Readers Write In #864: Who do we ‘miss’ the most?

By Jeeva P

Everyone misses their deceased fathers. My father as early as his childhood had the functional portion of his left foot amputated – an injury that left his psyche bruised probably for eternity. Despite that, he was self-made almost entirely – his father didn’t care much about his thirteen kids and barring support from his elder brother in his formative years, he had to fend for himself for the most part, make his own mistakes, find his feet and create his own path. He was a teetotaller and thanks to his fascination with socialism didn’t let himself be seduced by a luxurious, consumerist lifestyle that was right in front of him. He walked to his office or more often used public transport, saved his money first and then spent the remainder, married into a poor family, battled two bouts of cancer as early as his thirties and survived, stood up and continued working for his family, saved money once again, sent his son to high-profile institutions for his education and finally got him married to a woman he adored.

If I look back, it is a story of hardship, struggle, toil, blood, grime and sweat for the most part. His whole story if made into a film would give the viewer a flavour of what we saw in Rajnikanth’s Aarilrunthu Arubadhai Varai. Now let me come to the purpose of this essay – are the above the only reasons why I miss him the most? My father spent almost the best part of his life towards, to use a time-worn cliche, ‘sculpting’ a future for his only son. But is that the only reason why I would be missing him till the last breath of my life? Now let everyone ask the same question to themselves – do we miss or love our fathers only because of the ‘sacrifices’ they had made for our sake? Isn’t every father great in his own way to his kid? Isn’t every father a real hero to his son or a daughter? So what exactly I now want to find out, distinguishes my father from everyone else’s?

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Whenever I play a Vadivelu comedy sequence from YouTube – say a scene from Vishal’s Thimiru where Vadivelu gets ready to celebrate his birthday. Vadivelu stands in front of a temple tower, makes his customary prayers with closed eyes, performs a spin with his body and opens his eyes only to find the temple missing! He is shocked at the realization and later finds that it is only right behind him. Instead of performing a 360-degree roundabout, he has done a 540 and as a result has woken up in the opposite direction! Even now when I see this scene on YouTube, I still cannot forget how my father guffawed at Vadivelu’s expressions of bewilderment at that moment while we were watching the scene on Adhitya TV a decade back.  

My father was a big Nagesh fan in his childhood and it was me who introduced him to Goundamani and the funny nuances of Vadivelu’s body language. I used to explain to him every small frame in a Vadivelu comedy sequence where his face undergoes subtle changes as it progresses and how inimitable that man was when it came to enacting the voices of the mind. Whenever we had leisure, we used to switch on Adhithya TV and wait for his scenes to be played. After a point our exposure to Vadivelu comedies had reached such unhealthy levels that I was on the one hand struggling hard to stifle my laugh while attending the viva- voce during my Engineering Practicals – the moment I sat in front of my External, my mind immediately used to hark back to ‘Girikalaa, udamba irumbaakika, ada mazha arambichu velutha vaangapogudhu!’ and my father’s mind on the other hand while waiting for his bus at his DMS stop used to distract him with ‘Bus varuma varaadha! Paathurkaaingala Paakalaya? Bus varradhuku edhaachu ariguri irukaa? Idhu enaku therinjaaganum!’ from the daily monotony.

Apart from Vadivelu and movies, we had some other topics to discuss too – Politics, Society, History, etc. My father had never been a solo traveller and had always loved to take mom and me with him wherever he went. So during train or bus journeys, we always had topics to discuss with each other just like how we make small talk with friends of people of our own age groups. And most importantly, all these topics had one crucial thing in common – they had absolutely no connection to the nitty-gritty of our everyday lives! Of course, I have had conversations with him about my college, my subjects, my teachers and later my managers, my daily commute and even my financial situation. But these have not lasted for more than five minutes every time and our most favourite subjects for long, idle and deep conversations have always been about things that have had no direct impact on our daily lives!! And these conversations along with the moments we spent together watching movies and Vadivelu comedy scenes are the ones I miss the most about him!

Since we have talked about everything under the sun so deeply, so fulfillingly, the years spent seeing my father’s senses disintegrate steadily under Parkinsonism, seeing his thoughts getting clouded and disjointed due to degenerating brain cells, his ‘staccato’ voice dissipating into indecipherable moans and whimpers owing to dyskinesia and neural atrophy would remain phases that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

But let me not dwell on the tragedy too deeply and quickly return to the subject here. Of course, I miss my father’s concern for my well-being, the way he planned my life and saved for it until I would turn 51 (he made me subscribe for an LIC Pension Plan that would pay me back till I reach that age!), the way every fibre of his being ‘brimmed’ with love and warmth for me. But apart from all of these things that are common to every other father out there, there is something that immediately chokes my breath and stuns my train of thought every time I sit alone and let my mind wander – those moments that I shared with him – those moments where we barely spoke about ourselves, our daily tasks and duties and responsibilities! My mother then used to scold both of us for talking about things that could potentially offer no real benefit to us and things that are not going to change no matter how much time and energy we spend talking about them. ‘Both of you talk about cinema as though you both are writers and film-makers! Just cut that out and let me know what chutney you want for tonight’s dinner first!’

As I look back, whomever I have spoken to with only regarding the bare essentials of the situation at hand or about our own daily lives generally – they could be my colleagues, classmates and relatives – no matter how long I have been with them, I have to admit that they have barely made an impact on me and my psyche. Of course, I have worked with them in the office and completed projects on time which ultimately have made an impact on my career and I am at the end of the day, deeply grateful for that, no denying that. But now that I am no longer in touch with them, I have to concede that I don’t miss them one bit. I feel absolutely no longing to connect with them and speak to them again! Why? I have had close relatives too who are no longer alive but were deeply concerned about my well-being and loved me with all their hearts during their lifetimes! But let me remind my reader that I no longer miss them only because of one reason – the only ‘intercourse’ I have had with them had always been focussed on marks, money, careers and commute! 

On the other hand, I still remember and cherish memories of friends from my older organizations with whom I am still in touch over phone, despite the fact that we have had opportunities to work together only for the briefest periods of time! Why? 

All of these things boil down to only one thing – the subjects of conversations or interactions I have had with them have for the most part fallen only outside the scope of our daily lives – the political discourse of those days, the quality of cinema then, the calibre of cricketers, the spending habits and values of society then, etc. And that is precisely why I think I miss my father the most too and Jeyamohan was the one who in a recent video was able to diagnose that with astonishing accuracy. Whenever a son and a father talk to each other over things like the former’s exam, his career, his school bus, his mother, their interaction springs supposedly only from the nature of the roles they play – the father talks only as how a father must do and the son responds only appropriately as he must in return. So mundane interactions like these do not, according to Jeyamohan, leave an impact on the psyche of both. Only when two people discuss things that have no link or influence on their daily lives, do they shed their respective ‘roles’ and speak from where their real selves reside. They in other words, become ‘friends’ in the process, make a real connection with each other and that is what precisely every human mind is known to be craving for.

This way of interacting, talking about things that do not need our ‘hats’ to be on all the time, is what Jeyamohan prescribes as a panacea for relationships that are brittle or are in the danger of breaking down. He wants every new husband and wife, or a brother and a sister if they think they need to have long-lasting, meaningful relationships with each other to have interactions like these where they step outside the confines and pressures of their daily lives and deal with each other as ‘friends’. I still know plenty of friends who have had really caring fathers like mine but despite all of that do not ‘honestly’ miss them much living abroad leaving them to solitary lives in India. For years together, I had been wanting to find an answer for that and Jeyamohan’s video on his UnifiedWisdom Channel on YouTube finally helped me find that.