The man who shaped me

It is 16 years since he left us as of today. Yet, it is his vulnerability, his ability to grapple with what he was taught to how his inner conscience spoke, his scientific temper from being a scientist in analysing any subject including his cancer (on graph sheets from my old notebooks, fascinated about his body and its changes and trying his predictive analysis), his OCD for detail, his need for perfection and refusal to have it any other way, his irritation with fakes, his zest for life, love for plants and the earth, his joy for small things, his stubbornness to never give up, his ability to introspect, his ability to come up and talk on any subject, his habit of making lists, his obsession with order, his ability to stay human whatever the price that stays with me.

He is one of the most real people I have known. Not at all a perfect man. That is why he stands the tallest. Because he was always work in progress and deeply aware of that. It is a rare man who understands that he is deeply human and vulnerable and able to deal with that. A man who deserved a lot more. But, one who lived with a wonder in his eye for life till the end however raw a deal it gave him.

As a child growing up in a chaotic house full of adult events, he is the one whom the child in me remembers the most with kindness. He the one who would comment 'you look like a Deccan princess' making a child feel like one, getting me to dig the earth along sweating in the sun to make a garden perfect to earn his approval, the one who told me stories, custom-made a carrom board because i longed for one. He made me feel wanted, listened to, like i mattered amidst the cacophony. Through my adolescent period as my mind expanded with my reading, it was with him I fought orthodoxy the most with logic or arguments. It was his insane standards of perfection i hated but matched. His quirks which made a child squirm but the adult in me be so comfortable in my skin. It was with him as he lay on the hospital bed that I could discuss joys or pain, even taboo subjects like sex. I realise now that he never judged. When he was out of his depth, he would take days, months but would finally swing by and start that topic all on his own. And, in my adulthood i realise the number of things he handled without resorting to self-violence, alcohol, smoking or any substance abuse and yet handling crisis after crisis without losing his spirit for long. It was through him that I saw the agony of a parent wanting to do more for all his children, and try and be fair by all of them. I now realise that i never knew fear with this man. I could argue, grow along, fight and make up, even bridge a few generations but be sure something held.

If I have survived, it is his spirit that inspired. As his daughter, I could not give up. I had to keep going pulling myself from impossible depths the way he always did. The fighter in me is born from the fighter in him.

He always played the best with what he had at any point of time. That's what he taught me.

Yes. This man shaped me. And, continues to shape me.

-Srividya ( Vidhu)