Happy Birthday, Baba!

"...Its a special day to me..Baishe Sravan..7th August.. .today is my father's birthday..For Bengalis the day become special when on 1941 our cultural icon Rabindranath Tagore passed way ...But, for me, this day was always special as my father's birthday! Maa has prepared payesh today..a typical birthday celebration in bengal..so is in my home too! Although, I am sitting at about thousands miles away getting updates only through phone! Me too have started  the day through offering a Puja to a nearby temple! But today its altogether different to us from the other years ..As this is the first time the birthday boy is missing! But who says so! Our offerings , our celebrations all are to you only...I don't know where he is now! You never know, may be he is just sitting beside me enjoying Rabindasangeet..Just the difference is, I am missing all his wise comments that he always shared with me..Somewhere in my heart a tune of sadness is flowing slowly.. where are all those precious moments that were only between two of us...a father and a daughter! His elder daughter ..inheriting all his facial resemblance and genetic heredity too..Don't know why, we always reacted in a same way to a song or a piece of literature...or to a Rosogolla or to a movie..The only difference is that, he was always a silent observer and me always bubbling in words..But when I have started living outside home, decided to shift Delhi only within only one evening, he started speaking to me ..more...what if that's only through phones! Always picking up my phones, always waiting anxiously whether my flight arrived in time..always keeping all the bengali pujabarshiki ( he could read that what I am missing in Prabash!) ..

He used to check all my writings in my childhood, compelling me on every summer vacation to translate any popular bengali story in English..it used to irked me a lot..but now when people couldn't believe that I am from a typical bengali medium student, I send a silent thanks to him only..He had a dream of studying Biochemistry but he can't ..well , he was a person of Organic Chemistry..But I took it as my Masters subject..a silent joy spreads through my heart ..I have fulfilled his dream..The day I got my Ph.D degree he has called all my relatives..just like when this silent man shouted that I cracked Medical entrance! Last one year, was the most turbulent phases of my life, in all those indecisive  anxious moment his words  can only sooth me! My Maa used to say that, Tupur can say a night a day if baba said so! Yes it is! But I also have not listen to him several time! I have not said a sorry when I was late in an Ashtami night, I won’t listen to many trifle as well as serious decisions of mine! But still, he forgave me every time..he wished to see me for last two month..this time too, I have not listened! I hope now he can listen all my words, silent prays, all my mind!...”

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This post was actually written in 7^th august 2011, the very year I lost him from this mortal world..today after three years I was just re reading this..Things have changed quite a bit, so as the city and the person may be! That was a huge personal loss nevertheless to say! What I feel now, actually a part of my soul was separated that time..What caused so much pain? Is it that I was not there? I cant hear his last words? No, certainly not..as far as I know my self I am pretty sure seeing him dying is the worst thing I expected to say..sounds selfish, I know..but its true..But now after three years I believe that why things were so difficult to articulate that he is not there, and paramita stop brooding! Three long years, things changed, so as my family! My sister got married, my mother now started coping with her empty hands..I do remember she told me that I should not make a habit of wearing shakha-pola after marriage, sounds odd! Actually, what I feel this changed status with a lot of costumes and customs reversal are both meant to give an additional baggage of bereavement to a person.I t is said time heals everything..You know what , time doesn’t heal, it is only the adaptive power of yourself got increased with passing time..Nature’s best adaptive creature we are ,after all!

A great pain sometimes makes you wiser, I started feeling how difficult a parenthood is..I started realising how bad it would have been for him whenever I have uttered a wrong word to him, now I start realising how the remaining part of  the always quarrelsome couple ( that is what I used to tell them), my mother, started missing him this much! I don’t know whether there is a place from where the spirits can actually listen to you (I believed on this notion, more on those days, and spent so many sleepless nights thinking that it was his earnest wish to meet me , so he would come to me atleast, but no, that haven’t happened), but it would be nice atleast on their side that may be a sense of satisfaction comes to his mind , atlast she started accepting how much she loved me. I , rather stick to that notion that after death person goes to an emotionless, painless form, so atleast I am happy that his Arthiritis pain is not bothering him that much! But again a counter thought comes then how could at my every point of distress he comes in my dream so concerned tensed and console me! Just like Harry Potter I also started asking, “is it real professor? Or is it happening on my head?” and like Dumbledore I console myself , “ off-course its happening inside your head Harry, but who said that is not real?” ..(Now I have started loving this series more at my thirties cause, I find now the layered tone of philosophy behind every innocent dialogues and acts)..Now one thing is changed,for sure, as I stopped going to pray in temples on these days. The gentleman called Almighty, if he would have been kind enough would have retained him in the mortal world, just to see our prosperity, so he doesn’t deserve my prayers for his in-human act (foolish adjective he is a non human, so don’t expect that from him), and on the contrary he was good enough in lessening the pain of the people so may be he saved him from a coming worse days of ageing and pain and lying on the beds etc. ( It’s a popular way of consoling , I have  heard this a hundred times from people), so he is done with his job and there’s no scope for a reconsideration! Actually, the best conclusion can be drawn is that I have become more pragmatic on offering rituals ONLY on a special day and I deliberately stopped making this days more ceremonial to mark his absence!!! The best way to feel happy is to start believe in Magic, that atleast there is a magical world where children losing their parents can actually see them can talk with them say thanks for their unconditional love and support, for me everything is same, only I can’t see him and the conversations are definitely going “only in my head”..so in a way now I am a bit more capable in converting my anger, outrages into a solitude of memoirs!! But one thing is unchanged, still at 12 o clock I say, Happy Birthday, Baba! Let that much of childish stupidity be remain on my ageing heart, a permanent Horcrux, every parent make unknowingly and every child bears happily within!