April 2010 was a month of happenings. Pranav (my son) & his wife Amruta came to India for a short holiday, which included a visit to our ancestral village in Belgaum, Karnataka, Mihir (my nephew) had his Upanayan ceremony, and Achyut, another of my nephews, got married to a girl of his choice from far away Dehradun. All in all we had a hectic spell of tours & events in a span of about three weeks.
Then there were other matters to be taken care of. We had some pending rituals on the agenda like Gondhal- a ritual you are supposed to do immediately after a marriage in the family, but got delayed by about three years in case of Pranav as he was not in India all this time. We were wondering whether we could fit all of this in Pranav's agenda, when on top of this, Sanjeev (my younger brother) realised that my father has now turned 80, and this should be celebrated appropriately.
Then there were other matters to be taken care of. We had some pending rituals on the agenda like Gondhal- a ritual you are supposed to do immediately after a marriage in the family, but got delayed by about three years in case of Pranav as he was not in India all this time. We were wondering whether we could fit all of this in Pranav's agenda, when on top of this, Sanjeev (my younger brother) realised that my father has now turned 80, and this should be celebrated appropriately.
In the Hindu tradition, completion of 80 years is a great achievement, and there is an elaborate ritual called 'Sahastra Chandra Darshan' that the family is supposed to perform : literally it means having seen 1000 full moon days - which takes about 80 years and 10 months. This was not yet due, and anyway, my father is very active and resents any reference to his age. I remember he refused to be called a grandfather when Pranav was born, notwithstanding the fact that he had a grandson now. He would have vetoed any event which had a direct reference to his age.
So the affair had to be planned without letting him know, and we planned it as a surprise event during Mihir's Upanayan, wherein we had already invited the entire extended family, and would be an appropriate setting for such an event. It was decided to felicitate him at the hands of his two younger brothers who would be present, and I, as the eldest son, would be talking about him at the event.
As it happened I had virtually no time to prepare my speech, and anyway the event was all informal, the audience would be all part of the family. So it came to pass that when I stood on the stage to talk about my father, most of what I spoke was extempore, and as it happens with most of the extempore speeches, left out a major issue - his contribution in grooming of his sons.
The thing that strikes about Dada when you meet him first is his forthright & loud manner of speaking as if he is acting out the part of a noble hero in a historical drama without loudspeakers, but all that is a front, hiding his honest & sensitive nature. He has a cherished image of himself as a person who brooks no nonsense and does not worry about the impact of his language on the listener. But on the inside he is a very sensitive person, a fact he does not like anybody to know - maybe it is a part of grooming - sensitivity in males is considered as a sign of weakness in the traditional Hindu household.
I now realise that most of my value system today is based on my father - truthfulness, honesty and acting the good Samaritan at all times. I remember him rushing to help almost anybody who would appeal to him, going to great lengths and at his own expense most of the times. And all this without expecting anything in return.
It was this side of him, which got him into the trade-union politics. But much before that, as a young lad he had participated in the Indian Freedom Movement. He may or may not have understood the larger context of the freedom struggle at so young an age (born in 1930, he was just 12 when the Quit India Movement started in 1942), but it shows his extrovert nature, and the will to act for the common cause, and that streak in his nature has continued throughout all of his eighty years of life. Even today, as a devout follower of Pandurangshastri Athvale, it is the public spirited activity of the 'Swadhyaya Movement' that attracts him most - going to the villages, staying & working with the villagers, and doing all this at your own expense - all this is so very similar to the good old communist movement of which he was once a devout follower. But I think I shall need a few more blogs to do justice to what my father is all about
I now realise that most of my value system today is based on my father - truthfulness, honesty and acting the good Samaritan at all times. I remember him rushing to help almost anybody who would appeal to him, going to great lengths and at his own expense most of the times. And all this without expecting anything in return.
It was this side of him, which got him into the trade-union politics. But much before that, as a young lad he had participated in the Indian Freedom Movement. He may or may not have understood the larger context of the freedom struggle at so young an age (born in 1930, he was just 12 when the Quit India Movement started in 1942), but it shows his extrovert nature, and the will to act for the common cause, and that streak in his nature has continued throughout all of his eighty years of life. Even today, as a devout follower of Pandurangshastri Athvale, it is the public spirited activity of the 'Swadhyaya Movement' that attracts him most - going to the villages, staying & working with the villagers, and doing all this at your own expense - all this is so very similar to the good old communist movement of which he was once a devout follower. But I think I shall need a few more blogs to do justice to what my father is all about
