A Father’s Mind

CLOSE to two decades ago, a postal envelope came looking for me at my Mumbai home. The envelope was handed over to me by the postman, and curiosity made me open it in a jiffy. Out came the manuscript of a poem in Malayalam, a few lines penned in blue fountain ink.  Amused, I looked for the address again, wondering if the postman delivered it at the wrong door. The address was indeed mine, and I tried to find out the name of poet who had sent it to me who had no inkling whatsoever as to what verse looked like!

Worse, I couldn’t recognise the name that preferred to stay hidden in the form of a signature beneath the poem. After much investigation, I managed to decipher the name, and yes it was the retired gentleman, an acquaintance who my father had great regards for. I had learnt from my parents that he had this habit of writing poetry, and that he nursed a passion for words.

The piece of paper with a smattering of chaste Malayalam finely crafted in blue fountain pen ink transported me to the few occasions I had met him. The first time we met, it was my father who told him I had developed an interest in journalism and had gone to the university to learn the basics of news writing. Another time I met him was when I had written a few news and feature stories for the Kerala Kaumudi after the newspaper took me in as a cub. He seemed happy that I was pursuing journalism as a career.

Later on, as a journalist at the desk at the Business Standard in Mumbai, I carried on reading, learning, editing, writing headlines and creating pages, night after night. Reading was limited to just the corporate and money stuff so that editing financial news reports came easy. I never had the faintest thought that an elderly gentleman, a poet no less, had collected my Mumbai address to send me the latest poem he had written. Privileged indeed I was, to have a manuscript send to me so that I would spent time reading it. Our short discussions, whenever we met, were about Malayalam literature (of which I know too little even today) and the changing trends in journalism (much before the web and round-the-clock news television made their advent in Kerala, or Tamil Nadu for that matter).  So, obviously the chat was about print, and print alone, and I remember I had enjoyed those short discussions, seated between the poet and my father.

As I began to read and imbibe the poem that had landed on my palm from miles far away, I realised how important a place the poet had given me in his heart. It was then I remembered, he had once said I should consider reviewing his works for the Malayalam paper I had worked for then. As I knew I wasn’t qualified enough to review eminent verse, I had pushed it to the backburner of my thoughts. But now, I heard him speak to me again from the piece of paper I held in my hand. And then I decided to review it in my humble words. After a week or so, I send it to him, and totally forgot about it - I still don’t know why!

And then one day, on my annual visit to my parents, an uncle, my mother’s elder brother (whom I respectfully address as Kochammavan) narrated an incident when a bunch of relatives came calling. Kochammavan recalled the pride in my father’s eyes when the poet showered his love on me and my father, while waxing eloquent on how I had interpreted and penned a review of his poem. 

He recalled the instance, an annual meeting of the Malayala Samajam at my place, where the poet, Sri Narayana Pillai, went on stage to address the audience of office bearers and members of the Samajam after he was honoured on the dais. He held out the latest issue of the monthly magazine of the Malayala Samajam and started reading out from a page. It was the review I had written. My father too was in the audience.

Kochammavan’s words still play out in full HD quality on the big screen of my mind. I imagine the pride in my father’s eyes and the smile he had in his lips. While recollecting Kochammavan’s words that I had made my father proud with that simple gesture, I can imagine how my father must have felt that day.

I write this today, after so many years, as I feel so immensely proud watching my daughter Shreya’s first Bharathanatyam recital on stage. I had never imagined that she was so passionate about dancing, and the way she imbibed the intricacies of what her able teacher taught her astonished me big time. She has indeed a long way to go, but her best, for me, is her first stage outing. Pride, for me, is the moment when she was on stage dancing her heart out.

I now realise how my father must have felt when he heard the poet read out his son’s lines on a public stage years ago.