Date : 17th April, 1978.
Time : 10:10 PM.
Place : a small hospital in a small city called Trivandrum.
Two little girls are sitting on a bench outside an operation theatre. The older girl is 7 years old : Last year, she was asked by her teacher at school what she would want to be when she grow up and she had replied without a doubt, “I want to be a doctor and cure people”. She would become a doctor 19 years later and then marry a doctor a year later. Her sister was 5 years old : She had started talking from the age of nine months onward and has not stopped to this day. Somewhere in Arizona USA, a patient husband is listening.
The two little girls were praying. They wanted a little brother to play with.
God heard their prayer and a boy it was.
Nobody was more happier than the father. He was an ordinary middle class government employee : the sort of unspectacular guy that you wouldnt notice if he were to walk past you. He had no great talent to speak of nor had acheived anything great in life. Yet he was something which very few are in this world. He was a nice guy. A genuine nice guy. And to the family of five, he was everything.
The little boy developed a habit very early in his life. He would just sit and watch his father and then try to imitate every action of his. From a very early age, he knew he wanted to be like his father. People used to call his father by the name “Swami” to show love and respect and whenever anyone called the boy “kutti swami”, he used to glow with pride.
In his seventh standard, the boy participitated in an essay writing competetion. The title of the competetion was “Who would you want to be and why?”. The boy wrote an essay saying “I want to be someone like my father”. He got the first prize. And that evening, the boy ran as hard as he could to his home and waited on the steps of his home till his father came. He showed him the essay and the prize. You should have seen the happiness on the father's face. That would remain in that boy's mind as the most beautiful sight he would ever see in his life.
The day before the boy went to college for the first time, his father would say a few words to him. “Son, the only difference between a man and an animal is the mind. People who are afraid of their own mind use liquor to numb it. You decide whether you want to be a man or an animal”. On countless trips and parties, all his friends tried to make him drink but all in vain. The boy would not touch a drop of liquor or a cigar ever in his life. The promise he gave to his father matterred to him more than a few moments of pleasure.
Years passed.
The family was happy and contended.It was as if God had given them everything. The father and mother were both very religous people and used to go to the nearby temple almost everyday. Little did they know that God had other plans. One day in January,1995 God took away from that family everything that they had. He took away the Father with him. The boy was shatterred. God lost a believer that day. That boy has never entered a temple after that ( unless compelled by his mother who still believes in a God who took away everything from her).
I am that boy and today, I turn 24.
Tonight, If you see a star shining more brightly than the others, that would be my father smiling down on me. And tonight as every other night, I sleep with the conviction that my father is awake somewhere up there and watching over me.
I love you,father and I miss you terribly. I know, I have a thousand miles to go before I become what you were. Still, I hope you are proud of what I am.
Love,
/.\ n a n d.