A Daughter’s First Hero

Last evening, I had a particularly interesting and sweetly poignant experience while going home in the suburban Mumbai local. The train was crowded, when I got in. As soon as it pulled off, a two-year-old girl asked her mother about the whereabouts of her father. In the next coach, her mother told her. The answer did not satisfy the child and she let out a soft, muffled wail, with the unending refrain, "Papa."

We looked on the little scene and smiled. There was something endearing about that child, heartbroken at not having her father close to her. Some people offered her chocolates, hoping to take her mind off her temporarily absent father. It did not work.

Others offered to let her play with their phones. The ploy failed. She wanted Papa, and nothing else would do, her muffled cry suggested. Her aunt, seeing that her voice had become hoarse with crying, offered her some water. But that offer too was rejected. By now, she had been crying for 50 minutes, and was weary with exhaustion.

At length, when the train halted at Kandivali, and the trio got off, a coachful of women craned their necks to see what happened next. A collective sigh of relief was exhaled when the father materialized and the exhausted but finally happy girl jumped into her father’s arms. That Papa is definitely his daughter’s first hero.

As is mine.

No, I don’t remember crying this way for my Dad. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t have too many early memories of him. Mum was what you would call a Work-at-home-mother, so she was always at hand. We depended on Mum for everything, and yet, somehow, Dad, quiet and calm as he was, made his presence felt in our lives.

Especially during the exams when Dad oversaw our Maths preparations.

Maths and I weren’t on a friendly footing in those days. Considering that Dad was on back-slapping terms with it, sitting down to study Maths with Dad a few days before the exams was always fraught with anxiety. I used to marvel over the fact that in his presence, Maths suddenly metamorphosed into a gentleman with impeccable manners who ceased to intimidate me.

Dad has always been a soft-spoken man. So he very rarely sat us down to pass on lessons to us, and we were obliged to watch and learn and then do as he did. There was so much to learn. When Dad’s company was shut down under a management-lockout, most of his 1000-something colleagues had horror stories to tell. One or two, I heard my parents talk in hushed whispers back then, chose to take the escape route out of life. Many took to drink. But if Dad’s back bent a little more at the thought of raising three growing children on the feeble income earned by my mother through her sewing enterprise, we kids barely got to know of it.

He immediately got to work, taking up a second and even a third odd job, in the absence of the first real one. Through this response to the challenge that threatened to engulf the family, I learned that when things go wrong, you don’t sit and mope, you just get up and do the thing that needs to be done.

That tendency of his shaped our values and bound them in cords that couldn’t be broken by any of the lures the world set in our path. No matter what the temptation that we faced, my brothers and I only had to recall how Dad would have acted in our situation, and the danger was averted.

Dad always encouraged us to ask questions, but didn’t always answer them himself. Instead, he chose to direct us to a source where he and we together might find answers. So if there was a word whose meaning I didn’t know, I’d get the dictionary and he and I would leaf through its pages and educate ourselves. Those sessions created in me an enduring love for the English language. As a child, I was the only kid I knew who could be lost in reading the dictionary.

It was also the sight of him, sitting down to read a book, that first got me hooked on to the world of books.

He wasn’t the diaper changing, baby bathing father that the ‘90s threw up. But Dad could always be counted on to wake up in the middle of the night, in response to his frightened daughter’s cries, and peer under the bed to chase away the imaginary demons that haunted her.

As a child, I remember putting my hand in his and walking down the busy street, knowing that I was safe and free to yap away with him by my side to look out for me. Today I am decades older, but when we are out on the street, he will still push me on to the inside of the road and walk by the side of the vehicles. I am privileged to have such a father.

Thank you, Dad.






On the occasion of Father’s Day today, I would like to wish all fathers everywhere a very Happy Father’s Day.

Memories on tap

It was the second birthday of M, my younger brother. Mum had lovingly baked a cake in our very own jugaad oven. Dad had pitched in to prepare the icing, as per the recipe offered by my maternal uncle, M, who was then the chief steward on a passenger liner. Dad and A, my older brother, had arranged the halves of sweetened cherries around the periphery of the cake for some added visual effect.

And then it was time to cut the cake. Almost everyone was shy about being in the picture, ceding the limelight to the birthday boy. Except for the bespectacled, nerdy ten-year-old in the right-hand side of the picture.

Apparently, at least four of the cherry halves on the cake had been placed by her, and that fact gave her the right to position herself strategically next to what she considered her handiwork. If you look very closely, you will notice that there are four halves that are slightly off, as compared to the disciplined ‘red ants’ in that circle.

Nevertheless I was fiercely proud of my contribution to that cake.


Lest you get worried at the thought of that little two-year-old holding the knife so close to his face, I’ll have you know, that knife was completely harmless. You couldn’t have cut a slab of butter from the fridge with it. Butter left out too long, now that’s another story.

It was a simple birthday. Homemade cake, homemade snacks and homemade food, Boney M, Abba and the BeeGees playing on the humble Bush tape recorder and loads of fun, laughter and reminiscing about this, that and the other, not to mention the antics of the little fellow.

Memories captured on film by my Uncle M’s Fuji camera.

Memories on tap – even decades later.





"This post is my entry for the 'One Picture From My Photo Album' contest conducted by My Yatra Diary and CupoNation." I am nominating Afshan, Shilpa and Bhavya to participate in this contest-cum-giveaway.

Of kaccha limbus and pucca limbus (NaBloPoMo Day 13)



One post every day in November

Those of us who grew up in the India of the '70s and '80s and a little bit of the '90s might recall two terms that defined the status of children on the playground. These were kaccha limbu and pucca limbu. Literally raw lemon and ripe lemon respectively, there was much more to them than that. These words were in Marathi, but I'm sure each region in India had its own linguistic equivalent.

Basically the children divided themselves into kaccha limbu and pucca limbu, depending on their age, maturity and agility on the ground. Being a kaccha limbu meant that you could go out there and play free, revelling in the spirit of the game, knowing that you would never be thrown out of the game. You were not subject to the rules that applied to the other people.

Just before a game was to commence, after the captains of the two teams had divided the senior members equally, they would proceed to share the kaccha limbus among themselves. The kaccha limbus were seen as liabilities. But the system was also a fantastic way of initiating younger children into the game while keeping them under the care and supervision of their older siblings and their friends.

Being a pucca limbu meant that you got an opportunity to patronise the younger kids while pretending that you were wiser and more capable by virtue of their age.

I was a kaccha limbu for a very long time. To be honest, I quite liked it. Not for me the hazard of losing the game and being made to sit through the rest of the game. The kaccha limbu status gave me many more lives on the playground, minus the pressure. When I did good, everyone applauded. When I didn't, my team mates said to one another by way of consolation, it's okay, she's only a kaccha limbu. While some children struggled hard to be promoted to pucca limbu status, I was quite happy with my relegated status.

I don't hear the words kaccha limbu and pucca limbu anymore. There are no playgrounds out there where children can play. And few children can resist the lure of satellite TV. Which is why today's children don't refer to one another by these names. With few exceptions, most of them may be more appropriately described as couch potatoes. And that is a a sad fact of our times.

Say Cheese. You're being shot...

Rummaging through my personal stuff the other day, I found this poem that I had written aeons ago when the world and its cousin were much younger. A lot of the concepts in it are of course outdated today.


The invention of the digital camera, and the Delete key, has taken the sting out of my phobia for having my picture taken. But old habits die hard, and the sight of a camera still manages to put me on high alert.


In the old days, the mere glimpse of a camera would cause me to freeze. And if you were particularly cruel enough to snap me in that mood, you would see for yourself how deer feel when they are rudely caught in the glare of the headlights.


I know just two other people who had a similar phobia. But while I could be induced to grin and bear it for the sake of not making a scene, these others were truer to their fears.


It was the last year of school, and the entire class of girls and the teachers who had taught us through the year had taken up their positions in front of the camera for the annual yearbook picture. Just before the photographer could actually focus and shoot, one of the teachers suggested that it might be a good idea to conduct a roll call to make sure that we were all there. The attendance register was duly brought out and the names recited. It was then that the school became aware that two girls had elected to abscond.


For some strange reason, the school authorities put their heads together and decided that this was a major infraction of the rules, particularly when all of us had been expressly instructed on the previous day to show up at school, looking suitably decorous and becoming for the yearbook photograph. It was a necessary injunction, considering that some of us had already begun experimenting with our appearance, to the eternal displeasure and horror of the nuns.


A search party was formed, and units of the party, in groups of two or three teachers, were summarily dispatched to different corners of the school to find the errant girls.


Over the next hour, they searched. They looked through classrooms, the library, music room, the Physics, Chemistry and Biology laboratories, the school auditorium, the basketball court, the playground, the school office, the canteen and the teachers’ staff room. They even searched in the nun’s convent and poked their heads in the little space near the stairwell where the janitors kept the cleaning supplies. But not a trace of the two runaways was found. This was strange, since the two had been seen during class in the morning. And the old, sleepy watchman at the school gate had sworn that no student had left the school.


Another hour was employed in the search, with different units dispatched to search through the same places. This time, the searchers were more diligent. They walked into classrooms that were occupied and stared hard at the bewildered students to see if the fugitives had camouflaged themselves in their midst. They walked into empty classrooms and peered under desks to see if they were hiding there.


While this interesting drama played out, the rest of us waited, pleasantly amused. And while we waited, we wilted under the sun. By degrees, the excitement of the moment ceased to interest us. The sun got hotter, and we found ourselves getting broiled and roasted under its glare. A few sentinels had been posted to watch over us and they effectively prevented us from dispersing.


Eventually the two girls, looking sheepish but unrepentant, were brought in and the ceremony of clicking the yearbook picture got underway. Apparently, they had spent two agonising hours, holed up in the bathroom.


The lengths some people will go to just to avoid having their picture taken.


Incidentally, an anna was a copper coin that was in use in India in pre-Independence days. It was valued at the 16th part of a rupee. The four annas which I had referred to, in the poem below, constituted 25 paise, one-fourth of a rupee. The 25 paise coin, popularly known in Hindi as the chavanni, ceased to be legal tender in India, on June 30, 2011.


Dear Chavanni, you and your heydays are sorely missed. May your soul rest in peace.


The rest of you who survive the chavanni and mourn its loss can amuse yourselves by reading my ancient poem.














There's nothing that leaves me more completely shaken
Than the thought of having my picture taken.


I am not what people in the know refer to as 'photogenic'
I look better in real life than I look in my pictures which is a positive way of saying that in my pictures I look pathetic.


Therefore, clicking a snap never evoked in me feelings of delight.
On the contrary, the first idea that strikes me is immediate flight.


I have never been able to understand why people love to take pictures.
They're actually pleased and thrilled; some even go into raptures.


Some are happy, some are glad, some even get excited.
But all in all, most people are delighted.


To me, however, these feelings are alien.
If I could, I'd think with my legs, I'd be fleein'.


But the family, that great institution that always thinks differently from noble minds,
On thoughts of escape restriction binds.


Parties, birthdays, weddings, christenings, picnics, et cetera,
Whatever be the occasion, they produce a camera.


The camera itself is a strange contraption
That causes me not a little agitation.


A camera in the hand drives most people bananas
They proceed to treat me as if my brain is worth just four annas.


First they want me suited and booted
And when I'm ready, they want me shooted.


They make me stand in all sorts of gawky postures that would put a contortionist to shame.
They refer to the above torture euphemistically as 'posing'. What a choice of a name!


All this they expect me to do while saying 'cheese' with a grin shooting from ear to ear.
The only positive thing about this whole exercise is that it makes me end up feeling like a martyr.


The worst thing is that the camera chooses to capture that particular moment
Which causes a sensitive person like me acute embarrassment.


Did I say this is the worst thing? An error on my part.
There's more to come. I tell myself, "Cheer up." With these words, I take heart.


The last straw comes with the moment I particularly dread
When the developed pictures are subjected to a post-mortem, I wish I were dead.


The spectators gather around and the pictures undergo keen scrutiny.
They observe every picture and laugh; they obviously find me funny.


And since being laughed at is not something I relish
It necessarily follows that having my picture clicked is not an experience I cherish.

The Jugaad of baking a cake

With the first bite of the cake, my four-year-old daughter brought together the thumb and forefinger of her right hand to indicate just what she thought of Mama's cake. Her mouth was full of cake, and she couldn't wait to empty it before digging her teeth into yet another bite. Feedback had to be given, meanwhile, but there was no reason why she should call a halt to the eating process while doing so.


Her little mouth, all smeared with icing and crumbly cake, brought a broad grin to my face. For this Proud Mama, it was Mission Accomplished all the way. Of course, there were miles to go in the cake decorating department, as you would see if I had the courage to upload the pictures, but for someone who had been hoping and praying that the baking effort would yield something edible, it was extremely heartening to know that the result was so delightful. My spirits, like the cake, rose wonderfully.


Baking a cake had been on my mind for a long time now. The kitchen and all the adventures it promised had begun to take centre stage in my life ever since the birth of my daughter. The thought of cooking something for her gave me a great deal of joy. Then as she grew older and I discovered that she had a very sweet tooth, I began to take delight in rustling up sweets for her. The desire to bake grew as a natural offshoot of that.


In my childhood home, birthdays were given special treatment. Mum and Dad tried their best to do something special for the person whose birthday it was.


We would all go for Mass to pray for the health and well being of the birthday baby. Mum would cook the favourite dishes of the child whose birthday it was. It was only when I grew older that I realized that I didn’t really have any idea about what dishes she and Dad liked. Even on their birthdays, we got to eat our favourite dishes.


One of the birthday treats that we really looked forward to was Mum’s cake. It was a no-nonsense crumbly sponge cake that would fill the house with its special aroma. I would inhale deeply of that redolent air, gulping by the lungful that precious scent which offered such a foretaste of the treat that was in store for us.


We didn’t have an oven back then. So Dad, ever the resourceful one, conjured up a provisional oven for her. I am using the word 'conjured' because even then it seemed incredible to me that something so heavenly and fragrant and crumbly and moist could come out of a whatchamacallit like that.


A large vessel would be placed on the gas, the burner knob stationed at Simmer. The base of the vessel would be strewn with a one-inch-thick base coating of white sand. Upon the sand would be placed an old rusty trivet. And upon that trivet Mum would place our lone aluminium cake pan, all greased and floured, with the cake batter in it. Then Mum would cover the large vessel with a lid and pile a few burned-out embers of coals upon it.


It was hard to imagine that such a contraption, so makeshift in appearance, could produce such a euphoric feeling. Modern Indian corporate literature on innovation has a word for this. It is called ‘Jugaad.’ Using one’s creativity or imagination to make do with whatever apparatus or conditions are available at hand to produce the desired result.


Dad was always good at doing this kind of Jugaad at home. Thanks to those attempts, so unbelievable to other people, we children would have our very own birthday cake.


For an hour or sometimes more, the cake would bake. There was no transparent glass, as is provided by modern-day ovens, through which we could view the spectacle of the rising cake. At length, Mum would check the doneness of the cake by gingerly removing the lid, complete with embers. Then she would hold her head back for the first gush of steam to dissipate, then poke the cake carefully with a knife. We children, encouraged by the aroma of a baking cake, would wait eagerly for that moment when we would have our cake and eat it too.


After my daughter was born, there was simultaneously born in me the urge to re-create all the little treats and traditions that my parents had so willingly created for us. But I was only able to do so most recently after the purchase of my brand new oven.


Today I realise that in spite of not having so many of the appliances that make life convenient to us, Mum and Dad managed to do so much for us because they wanted to. Maybe successful parenting, like successful anything else, cannot do without its fair share of jugaad.

I want to be a supermom

When I was a teenager, I happened to catch a small snatch of an American TV series on Doordarshan, our state-run television. I don't remember what it was called, but a song on that show, sung by an 8-year-old boy, caught my attention. I won't pretend that the words were exactly as I've reported them below. Only the first two lines are absolutely accurate. The rest I have forgotten and made up but they do catch the spirit of the original. The song went something like this:


"My mom thinks she's a supermom, but I don't think that's true.
She works on the computer and the telephone, but I can do that too.


My mom thinks she's a supermom, but I don't think that's true,
She works on the computer and the telephone,
And knits and sews and cooks and bakes, but I can do that too.


My mom thinks she's a supermom, but I don't think that's true,
She works on the computer and the telephone,
And knits and sews and cooks and bakes,
Plays football and mows the lawn, but I can do that too."


The little boy on the show was singing these lines and acting them out at the same time. So he would pretend to be stabbing away at an invisible keyboard while speaking on a telephone held between his shoulder and ear at the same time, then suddenly break away to bring two knitting needles together — you get the idea. Of course, the kid utterly failed to do justice to all the tasks that his mother managed with consummate ease, driving home the point that mothers are indeed supermoms.


My mother was a supermom. She cooked for us, baked the occasional cake on our birthdays, nursed us when we were ill and supervised our studies, was always home when we got back from school, all this while running her own sewing enterprise successfully. While I mentally acknowledged with gratitude all that she did for us, and even occasionally spoke of her in glowing terms, in conversations with friends, I am ashamed to admit this now — I don't remember ever paying her a compliment or letting her know that her efforts are appreciated.


In contrast, I barely manage to do a tenth of what my mother did for me, and my daughter responds with as much admiration as if I had accomplished three or four impossible things before breakfast.


The other day she told me, "Mamma, whatever food you cook for me, that I like." For someone who enjoys cooking post-motherhood, but is not exactly flooded with compliments (every time I cook, I have to ask the husband, "How was the so-and-so?" at least twice, before he will condescend to reply once, "Nice."), that was sweet music to my ears.


But I'm not one to take praise where it is undeserved. I have been trying to cook more, spend more time with the kids. I have already promised myself that I will always strive to be totally involved in my kids' lives, to be there for them always, to make them feel loved. I am trying my best to truly deserve the epithet of supermom.


There is another element of being a supermom that I long to have. Of course, mothers have always had eyes in the back of their heads, besides the near-magical ability to kiss the most horrendous boo-boos and make them well. And in my own case, I have discovered that I can function most admirably even on the strength of just 4½ hours of sleep. What's more, I have been doing that for nearly 8 months now with my son, and for another 3 years prior to that with my daughter. Sleep deprivation? What's that?


But in today's world, it would be no mean thing to boast a super power or two. Super speed, super strength and flying are highly over-rated. But as a mother, I can imagine a day far into the future, when my kids will enter the volatile world of Teendom (or is it Tweendom now?), and then I could really do with X-ray vision, long-distance hearing, mind reading and seeing the future.


Meanwhile, I look at my 3-year-old daughter, so precious, so precocious, and I tell myself that if there is any super power that I would like to have right now, it would be the ability to stop time and savour each moment of my children's childhood.


Mothers today could certainly use some super powers. As a prelude, I had better get myself a cape.


















This entry was chosen as one of the winners in the My Family Memories contest, organised by BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

A Daughter Writes

“It’s a girl,” they said, and everyone was happy. One man was thrilled, delighted beyond measure, ecstatic. His first child was a boy and he had been secretly hoping that they would be blessed with a girl this time.


I was quite little when my mother first told me this story, and like a child, I let my imagination do the thinking for me. I imagined Dad doing cartwheels, somersaulting through the air, unable to sit still out of sheer excitement on receiving news about the birth of his much-awaited little baby girl.


It was only when I grew a little older that I realised how wrong I was. Dad has always been a quiet, soft-spoken man. Jumping around shouting and whooping was never his way. Nevertheless the knowledge that I was loved and awaited long before my birth was enough and went a long way towards building my self-esteem.


Growing up, there were a lot of things that we didn’t have, but the things that were really important we never went without. Dad and Mum saw to that. They skimped and saved and gave and forgave. While Mum’s presence ensured an atmosphere of love, affection and security for us, Dad became the weather in which my childhood thrived.


He was never one to spout words of wisdom. So we children merely watched the way he lived his life and picked up whatever lessons we could. One character trait of Dad’s that I have always admired is his patience, a quality that I sorely lack.


Between Dad and Mum, Dad was always the strict one. Or so I used to think. So whenever I wanted something, I used to go to Mum first, believing that she would be more amenable to suggestion. And yet that didn’t stop me from interrupting raucous playtime sessions for the pleasure of bounding towards Dad when he returned home from work. It was a strange mixture of love and fear that Dad evoked in me then.


Dad used to do a lot of activities with us. He would take us out to watch English films at the cinema hall, a big treat in those days. Many childhood summer vacations were spent with him taking us sightseeing around Bombay. Busy as he was, he would make time for us, and it was with a thrill that we would realise that the outing delighted him as much as it charmed us.


Dad was my original Mr Fix-it. So whether it was the broken nose of my disfigured and tattered but still favourite doll that he stuck with Araldite or whether it was an Algebra problem that defied my comprehension, it was to him that I turned. 

Most of the time, he fixed the problem for me right away, setting aside whatever he was doing. 

Only occasionally would he refrain from intervening, believing firmly that some brokennesses were for me to solve. 

Or live with.


Whenever my childhood friends and I played “house, house,” the girl assigned to play the role of the father just disappeared for a while to signify that the father goes to work in the morning and returns in the evening. We had no idea what happened at workplaces, so the “fathers” in our games had nothing much to do except pretend-dress up and leave for work and then come back after a while and ask for tea.


But at home, our resident Mr Fix-it was always busy, fixing and mending anything that was broken around the house, clocks, watches, taps, toys and what have you.


Often as a kid, I would wake up in the middle of the night, frightened out of my wits by the sound of the calendar flapping against the wall, or by the strange interplay of the shadows that everyday objects cast around the room. At such times, it was “Daddeeeee,” that I would call out hesitantly.


No matter how deep he was in the throes of sleep, Dad would wake up and come to my aid. Far from ridiculing my fears, he would dutifully switch on the light and peer under the bed to reassure me that the monsters I feared were not real. His action taught me that courage lay in facing one’s fears.


Much of that love I accepted as my due with nary a thought. But it was only after I became a mother that I understood the depths of a father’s love, of the sacrifices that a man becomes willing to make for his offspring. And how love far from being a warm, fuzzy feeling, is always an act of the will.


And so, on March 17, his birthday, I salute my father. For all that he gave me, and all that he withheld for my sake, for all the lessons he taught me through word and deed, and all the lessons he let me learn for myself, for giving me deep roots and for teaching me to fly.








And on this day, my very own Father’s Day, I salute all those men who take their roles as fathers seriously.


Men who make changes in their lifestyles for the sake of their children.


Men who willingly undertake domestic chores that they always shunned, and happily feed, change and bathe their little kids, and yes, wash them after a toilet episode, with or without gagging.


Men who play rough-and-tumble games with their kids.


Men who turn homeward joyfully, delighted at the prospect of seeing a wide smile on a little face and of feeling little arms around his neck.


Men who dream epic dreams for their children, and are hurt when their children dream different dreams for themselves, but rally around eventually.


Men who strive to give their children those things that they didn’t have when they were growing up.


Men who make time to teach their children to ride bicycles, do school projects and a hundred other things that will be forever lodged in the memory banks of their children.


Men who feel rewarded when their children rush into their arms.


Men whose hearts somersault when they first hear their children call them “Dadda,” or “Papa” or any other word in any other language that is sacred because it means a father.


Men who realise that merely having a child does not make them fathers; they must work at being good fathers day after day.


Men who are prepared to always be on the steepest learning curves of their lives because the issues that matter keep changing as the children get older.


Above all, men who realise their own weaknesses and frailties but are still determined to make a success of this tough job called fatherhood.










A mother gets nine months to get used to the idea of the new life within her womb. But for a father, the transformation is the matter of a moment. No matter how closely the man has followed his wife’s pregnancy, no matter how well he is informed about trimesters and cravings, and other pregnancy jargon, he is swept off his feet by the miracle of birth.


Love wells up within him with all the violence of a piano falling on him from a fourth-floor window. He is transfixed by the fact that that little helpless new creation is a replica of him, his legacy to the world.










After my daughter was born, I was so tired after the superhuman exercise of giving birth, so full of the prodigious feat that I had accomplished, that it was with a quaint mix of delight and surprise that I realised that mine was not the only life that had changed forever. My husband was cradling our first-born in his arms, holding her tenderly, and gazing at her face.


He told me afterwards that he was entranced from the first moment when the doctor showed him the scrawny little being that was our baby. He asked me, "Do you believe in love at first sight?" I didn't answer. I didn't need to. The answer was there in his wide delighted eyes, the look of absolute devotion that would override all other expressions when he gazed at our daughter.


I saw, with surprise and awe, that while I may have given birth to the child, my child had given birth to the father.


From the beginning, my husband was amazing with our daughter. He knew instinctively when she was hungry, when she needed to be burped, when she was asking to be rocked, when she wanted to sleep. It was a treat to watch them together, and I was amazed at how right his instinct was. In those early days, he was patience personified, never losing his cool, slipping effortlessly into his new role as a father. Three years later, it is a role he is reprising with our son.












Motherhood is the most fulfilling tough job in the world. In its own way, so is fatherhood.


Being a dad is a difficult yet immensely significant role. It requires a man to seek to be involved in every stage of his children’s lives, putting their needs foremost, delighting in the milestones they achieve and agonizing over their heartbreaks and losses, fumbling to do the right thing for them out of a sense of duty and love, struggling to be a good provider and protector, and weeding and pruning the young ones during the growing season and running the risk of being unpopular sometimes.


As he gets deeper into his role, a father strives hard to raise a perfect child, in spite of his own imperfections. He struggles to make his young ones feel secure, in spite of his own insecurities. He juggles feeble knowledge of child psychology with conviction honed over a million years. He knows that he must strive to be a better man because his children are watching him more than they are listening to him.


But the job has its satisfactions. If he is a good father to his children, then it is more likely that his daughter will be a better mother and his son a better father, when it is their turn. Fathers who are involved in their children’s lives also give them a head start in life by imbuing them with a sense of physical and emotional security and building their self-esteem.


When a dad does his job right, the whispers of his actions are felt across time. Generations of daughters and sons will, I am sure, wholeheartedly agree.
 

A Dukedom Large Enough

The Strand book sale was on some time ago. Book lovers in Mumbai will know what that means. It means you set aside everything else and make that pilgrimage to Sunderbai hall at Churchgate for the sale. 

It isn’t every day that some of the greatest gems of English literature, not to mention history, biography, design, architecture and a host of other categories, are marked down to such a great extent. For those people whose heart skips a couple of beats on sighting the words, discount, sale and books, in the same sentence, this is truly a treat.


I have fond memories of the Strand sale. Some of the most priceless gems in my collection hail from there. As I sat down to write this post, I could think of other books that were waiting for me. I yearned to shut shop at work and rush to the sale, and yet the sale began and ended, and I did not go. Why, do you ask?


That’s what happens when a book lover marries a non-book lover. While I regard books as food for thought, my husband considers them food for termites. Where I think of them as storehouses of knowledge, he sees them as gatherers of dust.


My husband told me some time ago that I may not buy any more books, that if I wish to buy any more books, I must give up the ones I have. A sharp intake of breath escaped me. I could not believe my ears. Had my husband just asked me to give up my books? How could he be so cruel?


He claimed, in his defence, that he had never once seen me read them since our marriage. Insufficient grounds for desertion, I countered. How do I explain to him that merely having them in my life, within reach, is a great comfort? I may not have read those books in the last few years, but they are mine, familiar and homely, and it is with a warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart that I regard them.


Besides just because he hasn’t seen me read them, doesn’t mean I haven’t. If there is anything that exceeds the joy of reading a good book, it is the joy of reading a good book AGAIN. The experience can be likened to that of visiting an interesting yet familiar place in the company of an old friend. The fact that you know exactly what is going to happen next matters not one whit.


Mind you, I do not buy books unless I have read them before. They have to be ‘keepers’ before I put my money down for them. Of course, I enjoy a good whodunit as much as anyone else, but for such so-called ‘best-sellers’ there are always the famous ‘circulating’ libraries and the street booksellers, who stock both cheap two-penny and classic literature. 

It is at one such unassuming street bookshop that I bought my copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, with ‘To Manohar and his charming consort, Bharati – on their wedding day, 1903,’ inscribed on the flyleaf. The pages were brown and fragile when I bought the book (and at my shoestring college budget it was definitely dear at Rs 80), but how it must have been cherished by the bridal couple. And they must have been Shakespeare enthusiasts to get a gift like that.


There have been other jewels that I picked up from these street book haunts. Pied Piper by Nevil Shute, The Devil’s Advocate by Morris West, and A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams, among others. I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice, when I bid for those books. I was so afraid the hawker would see that I wanted those books and hike up the price.


Could I give up any of these?


What about the volume of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller that I cannot go beyond page 9, which I will finish some day?


Or the abridged editions of The Prisoner of Zenda, The One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist, that whetted my appetite for the real thing.


What about books like Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton and Christ Recrucified by Nikos Kazantzakis that taught me that prose could be poetry, that it could bring tears to your eyes and give you goosebumps?


Or Animal Farm (which by the way, I wish I had written) and 1984 by George Orwell that created such a stir in my mind?


Could I give up the Collected Works of Oscar Wilde and Saki and the Complete Short Stories of O Henry that occupy pride of place on my bookshelf? Not to mention All Things Wise and Wonderful by the inimitable James Herriot. (Note to self: Need to lay my hands on All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Creatures Great and Small, and The Lord God made them all.)


I could not part from One Minute Nonsense and Prayer of the Frog (parts I and II), both by Anthony de Mello, from which I am always able to glean new wisdom.


And you better not ask to borrow Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl which I read in college, and was greatly influenced by.


Nor can I do without my English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian dictionaries and my Roget’s Thesaurus.


There are so many books that have become a part of my life. Could I give them up? No way.


We have a shared history, these books and I. To me, these books are not just storytellers and purveyors of information. They have created their own worlds in my imagination and peopled them with characters, sometimes lovable, sometimes ruffianly, but always memorable. 

They are my friends, an inseparable part of my life and my consciousness. They have left an indelible mark on me. I am a changed woman for having read them. They have forged my thinking, fashioned and re-fashioned my perceptions, changed my life. To them, I return time and time again for conversations that are always spirited and alive.


Above all, I must make room for the books that haven’t been published yet. Books whose existence is now confined to a few manuscripts of long hand, but will someday come into their own — with my name on them.




Portable Magic
Books were always a life-saver. When the electricity conked off, or our national Doordarshan programming was disrupted, I turned to my books. I could spend hours reading, racing through each book, so that I could rush back in for another treat.


What fears did loneliness have then that could not be quashed by a book? When friends were scurried off by their parents on vacations, we had our books for company.


When we ourselves travelled from Bombay to Goa on the Great Indian Railways on a journey that seemed to take forever in the torpid summer heat, it was books that came to our rescue. Books were, as Stephen King put it, “portable magic.”




Decorating = Building bookshelves
I have always fantasised about having a library in my home, a room with books on all the walls from the floor to the ceiling. In that fantasy, I used to reluctantly set aside space for a low door, under which a true book lover would gladly crouch.


I have always felt that any room with bookshelves in it is well-decorated enough to suit me. I recall the library scene in the animation film, Beauty and the Beast. I fail to remember what exactly happens there in the library in the Beast’s mansion. But what I cannot forget are the stacks of books piled high from the floor to the ceiling. Only the room was massive, and the ceiling stretched as high as the spires.




Books and I
By non-reader standards, I was a strange kid. I could spend hours poring over old newspapers and tattered books and magazines. There was always something interesting to read there.


I remember how excited I was the first time I stepped into a library as a child. In that heightened state of excitement, I remember trying, mentally (and feverishly), to multiply the number of books with the number of shelves, and wondering if I would be able to finish all the books in that room, if I read, say, one a day. I also recall a distinct thought I had back then: that heaven must be a place where you could find all the books that had ever been written, in all the languages of the world.


When my brother became a member of the British Council Library, I used to go to the library in his stead every Saturday, borrow four books, devour them as fast as I could and return to the library the following Saturday to borrow another four. One of the librarians there would eye me warily, wondering perhaps when I found time to do the things that normal human beings do. I would hope desperately that there was no library rule against making too many trips in a single month.


We weren’t gifted any books as children, for reasons I’ve mentioned before. So all the books that my brother and I had were those that we had received as prizes at school for having topped a particular school subject in class. We used to spend the week after our school annual days devouring the books that we had received.


One year, I heard a nasty rumour that the school planned to hand out cash awards, instead of books, as prizes. I doubt any other kid was as upset as I was.




Teaching a Love for Reading
The habit of reading was inculcated in us at a very young age. Neither Dad nor Mum actually sat us down and read to us. That was an age when parents had no access to Better Parenting books. So they just let centuries of instinct and intuition supply what they lacked in knowledge.


And so it was that while today I have the benefit of knowledge, gleaned from scores of websites and books, on the best way to raise a reader, my father just read books. It was the sight of him reading, the look of absorbed reflection and delight so evident on his face, that told us, without words, how much fun reading could be.


As we grew older, Dad showed us his books. There was an air of quiet pride when he did that and I learned to understand what a treasure it is to have and hold your own books. It was then that the seed was sown, the determination to be the proud owner of my own collection some day.


I also have one other childhood memory relating to books. I remember asking Dad, “Will you give me your books when I am older?” I added, “I don’t want anything else,” perhaps intending to soften the blow.


“Oh yes,” he had said then, smiling at me. And he was as good as his word.


Today I can see Matilda, Winnie the Pooh and Noddy trying to encroach into my space on the bookcase and I am thrilled beyond measure. I want to raise a family of readers. Some of my most treasured moments have been spent with my daughter, my arms wrapped around her affectionately, with a book on our laps. 

As we read her favourite stories, over and over again, holding her chubby forefinger as we trace the embossed lettering on the books, I know that the words that she is listening to are dancing across the blossoming expanse of her mind. 

I modulate my voice to sound like Noddy or Tigger or Agatha Trunchbull, Matilda’s adversary, knowing well that she is literally hanging on to my every word. Sometimes I deliberately omit a particular word, only to be forcefully reminded of the remission.


There are many reasons why I cherish these moments with her. For one, it is time that I set aside for her alone. Movies, TV, household chores, office work, my own reading — everything else takes second place. All other noises are hushed. 

Little as she is, she knows that her multi-tasking, much harried mother is making her a gift of time – always a precious gift. But more importantly, she realizes that she is being initiated into the delights of reading, a pastime that is dear to her mother’s heart. Her mind is expanding. Her imagination is breaking boundaries. Her world is being enlarged. And the only equipment that is needed to achieve this is what author Christopher Morley once describes as “(not) just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue.”




How much is a Book Worth?
Time and dust, the two eternal adversaries of all things finite, have left their mark on my books. The covers of some of them, once shiny and bright, have faded. One or two of them are scarred by the blot marks of a wayward fountain pen. And the unkindest cut of all, one for which I am thoroughly ashamed, is the dog’s ears on some of my most cherished possessions. But neither time nor dust could diminish their worth in my eyes.






The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Pats Herself on the Back
Last week, my daughter held my face between her palms (a fail-proof way of getting her mother’s attention), and said to me, “Mamma, I become big then, you’ll give me your books, please. I don’t want anything else.”


I don't want anything else either.




(The title of this post has been adapted from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.)