BABA.

25th October, 2008


“My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf so it stood 90 years on the floor”
Whenever I think of my grandfather I think of this song but the grandfather in this song was alive for 90 years and my baba passed on a decade and half back. I was just in class 5 when the news of his death was broken to me. It was afternoon of august 5 we had just returned from school and had to immediately catch a train for lucknow. I was never too close to baba (fact that I truly regret now) but I remember somewhere between Kanpur and Lucknow the realization of never seeing him hit me and I cried. As a child this was my first hand experience of someone’s death. It was awful. Hard to explain in words but it felt as if someone had just cut the air supply to your lungs and suddenly feeling of asphyxiation was very strong.

My oldest memory of baba was the chocolate box that he had. Every child who behaved well was rewarded with few chocolate gems once in a while; those tiny pellets of gems were not less than rubies and diamonds for us children. He was a very well read man and although his interests lied in writing plays and conducting cricket commentaries but his knack for giving nick names and at a lyrical twist to them were legendry.

So many years have gone by and suddenly why am I thinking of baba all over again? Few months back I was cleaning through his books and realized that I not only lost my grandfather on the august of ’95 but also lost the very valuable link to my dad’s childhood, stories of experience that comes from living a long life, his qualities that we as his grandchildren may or may not have inherited from him and off course I lost out on knowing a man that I found so intriguing even then.
If only I could turn back time and retrieve one thing from my past I would get him back. But enslaved by the time lords it is inevitable to do anything against their wished. How I wish I could get him back. Grandparents are such a valuable asset but most of the kids realize this only on loosing them. Sadly there are no second chances here.