My Daddy

It is very painful even today to think of Daddy without my eyes welling up. After he left us I have tried innumerable times to write about him but its just too difficult. There are nights when I long to see him & hold his wrinkled hands and see that smile on his face. For this Father's day I will just pen a few things that typically is my Daddy.

Loving, Giving, Passionate, Hardworking & a very good sense of Humor would probably be the 5 things to describe my Dad.

My Dad has great regard for family. Its only because of him, inspite of having had minimal chances to meet many extended cousins, we still can claim to know them & have that longing to know about them and wish to remain connected with whatever little means available. Many of my mom's extended family(thatz a huge one) who would have met my dad just once, would enquire very affectionately about him & tell us he told me this or that. He was very charming especially with oldies in the family.

The one thing probably he alone has ever done is to cry at my cousin brother's wedding. We were like ..WHAT HAPPENED??? Why is Dad crying and it seems he went all nostalgic about how he was a little boy and now getting married. He left us all stunned for words.

Daddy is known to be a spend thrift in the family. He loved gifting and he never missed a chance. He had good taste too so all he bought was put to good use by all. He was very fashion conscious as well. I got him a swiss watch from switzerland(the one he is wearing in the snap) and he tells me, this is not trendy.Mouth wide-opened, hands thrown out, I went.....WHAT???..He wanted a slim dial ...Yeah thatz my Dad.

He loved his job and was very passionate about owning a firm. Long before he decided to take the plunge, he would bring all kinds of raw materials home and experiment with it. He designed a machine(not sure what its called..Duh!!)to press treated papers under pressure and heat to make laminate-likes. It was designed on paper in our drawing room. He was very inclined towards research and would be constantly finding ways to improve his invention.He finally did start off on his own & risked everything just to do that. He followed his heart. He put in his body & soul to whatever the word "fullest" means. The story of his dream is probably fodder for an another post. I learnt from him to love my job and give it a 200%.

His sense of humour is responsible for his reputation of an easy-going guy for people of all ages. With our casual mannerism my mother was always scared if we would get on first name basis with him. His vile temper is also a known thing. The famous incident of my life was he throwing a plate like a disc, which went past our drawing room to the fields near by. Though he was pretty angry then, we did always made fun of mom wanting to hide all her crockery before getting into an argument with dad.

He could never teach us maths. He never had the patience to let us grasp and he would explain the same stuff in different ways for our advantage which always had us all the more confused. He used to get frustrated with his dumb kids and then there were flying pans and cups in the house. We dreaded those Daddy-teaching days. Very predictably, we will be crying out of frustration in flat 5-10 mins and just wait for the torture to end.

An another incident we have laughed over a zillion times is when my father after spending 2 hours teaching subtraction to my sister in her 2nd grade asked,
You have 10 pencils. I take 2 pencils, how many pencils will remain.
My sister took her time and answered
"8"
Daddy a little happy at the progress asked her,
"8 what??...chakka aano mangaa"..(literally translates to jackfruit or mangoes).
He basically wanted her to say 8 pencils but she was all worked up with the jackfruit, mango thing that suddenly seemed to need a vote....and after thinking for 5 minutes blurted
"mangoes".
My frustrated Dad not knowing what to do next asked her,
"who told you that?",
Completely out of answers my sister came up with the "Gem of answers ever answered in the Thomas household" ..
"God".
And I guess that is when he gave up hope on us.

We could talk anything & everything to Dad. We used to talk about regular job stuff, friends, regular beauty treatments, discuss politics, movies and so on. He was well read and well informed and trust him with good advice on what to buy, features to look for and when to buy kinds.

He loved children and I have seen him play with my nieces and nephews and I miss him for Joyce. I can see him dancing with Joyce in tow. I can see him teasing Joyce by asking her to count his hair(he was bald). Nothing can begin to say how I miss seeing him hold Joyce and Sharon. There is just too much to write and way too many memories but feels good to have penned this bit down.

I think with daughters, fathers get too worked up and worried for their safety as they grow. At the risk of being annouced 'old fashioned', being unreasonable might seem the right way to go. I hope Joyce would have that warm, friendly, cool and can-confide-anything kinda relationship with her Dad when she grows up.