More on Thatha

Continued from here.

Thatha had latent humor. He would inject humor into dead serious situations, and still keep his face straight. Like the time when the couple next door bought an outdated nth-hand Maruti (The ones called Dolphins) and he went and asked him whether it was a new one. And when the neighbour said yes, my thatha had the cheek to ask him, "but the registration number does not seem new".

The second time Thatha had scolded me was when I was behaving very pally-pally with my uncle, not keeping in mind the age difference. He was very matter-of-fact this time and came straight to the point without much beating around the bush and things. It was around this time, that I learnt the Ambassador, and was permitted to take it around the city. But when I returned, Thatha would be standing at the gate, to remind me to park the vehicle inside the garage. I have this habit of leaving the vehicle in front of the gate, so that I can be off, as soon as I hear my friends' vehicles in the distance. But Thatha would always see to it that vehicles were parked inside.

Thatha had this insatiable hunger for technology. In his later years, it was the mobile phone which caught his fancy, and he would ask me on and on about how they function. He would listen with rapt attention the stuff about networks, towers, billing, SMS and whatever stuff I dished out to him. He would devour the newspaper for new terminologies and refer them to me, for clarification. Once, he wanted to know the difference between 'web' and 'cyber'. He had seen it in one of these internet parlours.

Internet was one thing that got him hooked. He was amazed at how fast the news travelled, and he followed the Iraq war entirely on internet. He would open accounts, and ask me the funda behind the secret question thing. He would mail me and check on phone whether I received the mail. He was passionate about computers. He joined the tutorial next door on how to assemble a computer. Hardware stuff basically. He wasnt interested in software. So poor thing, he skipped the classes on software installations. Everytime Windows gave him a problem, he would just hit format *.*, and come back to me for having the OS installed again. He loved XP and its colours. Google Earth was another favourite of his. He would look up all the places where US had bombed Iraq.

He was ill for most of his later years, the reason being, he would always stand near the front door, and take in all the dust and smoke. Come autumn, and he would take a broom and start sweeping away all the leaves. He never listened to anyone, and if he felt like it, he would take the vehicle and go roaming, exploring new suburbs of the city, at 11:30 forenoon. He also became a bit stubborn. He would keep quiet when the doctor was around, and as soon as he left, he would pester the nurse to write a discharge sheet. Sometimes when we had asked the doctor to tell him that he needed bedrest, he would act very active, and read the paper, walk around his ward, and make us look like fools.

He was so happy when I got my job, and when I filed up all the documents of the house, vehicles and other things. He was very ill when the house-warming was done, and he just came to attend the final chants of the puja. He maintained regular contact over email, while I was here in Pune. Once he would mail from one account, and then from the other. He was impressed by the way cellphones clicked the photos, and transferred them over the internet from person to person. When I left for Pune after the house-warming, he asked me to bring along the datacable, so that he could learn how to transfer the files from cellphone to computer. Sadly, he never got to learn it.

Thatha died last Diwali. I was the last one to see his face. Grandma, Mom, Dad, my uncle, everyone was holding their emotions, somehow. I got the feeling they were postponing the imminent, minute by minute until I arrived. The moment I stepped into the hall, loud sobs broke out all over. Mom was clinging to me, Dad had closed his eyes, and my palm was hurting in his hands as he tried hard to take control over himself. Thatha was lying there, his face serene, almost as if he was just there in a deep sleep. He was sleeping, yes, but he would never wake up from it.

May God rest his noble soul in eternal peace.