Righteous Man

He seemed to have made up his mind about returning to Mumbai soon. Since it had been only a week or so since his arrival in Bangalore, I was a bit upset that he was already thinking of going back.

“I was waiting for you to return from Singapore and now that you are back, I shall leave. Also, I have nothing much to do here anyway.”

I did not buy his excuse. I requested him to tell me honestly what the real issue was.

“This is afterall my daughter’s house. I can’t stay here for too long. It won’t look good.”

He knew I was angry at his remark. Almost immediately he added, “Although I have no problem staying here, I don’t want my daughter to suffer because of me. I don’t want people or the society to give her a hard time.”

I tried to reassure him by saying that things are way better now and when my parents are fine with him staying over for as long as he wants, why care about what the society thinks.

“I have seen people suffer before and I don’t want my daughter to undergo that. When my father was in Gattu to take care of my bed-ridden mother in her maiden house, he wasn’t given his due respect. It was frowned upon that he stayed over at his wife’s place. I witnessed him being humiliated with my very own eyes. He was given just 2 pancha (dhoti) with thick borders. One can’t wear a pancha with thick borders on a regular basis.”

“My father took care of my mother in Gattu when she was bed-ridden. After she passed away, he moved to Raichur and then eventually to Hyderabad and took up a job as a general insurance agent.”

Reverting to the original topic, he added, “ I don’t want to take great liberties with my children. It wouldn’t be right on my part.”

Indignantly, I told him that we as his family would always be there for him.

He smiled and said, “ I know you will all be there for me. But I don’t want to be too demanding. People will appreciate more if you don’t demand. For example, I wanted a sweater recently when I landed in Bangalore as I had forgotten mine in Mumbai. Your parents insisted on buying me a sweater. When Madhu found out that I didn’t have one, he immediately called me up from Mumbai and offered to buy me one as well. My children love me so much and I don’t want to burden them.”

I looked at his sapient face and realised that those deep-set eyes had great wisdom in them.

That night, before retiring to bed, he made me listen to a song called Tu Ganga ki Mauj from the movie Baiju Bawra. The 1952 movie was in black and white.

With a childlike demeanor, he enthusiastically told me about the background story of the song and asked me to listen to all the songs from that movie.

I was awestruck at the way the song had enigmatically managed to bring him joy. I found myself smiling satisfactorily and soon both of us decided to call it a day.