Friday, June 15, 2007

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.

15 comments:

Mike Minzes said...

Great post!!! Great blog!!

I will be back

-0-0-

Risha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Risha said...

:) lovely post, I still dread to write about my Dad, lets see if I gather some courage today.
Uncle, yes what you said is right, his sense of humour, I can still hear his laughter in my ears, I think you gals got your humour from him.
I must confess whenever I saw you girls with your dad, I would miss my dad more, and complain to GOD as to why cant i have my Dad back.
lovely post, and I am sure with a mother like you, Joyce will have a lovely relationship with P, I already see changes in P (atleast through your post thats wht it seems like)after she's born.
Happy Father's Day!!!

Risha said...

BTW MANY MANY HaPPy Returns of the day dear,
May all your wishes come true, God bless!!

Tharini said...

Dear Sunita...just wanted to wish you a wonderful wonderful birthday! God bless you.

NainaAshley said...

Great post! Very touching!

Sunita said...

mike: Thanks for dropping by.
risha: I didn't realize what your loss was untill I lost mine. Thanks for the wishes.
Tharini: Thanks a lot for your wishes.
Naina: Thanks.

Pushpa said...

I couldn't read beyond the first para cos my eyes had these huge tears which fogged my sight...Will gather my courage to read it later...

N hey happy birthday to you girlie...

Pushpa said...

n finally here I m now again...absolute brilliant...n yes there are so many similarities that I can count...

Usha said...

Interesting and touching.
Funny as it may seem, at the end of the post, I felt like your dad is someone I know. Now I know what you meant when you said that even after one meeting people enquired about him!

Trishna said...

Hii Sunita,
This is a beautiful beautiful post.. SO very touching..And I know it must have taken a great deal of courage for you to write about your dad..coz I still havent been able to write about my mom..:)
God Bless you dear..
And Belated Happy Birthday to you!

Just Like That said...

looks like your Dad and mine would have been great friends. But then looks like he and I would have hit it off too.. I doubt abt my Mom tho'.. she treasures her crockery too much!

Hahahahahahahahahhahaha at the chakka nd manga. What a priceless memory! Lol

Ah, how Dads leave a gap when they go.....

It was your birthday..? many many happy returns, dear!

nidhi said...

he its really good

Sunita said...

@pushpa: :) sorry to have got you all senti
@usha: I am sure he would have enjoyed the company
@Trishna: Thanks for the wishes
@jlt: Thanks :)
@nidhi: Thanks

upsilamba said...

A very touchy post, Suni. I realize how hard it was for you to pen down all these thoughts.
You said it beautiful. Your Daddy is proud.