The Lion

I cannot keep his photo here. I can only write about him. You may not need a photo of him exactly to know him. He is any one of you, the right middle class person of 1990 s who worked lived, worked more than he lived and on and on The threshold of living on the edge where survival is the only thing that matters.

What made him different, unique evoking a compulsive narrative in me. His passion for life, when it storms and torments shaking the grounds of reality and existence. He made it seem that the business of whole of it is just recreation of being alive.

He is acha, that's what my friend called him and I called him. My friend who works as a high government official today, always said, you inherited a lot of him than me.. you are so alike. We had one thing in common him ...my friend and we wanted to bring him good in our own way and we paid our lives as it's cost... that binds us.. The him I am writing about.

Those are the days parents were minimalists, dreamers and dream chasers. They would do anything under sky to make their children some thing or some one in society. He was a man who could do anything to make it a reality.

Unni, as people called him, this acha of my friend, worked in the state government, he rouse on the scale to be a Tahasil dar and he was a very sincere person. He would stand for the right, fight it out till end and this gave him suspensions and periods with out pay, running with his family to keep them safe and a lot of pain, which he never told any one. He wanted to be a lawyer. He lost the exam, but for a book he could not have at that time and unlike today that was not a time of computers, internet and amble resource. He was man tortured at soul, for doing what he thought was just and right.

He could just keep the fight on if he think he has taken the side of truth and this made him dare. He questioned the systems. But when it came to family, he was a loving husband... though it was a bumpy road. Of showing love, speaking it, , rhyming with each other.. he was like any classical Indian man rough tough and not learnt to express it, the love.

When I visited their house, my adventures of its kind, all alone. I could see the home almost in giving way.. but one of the room had air conditioner, where my friend sat and studied.

Acha spoke very fluent English

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with a tinge of literary note and he learned everything... old or young, mastered many things... but again there struggles were beyond words 

For his children he opted the best schools, made them feel they were best and never made them feel low. A kind of burning to enlighten up the darkness that was always ready to swallow him...

There were times he resorted to alcohol but he got sober and it was a fight against destiny that always tried to pull him down.. still he kept on. His watch words was Be as cold as ice.... oh Let us cross the bridge when we face it.

He never compelled his children to work, bring money, he only wanted them to make their dreams come true. My friend and his little brother were his accolades. I tell my friend who now often gets annoyed by the old ways his dad try to do things.. I remind him that it is those unconventional erratic ways but intelligent pursuits that made him what he is today.

To bring bread and money to table is not a big thing today, but those were days when it was a great deal.

Today he does his farming, and I still know there are things in his heart burning like coal never going away, hurting him.. he knew it was not a great success, but it was a huge sacrifice and placing his son on the pedestal of career where a father can feel so proud ... he walk as though he is in control...

His children too had their failings they have too made their own mistakes, but it was a patient parent who just made their errings right, he was a great friend  

I could call kS, as some one who can make things right when it is all falling out. He was the rock. He is a great guide, a book of experiences, a way of living against all odds, not bothering a mob and its impact or judgment. He is a plain man.. a natural.

When he is around it made it feel safe and he needs to be written about... a man who is thin lean rocked ruthlessly by waters of fate but making his moves to success and being the goodness a human being can be....

The piano he brought home that no one could play.... the lamp so huge be kept at home, the chandeliers he loved to have.. his little musings were the untold Stories.. of a young man he was once. A man who made a mark in history.. A dad a friend, guide and a philosopher. I called him... Lion... I meant it.