You are amazing Pa!
Don’t you think that contributions that our parents have been making for us since our birth get muffled up under the mantle of busyness of our competitive world? Don’t they appear to have become the ‘obvious’ things, we think they are ought to do for us? And thus, sometimes, the slightest thing we seldom do for them appears to be a ‘favour’ rather than a small tribute ???
One evening, when I come back home from work, daddy has to compile a very important official document. He has got it almost ready, but before he e-mails it, he wants someone to review it once, because it’s of a very critical nature. And for the same reason, I avoid to appear in his sight. Afterall, I am quite pooped up after office.
But the moment he catches my glimpse, he beckons me to help him with that. I give an unpleasant expression, which he silently absorbs. I sit next to him, and take over the laptop. I first skim through it for use of few words or sentences, and highlighting the important points. But as the time passes by, it gets more and more elaborate and I start getting more and more agitated because I am not able to sleep on time, which would lead to bad office hours the next day.
When at around 12 in midnight, I close the work after ending up with that letter of 8 pages, I feel frustrated. But at the same moment, a pleasing thought crosses my mind, which acts as a catharsis to my annoyance… When I was small, daddy used to make me learn poems, literature chapters. He would scold me if I am not able to recite things properly, and the next moment when I would start crying, he would stretch his hands in front of me letting me scratch them with my small nails. I would not let him sleep until he would not recite me the same story of shravan kumar (I used to pronounce it as ‘Shabban Kumar’, lol!) every night. He would take leave from office to attend the annual day of my school when I would prod him to watch my stage performance.
You all would be very well familiar how school teachers torment small innocent children to bring crafted things for this or that exhibition on so and so festival. And so, for me, he once made a puppet, a paper plant and a vase out of cardboard, a duck of sand, a kitchen set of clay, and a collage on thermacol.
Whenever he did these things for me, he also would have not slept early. He would have spent a large portion of his salary on my education and up-bringing, and my whims and fancies as well. He was the one who took me to every venue of entrance exams after school and job-exams after college. And to tell you the truth, I would fill every examination form I would find would fetch me a good job. And he would have to spend the entire examination time of 2-3 hours outside, under the scorching sun on those hot summer days. I guess, many of you who would have visited the centre with their parents would be able to relate to this.
Even today, when he never forgets to prepare my fruit basket to carry office, I remember the childhood days when he used to prepare my water bottle. He would crush a lot of ice, so that the water remains cold for the whole sticky day. Then he would put the chunks of ice one by one into the small-mouthed bottle until it is entirely full of ice. He has done much bigger things though, but it’s even the smallest of things which touch your heart sometimes.
I can’t hold my tears while writing this small article for my daddy and for every father on this planet. I believe no one can take the place of our parents because their love is of the highest form. They spend the whole life worrying and working for our future, our health, our education, career and marriage, oblivious of the sacrifices they make for us every time every day. And that’s why I feel hurt when I forget to value them or when I talk to them badly.
May God make me keep doing all good things for them.
