There is a war raging within and rains
pouring without. The rain outside is very
welcome ; it brings with it cool weather and beauty in nature after it
abates. The plants look green and smiling,
and the squirrel on my window sill is back, demanding his share of my evening
snack, while keeping an eye out for the wily crow.
But what about the war within me, which is causing me to cry without a break? How do I explain to this tender feeling in me, that I get when I speak to my father, who keeps saying, "its been a long time since I have seen you"...? During a twenty-minute conversation, he asks the same question ten times. For, he is 87 years old, confined to the house, with only the idiot box for company. He misses people to talk to; so he starts to have conversations in his mind. He spins yarns which become reality for him, and they become his world. A world when he was young, agile, in control of his life and dreams. Today, when he plaintively told me, his knee no longer troubles him, he is feeling much healthier, I could not stop the tears that burst forth, forming a lump in my throat. He keeps forgetting our names, but makes a brave attempt to substitute them with generic words, hoping the other person will not notice. I play this game with him; i urge him to say the names of people and places, and then pretend I have also forgotten; it makes him feel so much better, he consoles me saying, "it's ok if you have forgotten; I do it all the time. You are young and active, and you will remember by and by."
But what about the war within me, which is causing me to cry without a break? How do I explain to this tender feeling in me, that I get when I speak to my father, who keeps saying, "its been a long time since I have seen you"...? During a twenty-minute conversation, he asks the same question ten times. For, he is 87 years old, confined to the house, with only the idiot box for company. He misses people to talk to; so he starts to have conversations in his mind. He spins yarns which become reality for him, and they become his world. A world when he was young, agile, in control of his life and dreams. Today, when he plaintively told me, his knee no longer troubles him, he is feeling much healthier, I could not stop the tears that burst forth, forming a lump in my throat. He keeps forgetting our names, but makes a brave attempt to substitute them with generic words, hoping the other person will not notice. I play this game with him; i urge him to say the names of people and places, and then pretend I have also forgotten; it makes him feel so much better, he consoles me saying, "it's ok if you have forgotten; I do it all the time. You are young and active, and you will remember by and by."
He keeps asking for my daughter and wonders
why she did not fight a case he has fought
and won. He promises to hand over
the case file to her when we visit him next.
This is when I know he has never seen the inside of a court room all his
life. But I don’t shatter his world; he
is so happy there. Happy that someone is listening to his fables. For a few brief moments, I visit his world
with him. He talks about the time he
played tennis at a club close to home (which is true!). And we share happy moments. All the
while, I am weeping away. Because of this
distance that I am perhaps talking to him for the last time, or perhaps I may
not see him or hear his voice: for a while; or perhaps ever.
And all this is over the phone; not because I am staying too far away to
visit him. Not because I don’t want to
go and look him up. It’s just over the
phone because I am too cowardly to make the trip and put myself through the
discomfort of the unpleasantness I face everytime from the environment, where I
am judged, made to feel I am living an unapproved-of life by the rest of the
family. I choose to stay away because I
am choosing to not get more hurt when I have barbs like I don’t belong because
the family is scared of me, they do not feel comfortable talking to me, and such
other one-liners hurled at me. So I
compromise by not spending time with the
first man in my life. I wonder
whether I will ever be able to forgive my family for this...
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