Thread by @safalniveshak

On the morning of 17th October 2019, I lost the first-ever reader and subscriber to my posts, my greatest motivator and my most vocal critic.

I lost my father.

When he passed away, family and friends told me that the grief would subside with time, that time would dull the pain. The pain of realizing that he isn’t there anymore – though in a way he still is – remains as strong.

Confucius said that we have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.

Papa was born in 1949, but his second life probably began in 1971 when he met “Anand”.

"Anand" was Anand Sehgal, a character played by Rajesh Khanna in a movie called Anand, which was Papa’s favorite movie (he wrote down the note below after watching the movie).

Anand’s character was all about living with vivacity despite going through the experience of imminent death. The movie presented the philosophy that even in the wake of death, life could be lived vigorously, rather it should be lived that way.

The protagonist Anand Sehgal had cancer (maybe Papa was so impressed with Anand, that he also took on this very disease) and was supposed to be alive for a few months only, but believed that ‘life should be large, not long’.

He was neither sad nor scared about his impending death. He wanted to live as much as he could in his remaining days, to enjoy and share his happiness (anand) with everyone around.

Papa was exactly like Anand. Like him, he shared all his happiness with the world, while keeping all his grief within (maybe that caused the downfall in his health over the last few years). He had his share of flaws, but he was a genuinely good man – in a pure, innocent way.

He wanted, more than anything, to do good in the world, to always do the right thing. That is one attribute I picked up from him, and I thank God I did that.

Another thing I learned from Papa was that the best life one could live was not one in which a person did big, great things that influenced the lives of millions, but one in which you made a difference in the part of the world you touched, no matter how small.

He said that a life in which you helped only one person because that was the only opportunity you had to help someone else was just as great a life as that of someone who changed the lives of millions.

Papa was a wonderful writer, and I believe he wanted to do more of it after college. However, being the eldest in the family, he was not given any option by my grandfather other than joining the family business which then took away all his time.

Now, as I look back to his life, I wonder if our dreams are really our own, or if we are all destined to fulfil the unrealized dreams of our parents.

As I remember Papa and celebrate his life, it strikes me that perhaps the best way to remember the life of someone who shaped and inspired you is to realize their dreams.

Perhaps the best way to honour them is to carry the torch they dropped, to pick up the broken pieces of their hopes, to revisit their unfulfilled dreams and also their failures and turn them into successes.

Perhaps the best way I can celebrate Papa’s life is to try as hard as I can to walk in the world with the same compassion, humility, love, and joy that he carried with him so that the light of his life will not extinguish even after the passing of his mortal body.

“Your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life,” said Chuck Palahniuk, the noted American fiction novelist.

Papa, I realize now, gave me his life. I hope I stand up to it.

For now, I can do nothing but miss him.

As a young, modern society, we seem to have lost a huge part of our compassion towards our parents. We’ve become insensitive to the core values we were taught as children.

Like me, even you must have been raised by parents who believed in the validity of a handshake and touching elders’ feet, and the importance of treating others as they themselves expected to be treated.

But tragically, as our parents age, they are faced with the realization and loss of these basic rules that binds our lives. Just step back and reflect on the dignity that is owed to your ageing parents.

Keep in mind what is hard for us as children, is ten-fold harder for our parents. Know that the process of growing old brings with it moments of freedom and joy, but it also carries fear and loss of personal worth.

The “what if’s” of life has become a reality and the ageing parents find themselves torn between living an independent life, and being dependent on their children.

Remember they never left us alone or afraid, and never ignored us as children. Instead, they always kept us close at hand and heart…always watching us carefully…always present for us though all our pains and trouble…always there.

When the roles reverse (like for me and maybe you, it has already reversed), we must remember to love and treat our parents with dignity and honour — for without them, we would be nothing.

We must change the way we treat our parents – physically, emotionally, financially – by preserving their dignity as they surrender to their ageing body and weakening soul.

This is probably the best gift of gratitude we as children can offer to them. After all, most of what we’ve learned…we’ve learned from our parents. If for nothing else, they have earned the right to earn our compassion, our gratitude, and a place in our financial priorities.

I can imagine a world where every child respects his parents and gets respect from his/her child. It would indeed be a wonderful world.

#HappyFathersDay.