My Father’s Presence
Among the earliest images in my memory, there’s one showing a ride in a tanga. It’s late in the evening – the tanga is driving down the road towards Brijendra Swarup Park. But wait! I am not yet old enough to have the least idea about that park or, of any destination at all. I’m just seated snugly between Ma and Baba…. there’s the rhythmical knock of hoofs and patches of light on Ma’s sari at regular intervals from under the street lights.
It can be supposed that in the early years of their married life, our parents used to go out in the evenings to visit friends or for a stroll in Arya Nagar – a part of the town familiar to us.
In another picture, I’m on all fours on the floor. Baba’s playing with me – he’s pretending to catch me and I creep under the bed to hide myself. I vaguely remember having broken a front tooth in the jostle – or was it he who got a tooth broken?
We surely played a lot together.
The next picture is memorable. It’s not from my own memory, but has got printed in my imagination since the day I heard its story from our mother. The story goes:
Baba was carrying me on his shoulders in the garden (showing me some birds hopping in the branches?), and our Thakuma who was looking on, went up to him and said –
Meyeke ato ador diyo na, tomar sat meye hobe!
The squirrel (kathbirali) on a tree heard her and squeaked: thik thik!
It was daylight, so the invisible stars heard her and smiled to one another:
Seven daughters?
Why not?
And what about sons?
Let them have four sons, okay?
Tathastu!
As you know, the auspicious forecast came true.
Those of you who would go for an analysis of the story and conclude that our Thakuma didn’t like girls, would be wrong. She did have a soft corner for the one or the other among us, but on the whole, her affection was distributed impartially, as were the sweets she prepared. I often received some special favors from her, because I had learnt Bengali and could read the Ramayana to her. On some afternoons when I came to Ma and Baba’s house, she’d take out her big Krittibas Ramayana in Bengali verse, make me sit by the threshold of her thakur ghor, and ask me to read out from one of the “khanda”. We sat on the floor warmed by the afternoon sun, and while I was reading some stirring passage, she’d express her appreciation by a little “aha”! Though I didn’t understand everything, I read fairly well and knew that she was enjoying the episode. But here, I see that I’ve skipped over a number of years.
The stars had decided that our Thakuma’s attention was to be diverted from the problem of getting her granddaughters married – imagine dowries multiplied by seven – so they sent us the first of the four boys they had promised – a fine boy to rejoice her heart.
I wasn’t yet three, but probably already a bit jealous of that pretty little thing. Soon it was found that he had a big belly, may be due to an enlarged liver. Dadu diagnosed the problem and prescribed a special diet for the baby. With all the care needed to follow the treatment of her little one and also for looking after me, our Ma was getting exhausted. One day, as Didima had come to our house, they spoke about the situation and she suggested that she’d take me with her to her own house (Dadurbari) for a while, so that Ma could recover from the pressure and the fatigue. Ma accepted, probably with the idea that it was going to be for a short while. But for reasons I ignore, I stayed on with Dadu and Didima and our aunts and uncles in that other house of ours, at 51/A, MacRobert Gunj through the years of my childhood and youth.
It had been decided with the best of intentions. Yet, many years later and after long and persistent searching, I could trace the cause of my lack of self-confidence in that “expatriation” from the parental house. It happened at a time of my childhood, when Baba’s proximity was a vital need to the building-up of my character. I developed a rebellious nature, unsatisfied with the reality and with myself.
That house gave me everything. The one thing it couldn’t give me was the warmth of my father’s presence.
To be continued.
