In flashback when i think, in the past few years i was so busy with studies, job, my husband, my daughter..i didn't spend much time with him. He would call me daily, though just for a minute and ask me the same question- How am I?
Now I so urge that he ask me the same question, and he is no where. We as a kid are so selfish that we don't realise the importance of our parents. Had i spent a little more time with him, I would have known that he was not getting old but was fading.
I am an Asthamatic, I would get attacks at night, ..i remember, once when i had an attack...my first major attack after arriving in Delhi..I had to be hospitalized in the night itself.. i always wanted a play doctor set..that evening my father visited me in the hospital with the play-set.
When i returned, from hospital he would check several times at night if i was breathing. That was my papa for me. The best father in the world!
I will always be my father's baby, even when a few years ago i became a mother to a princess myself. I was very sick after my daughter's birth but the way papa took care of my daughter is unbelievable even when he himself was in his late sixties. I would sleep peacefully, from feeding to changing nappy's papa has done all.
For the first 2 years of her life meraaya was raised by my parents. Papa and Meraaya loved each other's company and in his company she learnt so many things so fast, as compared to other children's of her age. Papa would recite poems, teach her hindi( she picked up u se ullu) and maths( papa would consider himself a genius in maths, infact he was but we always made fun of him). And god only know what all she would eat with him....amla wafers, gulkand, apple murabba, Hingoli, Jeera goli, Anardana goli( she would se anar dana doli de do nanu) and the best -eating mangoes with hand.
Things were perfect, and then papa left ..things changed forever ...in matter of months life is just not the same as it used to be. With papa gone, something inside me died that day -the zeal, the enthusiasm i had for life. I don't follow my passions anymore. I keep on running from myself. from one place to another...i try to keep myself so busy that i don't remember that one moment that changed our lives . I am always trying to get myself lost in a crowd that is unknown to me. If only i can find something that gives me peace.......!
