, a turn of events. I was taken aback on seeing a smile on his face.

“It will take to sink in what I just said. But promise me you'll never speak a lie again. You saw what happens when you speak a lie and when you speak the truth”, he said hugging me. And then he left the room.

It was then I got what my father intended. For him, actions definitely spoke louder than words. For a father, it was the only means of teaching his son the ways of life. Some lessons must be learnt the hard way. Without a mother around, he decided that it was his duty to don the mantle of a teacher in his own right.

Eventually, the night set in. Papa had laid out the dinner on the table. Dinner was brought in by my uncle every night who lived nearby from his home after my mum 'wasn't around'. I had barely taken a morsel into my mouth when my father asked, “Tell me one thing Ravi...You are a boy, why did you snatch a girl's tiffin box? And why did you throw it in the garbage?”

“It was her fault papa. She said that I never bring my tiffin from home and eat from others' boxes. It is not true papa! I always buy my tiffin from the 5 rupees you give me and share it with my friends. I got angry and threw away her tiffin.”, I replied. The whole incident was fresh in my mind and the anger was evident on my face for that little girl.

Papa quietly ate his food without commenting any further. When we had finished, he got up and said,”It is not her fault beta...not her fault.”

I couldn’t make out anything of his statement. I was a child and I wondered how it could not possibly be that girl's fault after all.

That night I felt an eerie emotion crawling up in my mind when I watched papa. He had never been this restless before.

“What happened papa? Are you alright?” I tugged his pyjama and asked.

“Nothing beta. At what time is your school tomorrow?”

“9 o'clock.”

“Good!” I could see his eyes gleaming. He looked like a man with a plan.

“Set the alarm clock to 5 AM, we'll go for a walk.”, he declared.

I was enthusiastic in a strange way. Papa had a habit of waking up at 7o'clock, getting ready and then leaving for office at 8:30AM everyday. It felt a bit unusual, in a good way of course, to deviate from the normal mornings I always had.

The alarm shot off precisely at 5 in the morning. After about 15 minutes, I felt a pair of hands which went under my shoulders and lifted me up and made me stand on the ground.

“Brush your teeth beta, quickly!”, I heard as I rubbed my eyes.

“Where are we going, papa?”

“You'll see”, his voice came from the store room. Out came he with a large bag and his wallet.

We locked the house behind us and started off in the cold and foggy morning. We went strolling down the lane covered with stones and the red dusty soil dampened by a layer of mist. I could see that papa was in a good mood. I could feel that he was busy thinking something but feeling deeply satisfied at the same time.

“Have you ever been to the vegetable market beyond the railway tracks?” , he enquired.

“No, but I heard that it is a very big market. Ramesh told me that a lot of cows and goats come there every morning to have their breakfast.”, I said innocently.

“Breakfast? Hahaha...” , he broke into laughter, “Is it?”

“How would I know? I have never been there.”, I was confused as to why he had laughed. Even the cows and goats must have their breakfast I thought. After-all, they too must eat to survive.

“Do you see that railway crossing?”papa asked as we approached the railway tracks.

“Yes”, I replied. Papa stopped in his path and said without giving me a look,”Wanna bet if I can reach the check-post before you?” . And then he ran off!

“Hey! You can't do that!”, I screamed ecstatically and took to my heels too. I gradually leveled up with him and then beat him in the race.

“I won , I won!”, I shouted overjoyed.

“Oh you big boy! I did not know you were so fast”, he said as he rummaged my hair. “Have been growing up all along behind my back?”

I gave him a wide grin. “Papa, you got tired so soon?”

“Who me? Nahhh!”. He grabbed me from my waist and lifted me up and made me sit on his shoulders.

“Whoa!”

“You were saying something about my strength, beta?” , he said with a smile.

“Whoooo!”, I screamed. I wanted everybody in the town to see this. My papa was the superhero I dreamt of becoming one day. My Superman!

He looked at his watch and said,”You want to see something you can brag to your friends?”

“Yes yes!”

There was a thick vegetation covering the manned railway check-post.

HOOOOONNNNNK! Boom came the thundering roar of a monster from behind it. It was the horn of a diesel engine. The giant had been in its shed all night and had come out to shake off its fatigue and wake up with a loud yawn.

“You hear that?”, papa asked.

“Aaaaaahhhhh!”, I screamed in his ear.

“Oh God! You'll make me deaf. Okay! Now let me cut you a deal.”

“Deal?”

“Yes. You go to your school and apologize to the girl when you see her first thing in the morning. Okay?”

“But why?”, I said in despair. I was offended and could think of the whole scene being enacted in my mind. It would be too embarrassing for me to ask a girl's forgiveness in front of her friends who would laugh at me and tell it to the rest if the kids. No way it was going to happen!

“Hey! What are you thinking?”, his words broke my daydream.

“I'll see. But what do I get in return?”

“Umm...let me put it in this way. I'll make you see the inside of the train's engine and if you are lucky, you'll get a chance to honk its horn too. I’ll hold my end of the deal right now and you too do the same when you get to school. It's a promise made by your papa to you and it will be a promise made by my beta to me. Agreed?”

Well, he put it in such defining words that it was both hard for me to accept it or reject it at the same time.

“But I am a big boy now!”

“I know you are a big boy. You will have to prove it to the girl as well.”

I ignored the last line in my mind. The engine honked again.

“Can I really blow the horn too?”

“Yes”

“Twice?”

“Thrice, if you promise me that you will keep up your promise.”

My eyes lit up. “I know...I know...Deal!”

My father opened up a whole new dimension for me to explore. Most boys in my class didn't even know how to spell the word 'diesel engine' and I was already inside one. Of course, I was already framing up exciting ways to tell tale about my adventures inside the beast's belly. It was the ultimate story I was going to brag about to my friends in school.

We reached the vegetable market or the 'haat' which was set up in a huge opening in the midst of a field just a few meters away from the railway tracks. Papa and I went from shop to shop , person to person haggling over the prices of the vegetables. 'Bargaining' was a new term for me and I watched with curiosity when my father 'bargained' his way through buying vegetables cheaply than they were quoted by the shop owners.

“Here, go and see if you can bargain over the brinjals”, papa said, handing over the bag.

I went over to the shopkeeper while my father stood behind me eager to watch what would transpire next.

“How much is half kilo of this brinjal over here?”, I asked with a straight face.

“5 rupees”

“5 rupees? My god! Do I look like I have never bought brinjals before? I come to this market and buy brinjals everyday for 3 rupees and you are telling me that it is 5 rupees overnight?”.

This was my first attempt at 'bargaining'. My father and the shopkeeper simultaneously burst into uncontrollable laughter.

“Is this you boy, Harish babu?”, he asked my father.

“Yes Ramu, you hadn't seen him for quite some time, is it?”, replied my father.

“Yes babu, after that fateful day, I haven’t gone in the direction of your house. But your lad has outgrown his age!”

I was standing there, scratching my head and tugging at papa's pants again.

“Do you know him papa?”

“Yes beta, this uncle used to come to our house to sell vegetables long before you were born.”

“Beta, I didn't know you came here everyday to buy vegetables?”, asked my new-found uncle.

“Not really uncle, you know... I was just 'bargaining'”, I said with a sheepish smile.

“I told you beta, you are a terrible liar. This market only opens on Thursdays”, my father said suppressing yet another peal of laughter in his stomach.

Quite notably, I had technically spoken another lie. But my father found it rather amusing. Strange are the contexts of the bespoken lies. It gets you slapped one time, the next time people laugh at it. I was perplexed. Nevertheless, I was beginning to get the concept. I decided never to lie to my papa, never ever in my life. At that moment, I felt something that I had never yet fully realized. It was out of respect for my father, I decided to be righteous, not for the fear of him.

“Ravi, look at these veggies! Plump and fresh! Look at his beetroot. It looks like your cheek last night”, he giggled. “Now what will you take in your tiffin box for lunch?”

“Tiffin? Am I taking a tiffin to school today? But I don’t have a tiffin box.”

“You don’t? Why didn't you tell me before? It's alright. You'll take mine today. I'll buy you a new one tonight.”

“Seriously papa? You are really going to make me tiffin today?”

“Not today. From today. We both will have our own tiffin boxes”

“What!? Are you sure?”

I couldn't believe my ears. Maybe the slap had jolted some of the connections between my ears and my brain. This was a big decision that my father took that day. He would have to compromise his routine to make us food for all the working days in the week. This was a promise which stayed true till I passed out from my school 9 years later.

“Now go and peel the potatoes while I figure out what to do with the rest of these things”

I took a seat on the kitchen floor and started peeling the washed potatoes. No sooner had I peeled a couple of them, than I saw papa run towards the kitchen sink grabbing one of his fingers.

“You're bleeding papa!”

“Don't worry beta, only a minor cut. You get done with the potatoes while I go get a band-aid”

He came back in the kitchen within 2 minutes and resumed his cooking dutifully. In the next 20 minutes, he rigorously went over all the procedures and protocols of cooking a dish which were penned down in a small diary which he had recovered from the top shelf.

“Whose diary is it, papa?”, I asked him.

“Oh! It's a recipe book which your mother used to jot down from when she was a child. She was the best cook I’ve ever known beta”, he replied back, still figuring out something from the diary.

I could see a smile on his face. Maybe he was reminded about a fabulous dish made by mother or maybe some funny incident about the diary. Who knows? If something gives you happiness, it should never be questioned. I left him at that.

And after some struggling and a brief father-son session in the kitchen, papa declared that the food was ready.

“Here's your tiffin beta. But remember, share it with your friends. Okay?”

I didn't say anything. I did not want to share something that my papa had made exclusively for me for the first time. And I did not want to say a lie. So I quietly took it from his hand and shoved it in my school bag.

I opened the gates to leave and looked at my papa. He was a bit exhausted , but a proud man with a real sense of happiness on his face.

“Now remember beta, you have to keep up your end of the deal. First thing in the morning, okay?”

I closed the gates behind me and ran off saying, “I know...I know!”

Just as I had entered the class, my eyes met with her. I judiciously, avoided eye contact with her for the rest of the day. I sat down in my place and measured up my courage to go up to her and ask her forgiveness. I decided, I had none at the moment. A series of scenarios played back in my mind as to how it would end up if I apologized to her just as my father had asked me to do. None of them finished in anything else but me ending up as the laughing stock of the entire class. I had been a perfect morning. I did not want to ruin my day with something such as this. I decided to hold back the thoughts of the promise I made to my papa for later that day.

The bell for the tiffin break rang and the silence was pierced by the gaining humdrum of the children inside the class. I took out the tiffin box from my bag carefully looking around while I did so.

“Hey! Ravi has brought a tiffin!”, I heard a voice from the last bench.

In a jiffy, I was mobbed by the entire class. “Who made you the lunch?”, asked one of the boys.

“My papa”, I said with pride.

“So? Open the box! We want to see what you have brought”

In a moment, my tiffin box was flung open and a thousand hands found their way into the box. It was as if I had opened some kind of a magical hat and people were eager to pull their rabbits out in a frenzy.

“Hey! Back off!”, I shouted at them, trying to take back the box from them.

By that time, it was all over. My tiffin box, licked clean to the last morsel.

I felt furious and helpless at the same time. I went to a boy and held his collar. “Give me your tiffin!”, I shouted at him.

“No!” came a defiant reply.

“You bloody ate my food. Now I want yours!”

“No,I did not. And who told you to open your tiffin inside the class?”

I pushed him away and stomped back to my place in a rage and obviously in hunger. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned back and was fairly surprised. It was Asha, the same girl who perhaps had gone through the same bitter feeling yesterday due to me, was standing behind me clutching her tiffin. She was accompanied by two of her friends.

“I hate to say this but, my mumma has sent this piece of sandwich for you”, she said.

“What!? Why?”

It made no sense. Didn't I threw her daughter's tiffin in the dustbin in front of the whole class?

“My mumma says that God has taken away your mumma from you. So, you don’t bring tiffin to school. She said that if shared my tiffin with you, you would not throw away my tiffin any more and make me cry.”

Such simple words. Such innocent words. I was an 8 year old boy then, but I could take in each and every emotion attached to the words that she said after all that had happened. Tears came out of my eyes. I was hit hard in my heart and my mind. She had a mother, who loved her and cared about her enough to make her a tiffin box everyday. Such a small thing in a mother's life, a thing always taken for granted. But I could well see why she did that everyday. Why did my father do it then? He was not my mother. But he tried very hard on his part not make me feel ever that I had none. Blood, sweat and tears. The food that my father made for me today, it had everything in it. He had cut his finger, he had run in the field, carried me on his shoulders and had probably shed a tear or two which he didn't let me see yesterday when he was in his room looking at my mother's photo on the wall. It wasn't the food in the tiffin box I was repenting about, it was what Asha made me see at that moment. I think he made some resolution to my mother that day. And I had a promise to keep too.

“Sorry”, I said out of the blue. My mind was going through a lot of turbulence.

“What?”, she was surprised too.

“I am sorry Asha for what I did yesterday. Please tell you mumma that she is the best mumma in the world. And thank her for the sandwich”

I took the sandwich from her hands and stared at it for a while.

“Promise you'll never throw my tiffin again?”, she asked with a concerned look.

I wiped my tears, and smiled back at her and said, “Promise. I'll ask my papa to make me extra tiffin tomorrow. I want to share it with you”

With that being said, I ate that sandwich. It had a strangely satisfying feeling that day.

Asha smiled too. She became my best friend after that day.

As I pen down these small figments of my life, I look into myself and find those moments which are locked deep in secluded corners of my mind. The very moments which set a definition for my personality and my life hence forth, changed it for better and made me look up to my role model. My role models were many but one man stood out and above all. My father, my papa.

He is no more with me now. I performed his last rites a few days back. As in remembrance, I lost a friend, a philosopher and a guide. He was truly my best friend to core, he made me see things as a righteous code of conduct rather than make-believing in conceptualized things and guided me to a better future he had seen for me.

Today, I write down as a little boy , more than as a man. I missed my old man. I wanted to thank him before he left me unannounced and unceremoniously. I wanted to thank him for tucking me in my bed and assuring me that he had fought away all the monsters under my bed. I wanted to thank him for being that constant source of joy when I felt lonely. In my childhood I visualized him as a knight in shining armour. I told him about this dream one day when I was still a boy. He had smiled back at me and kissed me on my forehead but said nothing. Little did I know that my papa was passing on the armour to me , piece by piece, as I grew up, for my journey ahead.

I wanted to wave him a last goodbye. He deserved it. I just wish I could tell my mother in heaven, my papa had done a good job here, all by himself.

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor death, nor yet can'st thou kill me.

~ John Donne