26 Jun 2025 / Mind & Memoir

The man who was my father

My father has been dead 25 years. He died of a cardiac arrest; most common cause of death in my family – in both parallel lines of the mix that’s me. Throw of dice cast me in a hearty and heartfelt clan, most elastically stretched in definition. By virtue of being a heartless man I am immune to this threat.

I never loved my father. He loved me as fathers usually love their sons, fathers of a certain vintage. My father was a hard man. Masculine in the classical sense. He was strong, physically {I couldn’t defeat him in arm wrestling even at his age 72}. He was strong emotionally, I remember the slap I received as a young boy of four or five for crying because I had been beaten by the neighborhood bully. He made me challenge the bully, go down after a good fight and not cry. He taught me courage.

My father was a senior civil servant, had a string of post-graduate degrees, spoke six languages, was very well read, spoke in neat diction and measure. Was a grammer nazi and very methodical, neat and ordered in everything he did. As a proof-point of refined up-bringing, had iron discipline and a good handwriting; never snitched nor gossiped, lived by a gentleman’s code of conduct and all the rest of it. He was a silently disgruntled man though. He hid it well, but was unable to subdue it entirely. He was always in the internal wrestle. Post Independence India rankled him on many counts. Loss of feudal privilege {his father, though had a law degree and was a modernist while lording over what remained of the lands}. My man detested the servile, obsequious, greasy men who dealt in favours and networks/ Unfounded sense of entitlement which now swayed between the WOGs and raucous upstarts, socialism, this country’s wretched state of overpopulation, and all the rest of it. At the core, I suspect, by the fact that after close to 400 years of feudal lineage he had to work for a living in socialist India. He was practical about it of course and while confessing to this fact much later in life, told me the reason for his disgust ---- “the rise of ugly servants” is what he said. He believed (I do too) that gentrification is long-drawn process. That “democracy is a dangerous idea because it rests on the belief that the majority must prevail. The majority are imbeciles. Mean, low, petty fellows.” he'd say. He adjusted well to his circumstances I must say -- he was moderately successful, walked the straight line. It kept him trammeled, but that’s ‘civilization and its discontents’.

I realize now, towards the end of my run-way that fathers serve as crucial role models for their sons, demonstrating how to navigate life, build relationships, and achieve success. Providing a safe and supportive environment where sons can feel comfortable expressing emotions and seeking guidance. While providing guidance, fathers should also allow their sons the space to explore their own interests and develop their own sense of identity. Recognizing that each son is unique and fostering individual strengths and interests is important. He did all this in his quirky way. On the last point he considered me a runt – I am 5’9’’ and average, he was 6’ 1’’ and strong. He considered me soft – I am, for that which I hold dear. He considered me wayward – I wore my hair long, was a drifter sometimes – ides of youth. My father tried very hard and very long to teach me things a gentleman must know. These included hand-to-hand combat, the difference between various types of shirt collars, styles of tying the necktie, of shoelaces, the differences and subtleties of colours and shades……He tried very hard to get me to learn typing (days of typewriters). It was a nice skill to pick up and a skill is a skill, he said. I never bothered…a long litany of being unbothered…I remember his skills, several : from gardening (I picked up love for plants from my parents) to electronics (wasted on me) to mechanics of cars and scooters (wasted on me again), to maintaining things well and in perfectly primed state (me too) ---- I have a National (dead Japanese brand) transistor radio which precedes my time as a memento from my father and a 1970 Rolex. He taught me many things…I cared only for a few…After he died, I gave away his extensive collection of Urdu literature and homeopathy manuals besides the vials and a beautiful carrying case. His clothes and shoes (several styles) too, except two tweed jackets (one is Harris tweed) and some neckties, I retain. His cufflinks, fountain pens, handwritten letters my grandfather wrote to him, some books of my father and grandfather, a few family albums…detritus of life. I picked up my reading habit from him, my understanding of history, of human nature and character sometimes. The unalloyed family history he narrated and then buttressed with old temple records --- of mercenary Rathore soldier roots, an ancestor who used to shelter Thugs, of another latter-day great grandfather who gave away the family fortune to a dancing girl…I especially liked the frayed link we had to Daku Maan Singh through one of my great grandfather’s wives….the second and crippling loss of feudal lands and my grandfather’s insistence towards modernity etc etc. Every family has its tales, its tellers and its times...I had mine too. Somehow, I never related to his in-difference bordering on cruelty sometimes towards animals ---- my entire life has been driven by my love for them. In this, we were diametrically opposite. And yes, I was a sentimentalist, a man who has always lived by the heart. I neither know any other way nor do I care. There were differences, there was disdain, disgust even, confrontation, rebellion… Just as there was admiration, respect, affection, care and regard….the boundaries were tested but never breached. Secretly, my father (I am reasonably certain), and I (absolutely certain) liked and respected aspects and attributes in the other. Over time, our relationship mellowed to a comfortable presence. The Goldilocks effect – not to close, neither too far. I remember him sometimes. Sometimes factually, sometimes fondly. As I do, I understand how I must have bruised him – unintentionally and intentionally. I met him on the last day of his life. He was at his sister’s and was staying over for a medical appointment the next day. We ate dinner together. He died in his sleep. As I reached my aunt’s flat the next day, from the position in which he lay in the guest bedroom, it seemed he was trying to get up. I don’t know why – to reach for help? his medicines? A prosaic reason which matters even less than it would have then. We are inconsequential blips I know, in a zero-sum game, but we do dance about fair bit…. We form articles, associations, relations…we thrust and we parry…we lunge and we cower…the pantomime is intensely consuming. And then, just like that, it pops into a whiff of ether on the whim of time.