Monday, August 28, 2006

A Letter

To the man who walked his math-impaired daughter down the perilous road from multiplication tables to differential calculus. The personal swimming instructor, raag identifier and consoler of weepy, red-nosed four- year-olds whose heroes have fallen. On celluloid.

That dresser-up of rag-doll-sleepy-school-goers, doll's-arm/leg/head-fixer. Tiffin-packer, chocolate-wafer-adder.

Patient-sitter-through of makeovers by six-year-olds, who think that salt-and-pepper hair in at least six bristly ponytails, with a minimum of three bindis on the forehead, is so him.

Photographer of horrific moments - like fancy-dress parties and clown faces.

Embarrass-er of daughters, by playing ancient recordings of said-daughter's-five-year-old-voice soulfully singing:

"Laila main lailaaaa! Aisi hoon lailaaaa,
Har koi chaahe mujhse, milna akelaaa!"

Hummer-of-tunes, never-singer, non-dancer.

Lover of books, The Beatles, and order. Watcher of every. single. news bulletin.

To the maker of the best chicken curry in the *whole* world.

Happy birthday, Papa. May this be one of many, many more.

6 comments:

ggop said...

Oh this was so sweet! Why is it that every father keeps those horrid tapes of kids singing - pure cacophony. It is music only to a parent's ears.

Lovely post. Brought back some memories..
gg

Anonymous said...

Gayatri redirected me to your blog--it seems we both blogged about the birthdays of our fathers in a relatively close time period. I wrote a letter, too.

Anonymous said...

Aww. He sounds lovely.

Chronicus Skepticus said...

Ggop:

> Why is it that every father keeps those horrid tapes of kids singing?

Terrible isn't it? Especially when they insist on playing them when the whole world and it's uncle are visiting!

But I'm SO going to do this to my kid/s too!

*evil grin*

Oh and thank you, glad you liked the post. :)

Vi:

> It seems we both blogged about the birthdays of our fathers.

Yes, I read. And your father sounds a whole lot like my mom! Except for the internet part...thank goodness. :)


Ph:

Yeah, *mostly* he is. :D

Anonymous said...

aiyyo! i never thought the sweet, quiet man i have been meeting in ur house was soooo sweeet! i was in tears and started thinking about kathuria sahab. and then i started laughing and then for some strange reasons i started thinking about mrs mishra...and the connection we thought might work between the two. (how discreet i have to be on the internet!!!) i nearly rolled over and died laughing!!!

Anonymous said...

Nice post. Very touching.