Date with Dad

It is his birthday tomorrow and today we had a pre-birthday father-daughter rendezvous. I and my father spent the first half of the day talking about Agha Shahid Ali and the second half in a hospital. We spotted miseries and we debated miracles; all with the same interest. I prize such days spent with him and like so many of them in the past, our today’s tête-à-tête is still running inside my head.

In spite of being blessed with same age- same crazy friends for life, father still continues to be my best conversationalist buddy and the poise with which he balances his intellect with humour remains matchless. He has a profound insight of everyday life and an unparalleled art of crafting theatre out of ordinary. 

Father had his bone scan today. For the past few days he has been playing week and timid, a trick to gain sympathy and thus avoid any hospice appointment.  Actually, he didn’t like the details of the scan given to him and thus he tried his best to escape it. He couldn’t and today was the day.

SKIMS is always so overcrowded that I’ m sure most of the patients never make it beyond the entry gate. Besides being physically robust one has to be cerebrally sane also to make it through the corridors of the hospital. My father has minimum possible tolerance for such situations and he would never walk beyond the entrance, if unaccompanied. He hates hospitals and everything related. In fact he has many times tricked his aides and left without seeing his doctor. Thus, mostly it’s I who attends him around hospitals as come what may, he cannot say NO to me.  And, I cannot be tricked. Today, sister also accompanied us.

In the middle of an incomprehensible swarm of people, teeming in all directions and all corners, I tried to hold my father’s hand to avoid any mix-up. However, with an I-am-still-upset expression on his face, he pulled it away and said, ‘I haven’t lost it yet, Darling. I can see you. Keep walking.’ Some rammed into us and we rammed into others but finally we managed to reach the department of Nuclear Medicine where the number of patients was thankfully very less. Father was greeted by his son and his son-in-law (both work in SKIMS) and in my left ear he whispered, ‘Intizaam chu zabardast.’ (Wow! What an arrangement!). He removed everything metallic from his body and walked into the forbidden zone. On his own, all alone yet sturdy and smart. I and the siblings kept monitoring his pace as long as we could. With a sating beam on my face, I spoke to myself, ‘He hates hospitals, he hates to go through all of this but my darling Father has definitely not lost it.’ The lion can be caged but the lion never forgets his gait. 

In the waiting room, we started talking to another old man. A very pleasant guy quite upset with himself as he had been ignoring his health for long now. ‘Friends and relatives would tell me that I am growing weak but I am an ass. I didn’t pay any attention. And now, here I am, going through all this crap. I hate it’. I kept looking at him with a smile on my face but could not speak a word. I was still thinking about my father.

The glass door opened and we turned around to receive him. ‘How was it?’ asked sister. With his infectious smile and inimitable wit, he answered, ‘I was in a machine which looked more or less like a grave. So, fine rehearsal indeed.’ We all laughed and started walking towards the crowd we could easily disappear in.

Before the scan, father was given an intravenous dose of a radioactive isotope of Iodine and he had to wait for 3 hours to have the isotope in his full blood stream. Piqued and eager of going back to his house and to his wife as early as possible, father didn’t quite like this idea of extended treatment. In order to make it easy for him, I reached to my book shelf and handed over a collection of Agha Shahid Ali’s poems to him. ‘Ah! Shahid!’, he exclaimed.

‘You have forgiven everyone, Shahid,even God

Then how could someone like you not live forever?’

‘Every time I read him, I think of Agha Ashraf Ali Sahab. Shahid’s death devastated him.’ Agha Ashraf Ali has been my Father’s teacher during some training course. He read the foreword and the first poem, Postcard from Kashmir and closed the book. It was time for an anecdote. Holding the book in his hands, Father told me how efficient and resourceful Ashraf Sahab was as a teacher and in spite of being distressed by his young son’s untimely demise, he didn’t lose composure and treated every visitor, every well-wisher with inspiring grace. With a deep sigh, father handed over the book back to me and said, ‘Shahid died really young and I’m past that age so, don’t worry.’

Life is a mass of moments and father adds unique charm to mine.

Happy birthday, Dad!