Father's Birthday

1

“Father was born in April”,

said my sister,

with the certainty of a witness to the event.

She would not budge,

even when his retirement file

discovered on his demise,

showed July.

2

Grandmother,

very cultured and highly literate

(in two languages)

had a foggy memory of the event,

much like the time line of the Marathi classics

that she read through pregnancy and childbirth.

(I had never seen her without her books.)

“April or July! How does it matter?”,

she had always said,

oblivious of birth charts and

anxieties about children’s future.

3

April is hot and July is wet.

My father had always a wry humour.

No particular month in the calendar

exactly fitted with his temper.

Perhaps he should not have been born at all.

Or he was quite simply an aberration

-ruled by an accidental mass

that spun out of some little known star,

too small to be a planet,

too large not to leave its imprint

on one man.

Perhaps, he was born

at that exact moment

when one month ended

and the next had not begun

-like that mythical man-lion

born at the twilight hour,

that was neither day

nor night.

3

“I know, it is April”,

my sister reiterated.

It is often said,

a vivid imagination

is a memory

left over from a past life,

which makes me wonder

if my sister was also my

grandmother- in part.

No person can be at two places

at the same time,

says the law

on which the penal code is based.

But is there a bar on any soul

living two lives at the same time?

Especially if it is split,

One part- an ahistorical mother,

And the other

-a daughter with a keen sense of history.

My Mother-2

My Mother-2

On a certain cool saturday afternoon,

my mother unwound her coils of memory

(like the coils of bandage over her varicose veins)

as children and thronging grand children

struggled unbelievingly to peek into

her prankful pigtailed past.

When the drama troupe had come to town

she had stolen out at the dead

of two successive nights

to see the same play twice.

(These days she turns the TV firmly off

if the evening movie is on air the second time.)

She had played marbles with that

dark skinned neighbourhood boy

who turned taciturn with every game he lost.

That one fateful day

when she took to the hills

and shared a tree-shelter

with a girl friend and one stray cow

for five hours as the

rain poured rivers down the hill side

and came home skipping

sodden skirt and all-

late, after night fall

to receive the one and only

spanking of her life from a

doting freedom fighting father.

She smarted real anger when

in the eighth year of her schooling,

her father took her out of school

and ended her marble dreams

and she in vengeance explored

the world of letters, reading every

book, novel, poem, essay-

any printed word that came her way

and dreamed and dreamed

till marriage cut her short.

At this point,

Father, who till now had sat sullen,

suddenly brightened

and came into his own.

(Remark: This last para too may make a good poem, but is not fair to my father.)  

Self Portrait

Self Portrait

1

Looking into the mirror,

I sense a certain elemental asymmetry.

The spectacles weigh down on the left

and a centipede-eyebrow

peeps over the rim on one side

but not the other.

The left nostril is smaller

than the right nostril,

and the stubbled cheek will not do

for the local passport photographer.

(“Have a shave sir”, he said deprecatively

before leading me to his studio

and offered free of charge-

a razor and some cream.)

The hair slightly parted

along a scalp-line on one side

is a style that has been recently dropped

from the menu card of the local barber.

2

The occasional visitor

would train his critical eye on me

like an artist would

on his canvas

and declare,

“He looks very much like his father”.

And I, in terror

would grab my father’s shaving mirror

to see if his ugly pock marks

had begun to sprout on my cheeks.

Years later, seeing us both in profile,

riding a scooter, a neighbour remarked,

“He looks so much like his father”.

I merely smiled, and was glad

when my wife did not share this view.

Time has erased his pock marks

and his crooked teeth have given way

to young denture.

The hair on my temples are greying.

With years,

only our resemblances have grown.

Our quarrels have grown more bitter.

(Remark: The last line may make for a good poem, but does not reflect the truth. In fact, but for a brief period, my father and I shared a deep empathy. I still recall his memory every day and remember him with pleasure and happiness.)

The Little One

The Little One

1

Because it was well known

that I had no children,

I was always embarrassed

-although I love her,

to call her my daughter.

Because for one thing-

she was not, and for another-

though discarded and in disuse,

she had a father,

whose name she carried.

Until, one day,

a friend speaking to another,

smoothly introduced her

as my daughter

and I,

was surprised,

when the other

did not object

or think it irregular!

2

When my wife,

I and she,

had all given him

our names-

to fill a form,

the clerk in the college office,

looked embarrassed-

but did not ask,

how we could make a family?

To comfort him,

I said briefly,

“We are a modern Indian family.”

3

“Don’t leave him any money”,

said the jealous relative

to my mother.

“He will pass it on that girl,

She is not even our caste!”

And my mother,

though old, clear headed,

said,

“Mind your own business”.

Later, in a pensive mood,

my mother,

when we were alone said,

“Do what you will,

with my money.

But educate her first,

till she can study no more.

She is after all-

a girl child and

will bring you much credit”.

4

“How can he be your uncle?”,

Asked her nosy teacher,

“Your name is different from his’.”

She, then only eight years old,

stood in silence

and did not reply.

Years later,

when asked the same question,

with a twinkling eye,

she replied,

“Many years ago,

when I came here from Kolkata,

I found him in my neighbourhood

-lonely, sad

(and also probably hungry).

So I adopted him

as my Uncle.