22nd January 2024 was the second anniversary since my father-in-law left for his heavenly abode. It provoked me to write something about him and the relationship we shared.
More than 20 years ago when I first met him as his future son-in-law, I was not sure what I was getting into. My early impression of him was that of a lazy person who was happy to have agreed to the marriage mainly because he had to make no enquiries about the boy in question (something all fathers are most concerned about) since the proposal came from known sources. It was also of someone who seemed to be paranoid about safety and security. Once I was returning from their home in Jadavpur to the Howrah station and he had come to drop me to the taxi stand. Imagine my embarrassment when he tells the taxi driver to drive slowly and safely since I was going alone and, in his wisdom, I was a small boy. The small boy who was about to marry his daughter.
Post our marriage he started visiting us (most often to help us manage certain life situations like change in city/house/kids etc). I started learning so many facets of his personality through these visits. While he was lazy at this ripe age, he had been an accomplished cricket player, an avid rower amongst other sports in his hey days. He also used to roam the streets of Kolkata in his motor bike, something very rare during his time. Also, he went through the pain of losing his elder son at a very young age (the most cruel blow for any parent in my view) which forced him to be overprotective about his daughter. I started having friendly arguments when I started pushing my wife to move around independently as he was always worried about her safety. The whole idea was the big setback pushed him to being over protective in shielding his daughter from unknown evils , a natural reaction I would believe if I was to put myself in his shoes.
But within these small idiosyncrasies I started seeing the other qualities of the person. He was someone who was well read. He had a huge collection of books but what struck me was the variety and the uniqueness of the same. His collection of cassettes also was fascinating (he had a tape recorder). His love for music was not only restricted to old Hindi songs (he was a big Rafi fan) but also percolated to old Western music. He could talk about a variety of topics clearly depicting his all-round knowledge.
As his visits became more frequent, I started building a bond with him. A bond of love and friendship. Something that has stayed with me even after 2 years of his death. Most of his visits came out of our need of helping us settle down to our new married life. But what struck me was his selfless love for someone whose only credentials was being his daughter’s husband. My late night return from office and fights with my then pregnant wife always found him on my side defending me ( I was on the wrong side clearly). His eye for detail and concern for my wellbeing was huge. Every time I was down with cold, he would be enquiring continuously and giving me his famous homeopathic medicines for cure. Every party never ended without him giving me his favourite digestive capsule named Festal – N. When I was on a tour, he would not sleep till I reached my hotel irrespective of the time of the night. While at times it looked ridiculous, but the genuine love and care clearly overshadowed the paranoia.
As we started having kids, his love and care reached a different level. To start with he was not ready to hold the new born lest he hurt any of them. When my son started going to school in Delhi he was in his 70s. Since both me and my wife were in corporate roles he had to pick him up from the bus stand(which incidentally was a quite far from our home). My 3 year old son would doze off in the bus every day and he would carry the sleeping child in his arms right from the bus stand to our home on the 2nd floor at Kalkaji. Further, since there was a small gap in the railings of the stairs, he covered the same with a rope lest my son falls through the gap. People called it paranoia, I now see the intense love and care. Similar incidents kept repeating when my daughter was small as well.
As he turned older, he was diagnosed with an irreversible eye ailment which slowly led him to lose his vision. It is at this point of his life that he moved in permanently with us where he spent the last few years of his life and I got an even closer glimpse of him. Close your eyes for a minute and try to walk around and you will understand how intensely painful it is. By the time he moved in he had already lost his eyesight. But never did I see an inch of frustration in him. He was as caring as he always was. His movement was restricted but not his spirits. A great lesson of being resilient in the face of severe adversity. If there is one regret I have in life, it is about not being able to get his vision back.
Even with no eyesight he was the most organized person in the house. He would be keeping medicines, specs of the kids, spare batteries etc in his small red and black bag. Moment any of us needed any item he would take it out in one go. I still don’t know how he could fish out the right homeopathic medicine every time since all bottles felt the same. He would know exactly when my daughter’s basketball class would end and would pester us to trace her till, she reached home. It was as if he had an invisible third eye. Every time my daughter entered his room, he would touch her and try to figure out if she had gained in height. I could never sense the pain in his voice, the pain of not being able to see his grand kid which I was sure was plaguing him inside.
Then came Covid and we were all bunched up together at home. His inquisitiveness was very infectious. Every day he would seek from me statistics about the rising numbers across the world. He would co-relate the same with the population of the country and draw his own insights. It was my daily routine with him after a hard day’s work at office (I always believe online was more intense than offline) . His lack of vision did not diminish his hunger for knowledge.
His love for me was one of the purest I have seen. Once physical office re-started, I always made it a point to meet him in his room once I was back. He would always tell me to lie down beside him and rest and often run his fingers through my hair. If I would share any life related frustrations his advice always was soothing and comforting. He was always very content with his life and his wants were also limited. The same message he would always pass on to me, don’t stress or fret over materialistic wants, it takes away your inner peace. In life what is important is good health and happiness. He had friends who were very wealthy, but he never would have a tinge of jealousy about the same. He was never demanding (which he should have been) that we should spend more time with him considering his physical condition. He would always tell me that he understood we are busy with our lives, and he was in-fact grateful for whatever time I spent with him.
The day he had his second stroke I was in the room. We rushed him to the hospital. While waiting in the emergency to get admitted late in the night my wife asked him if he was afraid to die. He replied with a smile that he was not since he has lived his life on his terms, and he had no regrets. Even there he was talking about how late it was in the night and how we should be going home, and he would manage alone. Imagine the selflessness of a person who had no vision in the emergency room of a big hospital. He even spoke of how the English teacher of my daughter needed to be changed since she was not getting good grades in that subject. A man who has had a stroke. Phew.
He did not recover from the same after fighting for his life for 7 days. The last day when the doctor told me that there was no hope and we should just let him go, I stood in the ICU alone with him to bid farewell. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. To say goodbye to a father-in-law who cared for me and loved me more than a real son and gave me so much of joy and positivity. I had to say goodbye to someone who taught me so many life lessons just by the way he lived his life. I knew that he had lived his life, and I understood the pain of living without eyesight. He had to go but I wanted to cling on to him. To talk to him for the last time and bid him goodbye in person. To listen to his calm voice comforting me even now. My entire 18 year of loving association came flooding back to me. It was my selfish desire to have him around me that made this farewell one of the most difficult situations of my life. It was like time had come to a halt and I was not able to reconcile myself to this new reality. The reality of not walking into his room post a hard day’s work. As I reluctantly walked out of the ICU, I realized it was a Saturday. Even in death he had ensured that I was not inconvenienced. I did not need to take the day’s off from work.
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