I was six when I realised that I had a father whom I had never met; at least in conscious memory. Mom and I had gone for a drive and I was to get a treat-the all-new Softy ice cream which were a thing of wonder to me. The way they swirled out of the machine onto the cones was something that never ceased to fascinate me. My favourite was the one where all the colours got mixed- yellow, green and pink.
I can still recall the chilled taste of the ice cream as I took my first few licks. I was so engrossed that I didn’t see mom talking to a stranger. Until she called me to attention and said “Here she is. Beta, this is your father. “I promptly hid behind her and peeked. This was my father? That strange figure in my world whose absence was never felt mainly because his presence had never registered. Of course, I had wondered about why I only had one parent while all my friends had two- mom & dad, mother& father, mummy & daddy; while my vocabulary was only confined to mom, mother and mummy. But honestly, at six it didn’t really seem to matter much. The swirling, and rapidly melting, colours of my ice cream were of far more importance.
Mom firmly tugged me out from behind her and I managed to stammer out a “Hello.” Having done my bit, I retreated behind mom again. I vaguely heard them talking, “how much she’s grown.” “Obviously she wouldn’t remember me.” “maybe we could catch up sometime.” Phrases that entered and left my ears within seconds.
Years passed and as I grew up strangely enough, I was never very curious about my father. Whenever we spoke of him, mom was always careful never to pass judgement. By the time I was 11 I had the facts in front of me- how they had met when she was 19 and he 20 and fallen madly in love. How his parents were dead against a Punjabi daughter-in-law, being strict Tamilians, how mom and dad used to meet secretly and one day ran away and got married secretly. The opposition, the blissful period after marriage, the cracks that started appearing all to soon and the almost clinically amicable divorce, with mom getting my full custody. It sounded like a plot straight out of Bollywood to me and I would look at mom and try and imagine her as the heroine of the story. Tough to do because for me she was just Mom!
When I was 11, we shifted to Delhi. One day mom said she needed to talk to me. My dad had reached out to her and wanted to meet. She left the choice up to me. I was curious enough to agree to the meeting. As the day drew closer, I could feel the apprehension starting to mount. What if he didn’t like how I had turned out to be? Was there some deep-seated need in me to gain his approval, even though he was a stranger to me? In those days, Vasant Continental hotel in Vasant Kunj was considered the epitome of luxury and that’s where he wanted to meet us.
I recall the wide-eyed wonder with which we entered the hotel. The high ceilings, the ornate designs everywhere-it was like stepping into another world. As I looked around, I saw a distinguished looking man walk up to us. I dimly heard mom say “Hi, how are you?”. My eyes refused to look up and I could feel my heart beating loudly in my ears. The stranger, my father, knelt down and handed me a box. “This is for you, why don’t you open it?” I looked at mom and she nodded. I opened the box and gasped at the sight of a beautiful watch nestled in blue velvet. Above it was a note which said “to my daughter, to make up for lost time.” And the ice broke.
It would be fair to say that I went through a phase of idol worship where my father was concerned. Maybe all daughters do, I wouldn’t know but for a few years from the time I met him at 11 till I was around 20, I thought he was fantastic. This opinion was also reinforced by the fact that he and mom got along really well. Dad stayed in Bangalore and often made work trips to Delhi. Whenever possible we would meet, more often than not he dropped by home and requested to have food cooked by me- something that made me immensely proud. Sometimes he and I would meet in the lobby of whichever hotel he was staying in but most times mom was also there. I got a glimpse into what life would have been like had they not divorced. Maybe. He told me about his daughter from his second marriage- a thought that filled me with wonder. I had a half-sister. I promptly packed my cherished barbies and sent them for her through him. I loved hearing him talk about his parents- my grandparents. And then one day he brought them over to Delhi and I met them. I felt like I had gained a whole new family and somewhere I began to wonder whether mom had given up too soon on the marriage. He didn’t seem like the irresponsible, shallow person she had said he was. In fact, they seemed to get along like a house on fire.
More years passed and my interactions with him continued. He invited me to stay with him and his current wife in Bangalore to celebrate his 50th birthday and I went and got to meet my half-sister. On a trip to Mumbai I visited my aunt (his sister) and my grandparents. On a work trip to Pune mom met with his parents and they mended fences- an attempt to set aside 30 years of bitterness and to lay to rest the memories of countless wrongdoings. It seemed that things were on a good track. I had a great job, a supportive mother and now a tangible father. The only cloud on my horizon was that dad’s visits to us became clandestine and less frequent, the reason being that his wife wasn’t too enamoured with the idea of me or my mom!
Soon after I met a guy and we decided to get engaged. His family had family in Punjab who were ultra conservative and so I was told that while it was a hard-enough pill for them to swallow that my parents were divorced, it was definitely not going to be acceptable if my dad landed up at the engagement with his current wife. I met dad and explained the situation to him and he was fine with it. His wife and I had never taken to each other so it wasn’t like I would really miss having her around. She treated me with faint contempt and always told me how lucky I was that dad wanted to keep in touch with me.
Arrangements were made, the venue booked, menus decided. I was in regular touch with dad who was supposed to fly into Delhi the morning of the engagement. My grandparents were to arrive the evening before.
There are moments in one’s life which become etched in stone-as though someone reached out and pressed pause; immortalizing that minute or two in the film of one’s life. For reasons beyond our control my engagement got postponed. In a flurry of phone calls, I remembered that dad and my grandparents also needed to be told. I called him repeatedly but there was no answer. I sent texts, dropped an email and tried every way possible to get in touch with him. Then with mounting worry mom and I called the relatives with whom my grandparents were supposed to be staying. They informed us that they had never turned up. By then I was convinced something was horribly wrong. We called every possible person- friends, family- no one answered our calls or messages.
Finally, after a few hours my aunt picked up the umpteenth call I made to her. I almost sobbed with relief into the phone. “Bua, what has happened. Where is papa? Where are my grandparents?” There was a long silence at her end as I prepared myself to hear the worst.
“They didn’t come to Delhi. We have decided collectively as a family that we want nothing more to do with you. Since you didn’t invite his wife to your engagement and she is what makes him happy, we want no part in your happiness.”
It’s been 11 years since then but I remember the words exactly as she spoke them. I remember the hatred in her voice, the arrogance at having shown me, her niece, her place. In these 11 years I have gotten married, had kids and touchwood have a fulfilling life. Yet there are times when I remember him, that person who I never had a desire to know. Who entered our lives when it suited him and let his eldest daughter down in a most cowardly manner possible. He never even had the courage to tell me to my face that he wasn't interested in being a part of my life. He figured he would let the humiliation of not showing up at my engagement do the trick. His presence in my life was an aberration. In reality, he was all along what he knew being best-an absentee father.
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