Oh he did not go
gently. He raged against the dying of the light. For a short while we saw a
glimmer of hope as on the eighth day he regained some consciousness but then
again we watched as he suffered setback after setback, valiantly fighting until
one by one his organs failed him. We sat by his side, keeping silent vigil. Day
after day after day bled into one, our lives stood at a standstill until on the
morning of 5th November he passed away quietly, with my husband and me on
either side of him, holding his hands as he slipped away into the good night.
His face slowly relaxed into a smile. It shone with new found peace and bore no
trace of the struggle he had faced for the last fifty days. Only our lives fell
apart.
So what can I
say about the man who stepped into my father's shoes from the first day I met
him? It's easy being a parent, I realize that now. It's easy to love flesh of
your flesh, blood of your blood. But to love a completely strange adult girl
you have never hitherto met, whose views are different from your own, whose
trust has to be won, whose love has to be earned.... how many men can be a
father to such a child? I always say that it's not easy getting married. All of
a sudden after a peculiar round of rituals that you do not really register you
are handed a rather long list of aunts uncles and an assortment of relatives
and told that this in your new family. The in-laws. That dreaded word. I too
was wide-eyed when I first met them all. And wary. Today, cocooned into the heart
of this extra large family I have realized one thing: it must have been just as
frightening for everyone else as well. For they too must have been wary of this
strange short girl with unruly curls and an even more unruly tongue when I stepped
into the household. But they made me comfortable. My parents-in-law never once
let me feel I was a stranger in their home. I was welcomed. I was loved. I was
allowed to grow, to find my own way, to forge my relationships with the people
around me. And because I did not have my own father by my side, Baba tried to
be that too. I wish I could say I welcomed it and made it easy for him, but I did not. But he did not
give up on me, he managed to chip away at my armour till today my two fathers
have blended into each other, where I cannot say where the love for one begins
and the other ends. Many unfortunate people go through life without a father. I
have been blessed: for I had two.
Justice UC Banerjee
was a tiger in the Courtroom. I learnt that the day I stepped into the High
Court as an intern. Each day I would find my way into his Courtroom to watch
the proceedings there. Lawyers who raged in the corridors outside were torn
apart, Justice Banerjee was renowned for his strictness and sense of justice. I
have watched with glee as one lawyer got shouted at for not being properly
attired and another berated for making noise: little did I know then that one
day I would end up marrying his only son! In private and at heart, Justice UC
Banerjee was a family man: a good husband and an indulgent father: a man with
simple needs who only wanted his family to be happy. And that heart was wide
enough to embrace me as I was, warts and all. Baba was my cornerstone, my sheet
anchor. He made me feel safe. Today with him gone even the sun feels that much
harsher, the night is deeper and the stars do not shine so brightly any more.
The rituals are
over. The house, our lives, now limp back to normal. I shall be returning to
work and the haphazard routine of our lives will fall back into motion. Only
there will be no one calling me in the middle of the day to ask me if I'm
feeling okay just because I had a headache in the morning. No one to plan a
surprise for my husband with. No one to buy me that brick red suitcase set just
because my eyes glowed when I saw it. No one to arrange for Chinese food to be
delivered to me in Court just because I felt like it. No one to take such pride
in my writing and egg me on to write more. I shall miss the gold of his voice,
the comfort of his arms and the strength I derived from the knowledge that he's
nearby. I shall miss our jaunts to Salt Lake where I now dread to return to his
bedroom and find that he is not there. I shall miss our holidays together when
he would sportingly climb on the precarious rocks on the Treshnish Isles or
uncomplainingly shiver through the bitter cold of Bhutan in January. I have so
many happy sun-kissed memories that my heart is full. I am lulled by the
knowledge that I can draw on them at anytime and he will be with me.
For Baba is here
with me now. Peering over my shoulder trying to read what I've written urging
me to scroll down so he can read the rest. And there are times, trust me, when
I feel that I only have to turn and he will be standing here : immaculately
attired, every hair in place, a smile on his face and a gleam in his eye and he
will cock an eyebrow at me and say 'bye'.
I dare not turn.
I cannot say goodbye.
