It is my father’s birthday and today’s post is about speculating and making jokes about death, with a lot of quotes from him. Illustration is from a comic I was working on two years ago. I suck at comics but here it is.
—–
A few days ago we baked a chocolate cake.
The next day I gave a few pieces to the house help and a tiny bit to the father. Father was cutting veggies and CNN was playing in the background. I went into my room but could hear that she had said something. Father’s reply as usual was loud and clear.
“Mera birthday 2 din ke baad hein. Cake nahi hoga, sharaab hoga. Tum sharaab peene tayyar hoke aana.” (My birthday is in another two days. There won’t be cake but there will be alcohol. Come ready to drink some.)
When I went back, she was still laughing. I asked her, “Priya, tumne kya poocha?” (Priya, what did you ask him?)
“Maine poocha, Uncle, cake garam hein na?” (I asked, if the cake was hot?)
The cake was hot, it was just out of the microwave.
Today is his birthday. There is no cake but he wants Rs 3,500 for a party with his friends at the old men’s club. He is 74 and he says this will be his last birthday.
My father has been talking about death for many years now. He philosophies and jokes about it. He says, “There were people on earth before I was born and there will be people around after my death. If there is birth, death is bound to be. That is natural and I am not an exception. In Belgium, euthanasia is legal but in other parts people have no other option but suicide. As death is inevitable I think it is appropriate to call it quits before my 75th birthday.”
He doesn’t want to kill himself but to walk into the Himalayas and disappear. He has been talking about it for years.
“But what about m’s (niece) arangetram in late 2018? Will you miss that?”
“Fine, I will move it to a day after that then.”
Every time he brings it up, we quiz him about it.
“What will you eat? You don’t even know how to cook!”
“Oh, I will look at the sun.”
He has been doing this too for sometime. He wakes up and walks up to the terrace and salutes the sun in his own style. He almost threatens Mr Sun to, “give me the strength and stamina to live a life full of energy and free of all diseases, work more and eat less and if not to let me die.” He says he doesn’t feel that hungry. We laugh about this as he is the grumpiest person when he is hungry.
Anyway the sun salutation is followed by a trip to buy milk. He leaves the bottle at the doodhwallah and goes to park nearby and clears the plastic containers, picks up the beer and liquor bottles left behind by people who come to the park in the night for some midnight revelry. After that he comes home, has two cups of tea and some breakfast, reads three newspapers (starting with the obituaries), cuts veggies while watching CNN, talks on the phone and around 11:30 he steps out to work in a park near our house.
The park has people employed by the municipality but he must water the plants (“because what will the plants think?”), talk to them and the college students who approach him, sweep the garden, toil for three hours before it is time for lunch. He is not bothered by people who think he is the maali (gardener) and talk to him rudely. He usually replies back in English which often puzzles them. Every once in a while, he sends one of his friends from the park home, saying, “Anna said to give me Rs 500.”
Sometimes he brings home new students from the park, “She has finished her MTech and is now selling insurance. I am going to help her with some English.” Sometimes he brings people from the park for a meal.
After lunch he is usually reading on his iPhone, everything from NY Times, Washingtonpost, The Dawn, Korean Herald to MIT Technology Review and Wired.
He justifies his wanting to go to Himalayas by saying, “I am afraid AI or robots may snatch away my job and that is one of the reasons that I have decided to call it quits before 2nd June 2018.”
Everything for my father is a story. From the time we were children, all his adventures and misadventures have been stories told in his unique style, full of humour. Something to think about, something to question, something to discuss, you don’t know how much of it can be believed but there is always something to laugh about. Even about death.
Induviduality 