Cry Rain

Cry for me

For all that was

And never will be

For all my hopes

And all my dreams

Filled with magic

And moonbeams

Cry Rain

Cry for me

For feelings that have

No expression

That know no creed

Nor religion

For the beauty within

And the beauty without

For a hundred hopes

And a hundred doubts

For the joy that begs

To be free again

For the love that I’ll lose

And the love that I’ll gain

Cry Rain, cry again

For all that was said

And all that was done

For all that was lost

And all that was won

For the restlessness

That just won’t let me be

Cry Rain

Cry for me

And cry Rain cry,

For all whose dreams had to die

For empty stomachs and tear-filled eyes

For forced smiles and sorrowful sighs

For all the unhappiness that in this world lies

Cry. Cry. Cry Rain, cry

During the last few days, my wonderful daughter Anu has told me, more than once, that her friends think I am “super-cool”. Because I tease her about her crushes. Come back with some smart one-liners. Am internet savvy and actually have a blog!

Thinking about it, I realized my dad was pretty cool too, though we never thought so at that time.

I remember when I was going through this Rajesh Khanna craze. I was in the tenth and the movie “Mehboob Ki Mehendi” was playing in our theatre – Radhika. It was a Saturday and Abba (that’s what we called our dad), told me to bunk school and come see the movie since it was the last day!

I remember the time when I was trying to learn driving. I think I was in PUC I year and we were coming back from College and I got the driver to teach me. Abba was behind us and witnessed my attempts at driving. When we reached home, he told me: “If you have to do something, do it properly”. He got us our Learners License and ensured that all his three daughters learnt to drive. “He is giving his daughters too much freedom” grumbled our more conservative relatives.

I remember when our Logic lecturer, who hated “convent girls” humiliated us in every class. “No need to attend any of his classes” was Abba’s decree. “And you can tell your principal I said so”. For the next two years, as the hated (and hateful) Logic Lecturer would walk into the class from the front door, we would walk out of the back door. And he couldn’t do a thing about it, because we had informed the principal that our father did not want us to attend Logic classes! He must have been angrier to see our marks in Logic – easily above 90%!

I remember the times – so many times – when we wanted to bunk a class and go for a movie. All we had to do was call him and he would send the car to college to pick us up!

I remember the time he and a friend came all the way on their scooters to pick us up from home and take us back to the theatre to see the movie “Ab Aayegaa Mazaa”.(Or was it Kissa Kursi Ka?) To many Muslims it may seem blasphemous. But I remember during Ramzan, when we actually broke our fast in the theatre!

When we were kids, we had these vendors who would go around selling snacks in hand-pulled carts. One day, there I was buying some stuff when I saw a couple of poor urchins looking longingly at the snacks. I called them over and gave them some stuff. Soon, I was surrounded by so many urchins that I didn’t know what to do. Abba was watching from a distance and came to my rescue, paying for the entire crowd!

There was never any pressure on us to study. But both Abba and Mummy loved to read and surrounded us with such wonderful books and magazines, that all of us became voracious readers. We had the most wonderful collection of Classics brought out by Readers Digest and he let me have some of them.

I remember the speeches Abba would write – they were always short and witty. Mummy wrote longer, more serious speeches. My sister Nasira got dad’s speeches and I got the speeches written by my mum.

I remember his pride in my writing skills. He would tell his friends about my amateurish attempts at writing poetry and actually “commissioned” me to write a poem on his friend Mr Ghani. Years later, I detected that same note of pride in his voice when he told a friend of his: “She has her own flat in Bangalore”.

Of course, it was not always fun and games. There were spankings and yellings too (my brother and I got the worst of it – being the younger ones). I got a royal thrashing once for calling the maid a pig. The lesson was clear: show respect to everyone. It’s a lesson I think I have passed on to my daughter too (without the thrashing!)

My mother never bothered about money. I think she is the least materialistic person I know of.  Abba was a little better but I think money per se did not mean a great deal to him. He was careful about spending money but got royally cheated by a whole lot of people. When it came to giving people their due, Abba was very, very clear. By ensuring that his sister’s kids got their share of the ancestral property, by giving them their due without fuss, he set a shining example for his children: “relationships are more important than money”. When I see friends and acquaintances fighting over property, I appreciate what a valuable lesson he taught us.

We did go though our bad patches. He had his faults and there were times I hated him. There were times when I felt he didn’t understand. Or didn’t care enough. But I know I was wrong. As a parent myself now, I know it must not have been easy bringing up three pretty liberal and ‘thinking’ daughters in a conservative place like Bellary.

I was always very protective about my mom and somehow felt I was closer to her than to my dad. But during the last years of his life, it was Abba who made the effort to reach out to me, to build bridges between me and my siblings. It was Abba who would bring me my old diaries and books. Who would make it a point to come and show me his new car and give me a ride in it. Who would call up and remind me that I had forgotten his and mum’s anniversary and was everything okay?  

When he was hurt by what someone had said, he would share it with me and felt comfortable enough to cry in front of me. At such times, I never knew how to handle it. You think your parents are tough and you are the ones who will be doing all the crying in front of them…

In a little over a month, it will be two years since Abba passed away. He is in my thoughts constantly. I dream of him ever so often and I miss him so very much. I sometimes wish I had been nicer, kinder, more loving, more forgiving, more non-judgmental… I know now that consciously or unconsciously he shaped me into the person I am today. And if my daughter finds me cool today, it’s probably because I had a cool dad!

Every trip back home is nostalgic…. A thousand memories come crowding back, popping out from a corner, peeping from behind a half-opened door, looking down from a framed black-and-white photograph… Mubarak Munzil – the rambling bungalow I grew up in – was home, a long time ago, to our seven-member family – my domineering grand-mother, my aloof and strict (as I perceived him then) father, my timid mother, my three siblings and I. There were, of course, a houseful of servants. A cook who called me “gori” and who we called “nani’. A man servant who literally grew up in this house, got married and had several children, who grew up with us. A series of drivers (one who for some strange reason put it into my head that I was an adopted child. Vulnerable and hypersensitive as I was, this thought gnawed at me and troubled me for years). And an assortment of animals: buffaloes, dogs, cats, hens…

There was, I believe, something magical about my home. It was noisy – happily so. There were always people walking in and out of the large rooms. The six-seater dining table was not enough for all of us, so my sister would sit on a baby high chair, years after we had all outgrown it. Summer holidays saw our cousins coming over, spelling more fun. Summers also meant sleeping on the terrace. And there was a whole ritual to it. We would lug up buckets of water to the terrace and splash it, to cool the terrace. Once it dried up, the beds were neatly rolled out. My dad who loved to read, and passed on his passion to all of us, had even set up a reading lamp, so we could cuddle up with our favourite books and read till sleep claimed us. Many were the nights we’d lie on our backs, gazing at the stars and counting the planes that flew across the night sky. Sometimes the sky would open up and big, fat drops of rain would drench us. We would quickly throw down the pillows and sheets into the courtyard and run giggling to complete our interrupted sleep indoors. I remember once when my little nephew was sleeping on the terrace with us. “What will happen if it rains?” he asked innocently. My sister, always ready for some mischief, said “You’ll shrink”. I can never forget the terror-stricken expression on his face!

There was no TV in Bellary when we were growing up, but we were never, ever bored. We spent hours playing hop scotch, seven stones, four houses, dark room and dozens of games we invented ourselves. Friends and their cousins were always in our home or we were in theirs. We laughed. We talked. We dreamed. We planned. We went on picnics. Had moonlight dinner parties on the terrace. Went around playing pranks and scaring neighbours. We climbed the gulmohur trees that grew close to the compound wall. Then, as we grew older, we sat with our cups of steaming coffee in the verandah and gazed at the purple hills in the horizon, through the leaves of the neem tree. Today, the gulmohur trees have been uprooted. The neem trees are still there but the purple hills are no longer visible. Hidden from view, first by the other houses and now by a raised compound wall.

Today when I walk through the silent rooms of my home, memories are all I have. The girls married and moved away. My brother made his life thousands of miles away in the USA. And after my dad’s death in July 2006, my mother lives all alone in a house that was once filled with voices, music and laughter. Trips home these days are always disturbing. Cobwebbed corners, dusty shelves where once books nudged each other, empty spaces filled with an aching loneliness… my house seems sad. Almost like an old, past-her-prime diva who knows that her ‘golden period’ is gone forever.

Like me, my house seems to know that memories are all it has.

Cry Rain

Cry for me

For all that was

And never will be

For all my hopes

And all my dreams

Filled with magic

And moonbeams

Cry Rain

Cry for me

For feelings that have

No expression

That know no creed

Nor religion

For the beauty within

And the beauty without

For a hundred hopes

And a hundred doubts

For the joy that begs

To be free again

For the love that I’ll lose

And the love that I’ll gain

Cry Rain, cry again

For all that was said

And all that was done

For all that was lost

And all that was won

For the restlessness

That just won’t let me be

Cry Rain

Cry for me

And cry Rain cry,

For all whose dreams had to die

For empty stomachs and tear-filled eyes

For forced smiles and sorrowful sighs

For all the unhappiness that in this world lies

Cry. Cry. Cry Rain, cry

During the last few days, my wonderful daughter Anu has told me, more than once, that her friends think I am “super-cool”. Because I tease her about her crushes. Come back with some smart one-liners. Am internet savvy and actually have a blog!

Thinking about it, I realized my dad was pretty cool too, though we never thought so at that time.

I remember when I was going through this Rajesh Khanna craze. I was in the tenth and the movie “Mehboob Ki Mehendi” was playing in our theatre – Radhika. It was a Saturday and Abba (that’s what we called our dad), told me to bunk school and come see the movie since it was the last day!

I remember the time when I was trying to learn driving. I think I was in PUC I year and we were coming back from College and I got the driver to teach me. Abba was behind us and witnessed my attempts at driving. When we reached home, he told me: “If you have to do something, do it properly”. He got us our Learners License and ensured that all his three daughters learnt to drive. “He is giving his daughters too much freedom” grumbled our more conservative relatives.

I remember when our Logic lecturer, who hated “convent girls” humiliated us in every class. “No need to attend any of his classes” was Abba’s decree. “And you can tell your principal I said so”. For the next two years, as the hated (and hateful) Logic Lecturer would walk into the class from the front door, we would walk out of the back door. And he couldn’t do a thing about it, because we had informed the principal that our father did not want us to attend Logic classes! He must have been angrier to see our marks in Logic – easily above 90%!

I remember the times – so many times – when we wanted to bunk a class and go for a movie. All we had to do was call him and he would send the car to college to pick us up!

I remember the time he and a friend came all the way on their scooters to pick us up from home and take us back to the theatre to see the movie “Ab Aayegaa Mazaa”.(Or was it Kissa Kursi Ka?) To many Muslims it may seem blasphemous. But I remember during Ramzan, when we actually broke our fast in the theatre!

When we were kids, we had these vendors who would go around selling snacks in hand-pulled carts. One day, there I was buying some stuff when I saw a couple of poor urchins looking longingly at the snacks. I called them over and gave them some stuff. Soon, I was surrounded by so many urchins that I didn’t know what to do. Abba was watching from a distance and came to my rescue, paying for the entire crowd!

There was never any pressure on us to study. But both Abba and Mummy loved to read and surrounded us with such wonderful books and magazines, that all of us became voracious readers. We had the most wonderful collection of Classics brought out by Readers Digest and he let me have some of them.

I remember the speeches Abba would write – they were always short and witty. Mummy wrote longer, more serious speeches. My sister Nasira got dad’s speeches and I got the speeches written by my mum.

I remember his pride in my writing skills. He would tell his friends about my amateurish attempts at writing poetry and actually “commissioned” me to write a poem on his friend Mr Ghani. Years later, I detected that same note of pride in his voice when he told a friend of his: “She has her own flat in Bangalore”.

Of course, it was not always fun and games. There were spankings and yellings too (my brother and I got the worst of it – being the younger ones). I got a royal thrashing once for calling the maid a pig. The lesson was clear: show respect to everyone. It’s a lesson I think I have passed on to my daughter too (without the thrashing!)

My mother never bothered about money. I think she is the least materialistic person I know of.  Abba was a little better but I think money per se did not mean a great deal to him. He was careful about spending money but got royally cheated by a whole lot of people. When it came to giving people their due, Abba was very, very clear. By ensuring that his sister’s kids got their share of the ancestral property, by giving them their due without fuss, he set a shining example for his children: “relationships are more important than money”. When I see friends and acquaintances fighting over property, I appreciate what a valuable lesson he taught us.

We did go though our bad patches. He had his faults and there were times I hated him. There were times when I felt he didn’t understand. Or didn’t care enough. But I know I was wrong. As a parent myself now, I know it must not have been easy bringing up three pretty liberal and ‘thinking’ daughters in a conservative place like Bellary.

I was always very protective about my mom and somehow felt I was closer to her than to my dad. But during the last years of his life, it was Abba who made the effort to reach out to me, to build bridges between me and my siblings. It was Abba who would bring me my old diaries and books. Who would make it a point to come and show me his new car and give me a ride in it. Who would call up and remind me that I had forgotten his and mum’s anniversary and was everything okay?  

When he was hurt by what someone had said, he would share it with me and felt comfortable enough to cry in front of me. At such times, I never knew how to handle it. You think your parents are tough and you are the ones who will be doing all the crying in front of them…

In a little over a month, it will be two years since Abba passed away. He is in my thoughts constantly. I dream of him ever so often and I miss him so very much. I sometimes wish I had been nicer, kinder, more loving, more forgiving, more non-judgmental… I know now that consciously or unconsciously he shaped me into the person I am today. And if my daughter finds me cool today, it’s probably because I had a cool dad!