It hit me hard. It hit me real hard.

He was always calm, even when confronted with heartbreaking trials and tribulations, and believe me, there were plenty of them in his life, including the horrors of partition and the pogrom of 1984. He faced several crises, which could have overwhelmed many of us, with the stoic calm of a sage, and a beatific smile on his face. The aura on his visage radiated with the glow of a person at peace with himself, and the world at large. Ever since I remember, he was an epitome of humility and compassion. As a corollary of his extensive experience in working in the Central Government, and knowledge on a vast array of subjects, his opinion and assistance on sundry matters was many a times sought by neighbors, friends, acquaintances and relatives, and often people not exactly known to him but referred by others.

He was an optimist to the core.

Never the one to brood about the negative side of things, he always emphasized the need of doing one’s KARMA and not bother about the result-the intrinsic spirit of GITA was imbibed in him to the core- from which he quoted very often, and quite extensively, ever since I was a young child, especially when my confidence plummeted as my exams approached. Taking success and failure in the same stride, a way of life which people spend years to acquire, was his mantra of life from the beginning. This does not mean that he did not give adequate importance to education- in fact, he ensured that his two sons studied in the best school and colleges of Delhi, even beyond, and performed with outstanding results. He was a spiritual master in the true sense, never getting entangled in the web of intricacies which most structured religions present in some form or the other.

His personality-which many acquaintances compared to that of leading heroes of Bombay film industry of the day- was always a cynosure for me, and many others. Even after he retired as a senior officer from the Central Government, he kept himself busy for hours on end-in multifarious activities like reading, gardening, regular sessions of Yoga, doing his bit of social activities, listening to music of which he was a connoisseur and going for long walks in the evening with his bevy of friends irrespective of the season in Delhi. His posture and dexterity, even at the age of 60 years and beyond, made people much younger blush with envy-the frame still stretched as a bow. I remember several of my girlfriends in college and university swooning at his youthful persona. Teasing me, that had it not been for more than several decades separating their ages, they would have readily dumped me for him. He truly mastered the art of aging gracefully, with the gray in his hair sitting perfectly. As if by some divine intervention, the wrinkles on his face emerged strategically, enhancing his already daunting aura.

I had taken it for granted that this would last forever. I had painted an image of immortality for him in my mind.

Till one day, after we celebrated his 80^th birthday, I noticed that his movements had slowed slightly. The stamina had diminished a bit. The siesta after lunch, which was never strictly a part of his regimen, had sneaked into the daily timetable quite rigidly. Despite all this, the amazing grace was still there, intact.

 

Yes, I am talking about my father, whom we fondly called Daddy. For our family, he was nothing less than the Great Banyan.

The first indications of mortality in Daddy shook my confidence to the core.  The ephemeral nature of life, which I had been ignoring till now, stared at me in all its unpleasantness.  I was tormented for months on end. Till it changed one evening; and again, Daddy played a crucial part in it.

My daughter’s 10^th class CBSE board exams were to commence in a few days. Unlike me, whose confidence tanked before the commencement of any exam, she was pretty confident and well prepared to take the challenge which all of us know is nothing less than the Holy Grail for all Indian students in their academic life. Despite their advancing age, Daddy and Mummy visited us to wish their granddaughter for her crucial upcoming exams. In the midst of the family banter, I went out of the room for some time. As if on cue, I overheard Daddy explaining the concept of Karma from the Gita to his granddaughter, with great clarity, just as he had explained it to me umpteen times since I was a young child. The sameness of the two situations, although decades apart, brought together by Daddy, and binding the three generations, moved me. At that very moment I discerned a strong undercurrent of similarity in Daddy’s attributes and that of his granddaughter.

It was like a Great Banyan bearing a new offshoot.

The dark clouds of doubt, which had cast a long and nefarious shadow of gloom over me dissipated miraculously. Its place was taken by a feeling of peace, of ample happiness, in the realization that though in this world nothing is permanent, and everything- including the physical form is transient- it is life, only life, which is eternal. This message of universal wisdom and truth, which has been spread and disseminated by saints and spiritual gurus in their teachings, messages and scriptures over the ages and millennia,  had failed to make a mark in my thinking process in a comprehensive way till then. But that day, in Daddy’s august presence, it transcended the multitude of barriers which had been withholding me, and allowed a shower of bliss to come forth, like a long overdue monsoon shower. It settled the haze of dust lingering in my mind, to give a view of clear skies, and a beautiful rainbow, in all its glory, from horizon to horizon.

Dedicated to my father, whom we called Daddy, on his birthday.

He might have left us in the physical form, but we feel his presence every moment

---