“My daddy strongest!!”, a young girl in an old Complan commercial screamed at the camera and left a lasting impression on my mind. I always saw my dad as someone who was indeed the strongest in a lot of aspects. Even behind his tears, I could sense an uncanny strength, the strength to suck up to a bad situation and take control. If I inherited something from him, it was the fact that he was a fighter.
The first memory to come to my mind when I think of him is the time when he gave his last 200 bucks to an imposter, who pretended to be a beggar. On my questionable look at his generosity to a potentially undeserving man, his answer was “He must need it very badly to come up with a lie like that” and then he paused and said, “Don’t tell your mother”. Despite my higher emotional proximity to my mother, I didn’t tell her. At that moment and to this date I wish I could be half as generous a person as he was.
I was really young and had worn a “Churidar” for the first time with all the works. As is the scenario in most Indian households the elders began to rave about how good I looked in the Indian attire. The obvious successive thought was to start planning my marriage. I remember my father snapping immediately and saying “she will marry whenever she pleases. I see her as economically independent and educated before even thinking of something like this”. Obviously, the fact that my relatives were furnishing a bad joke didn’t settle with him. I don’t remember anything else about this day, but my dad’s words still remain in my memory.
My father’s anger was rather infamous in the family, so much so that I shuddered at the thought of studying from him. He had the knack of delivering ‘filmy’ dialogues at the onset of a fight. One of his favourites was “I don’t even expect you to give me water when I grow old and ask for it”. Ironically on the day of his cremation, I poured the last drops of water into his mouth. I concluded that indeed God’s sense of timing is sick.
As selfish as I am, I am glad that my father died a happy man because of me (and his family). He was proud of my promotion. My mother says (and I believe her) that after my phone call he couldn’t stop laughing and kept telling my mother that I was HIS daughter. My only regret in life would be not being able to meet him and celebrate.
I loved him by virtue of being my father and I respected him for the man he was. To me, to my mind, My daddy will always be the strongest.
