2 posts tagged “father”

By the time the guests had brushed the cookie crumbs off their dresses and stood up on uncertain feet that were still tingling from pins and needles, father was already at the end of the long verandah, holding open the gate with a tight, false smile. What followed was a tightrope of conversation that steadied with mother, only to be toppled over by dad.

"We loved having you guys over today. Its been such a long time!"

"I hate to say this, but you should leave now. The roads are going to be crowded in half an hour."

"Come back soon!"

"Go safely."

He was the emperor of grumpiness and unsocial behavior. He hated having anyone over at home, except his own siblings and old school friends, with whom he could chat in his broad, Bangladeshi dialect about the "good old times." Brother and I were ashamed of him and revolted as soon as we realized we had the right. "We hate you, Daddy," we panted (because we were still a little scared of him), "why don't you like anyone visiting us?"

"Because I have you two!" he said, very surprised, "Why would I need anyone else?"

"Daddy, you're so boring! We don't want to be with you!"

“Well then, I have your mother." His eyes twinkled.

"Mother! She's nearly as boring as you!" we exclaimed, "What will you do with her?"

"We will read the poems of Tagore together," he said, and his eyes still twinkled.

And that's what they would do, evening after evening. Take out a volume of Tagore and read to each other. They were the most boring couple in the world.

When I chose to read Geography at college, there were more reasons than one for my decision. Of course, it was true that I loved geography. I loved reading about rocks and clouds and the soil and the people of the world. I thought it was the purest of all disciplines, and that understanding geography would make me understand nature better, and make me a better person by giving me wisdom and compassion. The second reason was the fact that I had excellent teachers at school, and the third reason therefore was that I always did very well at the subject.

But there was another subtle, unspoken reason why I chose Geography; I wanted to travel. I knew that as part of the curricula, geography students had to go on at least one long trek in each of their three years at college. I also knew that these treks were almost always to secluded places where tourists would not travel. After traveling on a vacation only once during the seventeen years of my life, I was impatient to travel, anywhere, and with however much roughing it took.

For we hardly ever traveled as a family. It was curious, because the Bengali is usually an inveterate traveler. Father believed in the philosophy of manas bhraman (literally, traveling in the mind; metaphorically similar to an armchair traveler), and had a fanatical aversion to disturbing his equilibrium at home; his reading glasses beside his pillow and his glass of milk and his weekend game of soccer. Also, he was obsessively hygienic, and reduced to jitters every time we traveled 50 kilometers to go to our uncle’s house.

"Taken the boiled water?"

"Yes."

"Boiled eggs?"

"Yes."

"Peanuts?"

"Yes, yes."

"Don’t eat anything on the train but boiled eggs and peanuts."

Needless to say, we never ate the boiled eggs and peanuts. They traveled unharmed in their shells to our uncle’s house, where they were roundly made fun of by our cousins.