Thank You Pappa!
Life lessons that were far from sit-you-down-let-me-tell-you-a-story, untied the knots and ironed out the creases of my life.
This post should have been written during the
writing week when and gave the prompt “Permission”. I wrote something during the 6 minute prompt, which now is quite illegible (and must have been quite irrelevant considering I can’t even decipher it any more).But after mulling over it for weeks now, I realised that there were two episodes that flashed everytime I thought of (the expanded prompt) “who gave me permission and for what”.
1988
I must have been in class 4. It was lunch break. I had had my lunch and instead of being in school by now, I was standing in the balcony with my face thrust between the iron balusters, the forehead stuck to the handrail, body rocking to some nervous tick inside my body and eyes firmly fixed at the row of garages below.
This was unusual for someone like me. Lunch time meant fatafat food and then off to school to catch 10 minutes of play, with just about anyone. I was the kind of kid who loved both school and mum’s food and the fact that we lived barely 100 mts away meant as they say dono haathon mein laddoo hona.
So that day was clearly an aberration and dad guessed something was off. He came and stood next to me. Rested his hands on the handrail, and started rocking to the tune of the same nervous tick playing inside of me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Really?”
“I have to get a test paper signed. I have to give it to the class teacher after lunch.” Eyes still fixed on the garages below.
“So what is the problem?”
“I got bad marks.”
The paper was Correct Usage. And I scored a 30 or 35 out of 50. Now it is important to understand that I was an average student — 21st rank in a class of 47 students —so I wasn’t expected to score very high marks. But what I was most scared was that the English teacher, also my class teacher, Mrs Krishna lived in our building. And I didn’t want her to think I wasn’t good enough.
“That is not bad. You never have to worry about showing any marks to us.” He had said.
“Give me the answer paper, I will sign it. And if you are too bothered then “Try, Try, Try Again””.
I immediately freed myself from the railing, retrieved the answer sheet from under a set of books, got it signed, hugged dad and rushed to school.
That day dad gave me permission to live without fear— the fear of results, the fear of poor performance, the fear of not being able to reach out to the two most important people in our lives.
1996
I was now in 12th. I had learnt to ride the scooter— taught in parts by my dad, my mama, and a cousin. School was too close so the only place that I could ride the scooter—Bajaj Chetak or Super—was to the one tuition I took for Maths. I even did a computer course one summer just so that I could get to ride the scooter a little further than usual.
Anyway, on one such evening, as I raced with two guys (classmates) on my way back from the tuition, I met with an accident. It was a headlong collision with another scooter. I flew and fell with a thud on the road, lying conscious and tasting the road, metal and blood. This was just in front of my building, so my parents appeared on the scene pretty quickly. (This piece coming soon!)
Anyway, the impact was massive. I got away with eight stitches above my left eye. But it was really the scooter that bore the brunt. The mechanic had asked dad the next day — “Jo chala raha tha, wo zinda hai.” Dad had nodded. And chuckled.
I was at home for a week, nursing a swollen face. Our neighbours came to meet the ‘daredevil’. There were certain terms for people like us—riding scooter either for racing or impressing love interests— daredevils or road romeos.
As I sat in the room, I overheard a conversation between dad and D uncle.
“You shouldn’t have let her ride the scooter.” Pangs of guilt started swelling in my gut.
“But I taught her so that she could ride it.” Wow. Dad 1-Uncle 0.
“Then you shouldn’t have allowed her to drive on the main road.” Really!
“But I didn’t teach her to ride the scooter around the building. She will be fine”.
Dad 100-Uncle (still) 0.
The guilt disappeared. I smiled through the excruciating pain of a swollen face.
That day dad gave me the permission to falter and fail but never to give up or give in to what others thought was right or wrong. Simply put, if I survived an accident, I had to just get up, dust myself and get on that scooter again.
These were not the sit-you-down-let-me-tell-you-a-story life lessons. These were not even life lessons in real time. But what my dad did on these two occasions, untied the knots and ironed out the creases of my life.
I wish I could have thanked him for these moments when he was around. But I guess it is never too late… So Thank You pappa! And happy birthday.
16th July is dad’s birthday. And I can’t thank , , and my lovely writing circle, enough for keeping my memories alive and kicking.
Papa and I series is back ! These stories make me feel all soft and mushy savvy and that's such a rare feeling ...! What fantastic permissions
Savvy!! Our fathers must have been friends…or they are now friends in spirit! ✨✨ What beautiful stories. I’m glad you didn’t spend time reading through your notebook. These were waiting to be told.