Is your Papa in a picture only ...Nana ??

“Is your Papa in a picture only ..Nana?”  The innocent question just halted me in my tracks. I had just shown my fathers’ picture portrait on the wall to my grandson Shaurya and told him that he was my father. Shaurya  my grandson, had unwittingly, unknowingly asked me a question, which if I had answered honestly would have left him unsatisfied. For if I had said yes, he would have disbelieved me, for no one, and particularly Papas should live only in pictures ! Then I would have had to tell him that “well..you see Shaurya ..he is no more with us ..he is with the Angels “ and he would have known that still I have not given him a truthful answer. How would I ever want this wonderful child of God  to worry about life and death at this tender age ?? To my great relief he had already challenged me to a “Galaxy Explorer” game on the net !  I had quickly grabbed the opportunity.

And yet, it was as if all that had happened only yesterday. I could still see the pyre burning at first slowly, then a little harder and finally with such ferocity and brightness that at one moment I could see the bones of the feet  and the fingers  of my father in the pyre clearly silhouetted against the yellow and orange flames that had overtaken the pyre and the frail body wrapped inside it, that was my father, our beloved ‘Chacha ji’ to most who knew him. Soon the bones  just broke off and fell...The whole process had taken not more than 2 -3 hrs and now the blazing pyre had petered out all its fury spent as if signalling that all that was humanly visible was about to end. Very soon only ashes and smouldering embers were left. I could see a couple of other bodies lying in their yellow and white shrouds, tied to the flimsy bamboo beds with their near and dear ones huddled over them, waiting for the space ....

And very soon, suddenly, a group of workers came from nowhere and with the help of a coconut tree large leaf broom and just pushed the entire burnt out remains of the pyre, my fathers’ earthly form reduced to ashes, out over the ‘Chabootara’ into the holy river Ganges that flowed beneath. I was left open mouthed, is this all that there is ? Is this how my father should end ?Is this how all of us will end ? Isn’t there something missing... I mean should we not have done something before we all came to such a pass? It was too late however, and my fathers ashes were already flowing along with the genteel waves of the holy river. Even if I wanted to gather him all once again, it would not be possible. He had already embarked on his grand journey to mingle with the holy spirits and we were not allowed to go anywhere near the holy path way , at least not beyond the burning ghats ...for the moment.

The professor sahib who had been relating his experiences with m y father while the pyre burned had also tired and wiping his moist eyes and face, overcome by emotions, he put his hands around my shoulders and said, ‘all of us are blessed to have known your father and you must not despair , now that he is no more. His life itself is a huge reference book for you and all of us to carry on our good lives.’ With some Sanskrit couplet, he bade us goodbye. We, my brother, my couple of nephews and some neighbours and well wisher friends who had stayed on with us slowly made our way back to our home at Ishwargangi, Varanasi. Very soon we were mingling with the crowds on the streets of Varanasi, all of us sad, in anonymity, lost in our own thoughts. We  reached  the darkened streets or ‘gullies’ , as they are known in Varanasi, of our old family house where the rest of the members of the family were inconsolably in distress. The night somehow, slowly, sadly, passed over us, while we all lay awake.

More than 32 years have gone by and  still remember my father as will every person who has loved and lost his father, and will be challenged by the thought that ‘if’ only ...’ ‘if only...he or she had done this or that’ or  if only a few more years were there to go still....

I am comforted by the thought that there are perhaps many thousands in this world who are going thru this pain and I am not alone in this predicament.

I hope that the younger generation, our hope of the future, not only successfully negotiate their current challenges, but somewhere in their warm hearts they remember their parents with love and reverence. So that when they are questioned by their grandchildren, they will at least be better prepared to respond with greater wisdom than I could .... so that they would be able to tell a story to their grandchildren that they would readily believe in, believe in love.