Happy birthday Dad

My father would have turned 93 today had he been alive, but he decided to call it a day a month after turning 83, losing his battle to cancer that struck him late in his life.

All of us love our parents and we use expressions such as – “my father strongest or my mother most affectionate” , and thus if I pay tribute to my father on his birthday, there’s nothing unique or exceptional about it! Only aspect of his life that may interest my readers his total apathy to material assets and he hardly owned any assets all his life. He never owned a driver licence or a passport implying he never rode a self driven two or four wheeler and never traveled abroad. He used his retrial benefit to own a property as all through his service life, he lived in quarter provided by government whom he served! Most of his sightseeing happened after his retirement when his ability to walk freely was severely curtailed due to a serious accident that he met late in his life after having lived virtually a healthy life bereft of any serious ailment.

He was an atheist but I have never seen him missing his daily prayers that he used to say to the supreme lord one who had no form, shape or face. He was at his happiest when with children as he clearly avoided politics, especially of the family kind and his best friends were the most deprived in society – the cobbler, barber, driver, vegetable vendor – whom he would give mints and toffees as if they were his children!

His total retirement benefit could be my monthly take home, I have travelled to at least 3 continents, owned cars, houses and other assets he never owned and enjoyed and partied as if there’s no tomorrow but if I could ever become even 1% of the human that he was, I would have achieved at least something worth mentioning in my life.