... my father's day

Yesterday, I celebrated My Father's Day. No, not with candles, palatable dishes, balloons and dusts of mica. The day went on with purgative torture, with almost no food and without hilarity.

I had no school. My father's physical breakdown crippled my feet home. A week ago, he felt a severe cardiac pain, which was actually a depressing upshot of gas. A two-time cerebral haemorrhage winner as well as a bypass surgery conqueror had now lost all energies to fight with constipation. Constipation led to that point that laxative was used in his rectum for clearance of his bowels. A few days ago, he got rid of a severe difficulty with prostate gland. The nebulous urine had made it in the limelight and the doctor treated him very well. The winner of yesterday is totally vanquished by tormenting today. The laxative worked on him. I cleaned him at first and then the waste matter, carefully, from the rubber cloth. He was more vehemently trembling due to neurological disorder than fighting shy of his nakedness. After half an hour, I helped him urinate. He can neither stand nor walk steadily due to his unresponsive left leg. I took hold of his hand firmly, as my mother, laden too by age, cannot maintain the balance. She endured much. Now, it's time for me to rearrange challenges of life and curb her endurance the little the more.

These days, I can't sit at my computer for hours together. I read much these days, riveting my eyes to the pages of Kundera and Eliot. I feel if thirty-six novels round a year sweep my eye, at least, for Learning's sake, a limited learning will be done. However, time thwarts time. I have stolen myself away from them at this juncture. Now, I was with my father. I saw him like I had seen him ever.

The day consumed much of him. The agonized groans died down slowly. He began falling asleep, tired and tortured by his illness. I am mentally distanced from my father. But, yesterday, I sat for a length of hours, rubbernecking at his fuming face. He was sleeping, snoring, his face systematically ballooning upward, his exhausted body hidden inside a quilt, looking like a soldier with neither armour nor sword. Inside the mosquito net, inside the room closed and curtained, the hazy figure of my dear father was mantled in jade light. No candle was lit up, yet it was much better than a candlelight dinner. The distance between my father and me was just of a five-foot silence. Silence was that silent that even a deaf could hear the breathing of a bug.

This is my father, whose constant guidance has made me stand on this platform. I have seen none write English that excellently. None could bear a candle to his linguistic aroma. Only fluorescent words could tide over the distance between his pen and paper. Today, he is mute like a swan, almost blind like a Milton. Time has questioned on his adaptation to the cosmology, perhaps, because of his age, being two more than seventy. He has forgotten many words, but frankly saying, he has forgiven many words too. In my childhood, he constantly provoked me to make use of proper words, otherwise, breaking through the barriers of grammar can never ever be possible. He always said in his instructive panache – what to write about is known to everybody, but there is hardly a soul who knows how to write. I miss this teaching right now... a numbness, therefore, pains.

Pain relieves us greatly of our mental squalor and reduces any distance. The distance that was invested by both of us is having no worth to me today. What could be more delightful than this? The sudden failure of his health has triggered a reaction in me. I know – one day, one tragic day, with the flashing of the sun or with the rising of rainbow or with the waxing of the moon, he will receive a full stop to his life, and with this he will be atomized into the eternal sentience to plug into absolute freedom.

There will be another day calendared for me to celebrate a father's day once again, however, without him...

17 comments:

Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury said...

Silence is perhaps better for what you wrote..for in silence alone can you share grief so personal. May father's day be rembrance for all the love shared, without the ghost of practicality ruling.

With you

Regards

Maya said...

nice, beautiful

eyeography said...

A brilliant tribute Sir...
very good choice of words...

pramod said...

gripping narration. nice play of words.
very touchy write up. I can feel the pang.

Dr. Pratibha Singh said...

Very touching indeed.

Priya said...

I can't think of anything to say! Beautiful post, very touching. I always assumed that losing their father was the worst thing that could happen to someone; but I'm not so sure anymore.

Dibakar Sarkar said...

@Maitreyee Bhattacharjee chowdhury: Yeas, true...

Dibakar Sarkar said...

@Priya: Thanks for your comment that has made me vibrant...

A said...

Indeed a touching tale enunciating the beautiful bond between father and son. The realistic yet pathetic account brings tear down the eyes. It's really helpless when long term ailment takes over the vitalities of life. However, the care, the affection, the patience, the gratitude and the sense of loss felt for the father are praiseworthy and inspiring for generations of sons and daughters especially of our times; for little we do or feel for our parents. A great learning for us. Hope the coming days bring in comfort and ease to the father and god bless such a deserving son.

Dibakar Sarkar said...

@A: Here I've found A with her touching comment!

Amit Joshi said...

Nice read! Touching! Live fully all tiny moment no matter how good or bad they are before they become memories :)

Glynis Jolly said...

You are a terrific son. So often there is strife between a son and father. This alternative is so nice to see.

Makubex said...

"I miss this teaching right now... a numbness, therefore, pains" - WOW!

Dibakar Sarkar said...

Thank you Makubex... it's really like that...

Geeta Singh said...

voted !! you deserve this vote:)

Dibakar Sarkar said...

@Geeta Singh: Thank you for your support.

zephyr said...

Your blog deserves the vote for this one excellent post. Voted!

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