Dearest Appa,
Guess it took me 25 years after you left without a goodbye to write a letter to you, huh! I’m sure you will forgive me for not writing earlier – the first decade, my teenage years, were quite tumultuous, when I was alternating between being angry at you for dying and furious at the all-knowing, all-seeing almighty for refusing to listen to my prayers (for I used to pray for your health daily!), and then you started to fade in my mind as a tangible memory and became more of an idea, a concept, a totem to contain all of my unreleased emotions and unrequited longing for a father figure. But, enough time has gone by now, I feel like reminding you of our life together, and then filling you in on our lives in the two-and-half decades that you missed.
Appa, do you remember us walking hand-in-hand when I was 5 or 6 years old, with you telling me we’re best friends forever (“Gandhi-Nehru dosti dosti” were your exact words)? Because I still do! Oh, those were the halcyon, tranquil days of my childhood in the quaint little town of Badlapur, when you always took out time to play cricket, kabaddi with me! Now that I’m older, I marvel at how you always found time for us kids, in between working two jobs and running a kirana store with Amma. Appa, do you remember reading Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and The Sea to me at night? I’m so grateful to you for giving me the eternal pleasure of the habit of reading books. I have preserved all your favourite books still – the old Chekov’s plays, Shakespeare’s tomes and Pandit Nehru’s autobiography that you used to love to quote from so much.
Most of all, Appa, do you remember me bowling to you? You used to say I’m going to be the best leg-spin bowler in the world after Shane Warne, and I believed it too! I’m really thankful to you for managing to put me in cricket coaching class and paying for it from your meagre English teacher’s salary. You were oh-so-dedicated in helping me practise my defence – do you remember hanging a ball inside a sock from the ceiling for knocking practise? I’m sorry, Appa, for not fulfilling that dream of yours – I quit playing cricket and having anything to do with cricket after you passed. Those first 11 years and 312 days of my life were days of my innocence, of carefree happiness, of coming home with bruises and swellings from playing all day, and telling you all about my day.
Appa, all of that ended on July 20th, 1998. It’s a day that’s seared into my memory like someone took the burning log from your pyre and plunged it into my brain. Appa, I didn’t understand then what had happened, and I didn’t process it, didn’t understand it and didn’t accept it for a long, long time afterwards. Appa, no one told me why you’re lying in an ambulance with cotton in your nostrils, no one told me why they put you on a pile of logs and made me light it on fire. Appa, I couldn’t express my sorrow for a long time. I finally cried for you, Appa, for everything you missed, for everything we missed, today after 25 years. I missed you, Appa, and, I guess, I will continue to miss you forever.
So, let me walk you through everything that happened with your family in the intermittent years so far. Appa, all your children are well-educated and comfortable in their lives now. Appa, I’m a married man now – I’m sure you’d have gelled well with my wife, Kashika – a father to three rambunctious boy dogs, and an engineer with a well-paying job. Your oldest daughter, Kavita, is a Chartered Accountant, and a mother to two teens – a boy, Kaivalya, and a girl, Karunya. Appa, you’d be proud to know Kavya is a PhD doctor now! And you must thank your ever-sacrificing wife, our Amma, for raising us so. You can rest easy knowing now your family is thriving. But, of course, it was not all smooth sailing to reach here. The first few years were full of struggles, when we had to pinch pennies together, sell off our meagre possessions to pay for our education, and not have enough money for lunch in college. I had to borrow clothes and shoes for my first job interview, Appa, that I thankfully cracked. Appa, you’d be thrilled to know your son has travelled wide and far. Appa, do you know they play cricket in Belgium? I do, because I played cricket for the first time there after you passed.
Appa, thanks for setting the foundation for your family to thrive upon. This is just the first of many more letters to come that I intend to write to keep you abreast of our lives. So long, Appa, farewell for now. Be at peace.
Love,
your putta.
P.S.: Forever grateful to my loving wife for helping me process my emotions and remember my Appa in a loving way.