Daddy invinciblest

Twenty two years ago, amidst the milling early morning crowd at the magical Marina Beach, something beautiful conspired. A family sat on a picnic blanket. A mother, so beautiful, the father couldn't stop beaming with pride as she gazed into the sea, against the dewy, salty breeze. A father so affectionate, the mother sat simply smiling at her good fortune. A little baby thrown up in the air, looking up to the skies, dressed in swathes of yellow and white, giggling toothlessly, not bothering to contain her rapture. And as she came down, she looked down sideways and saw love like she would never see in all her life. Love that refused to be filtered unlike the early morning sun’s rays. The grains of sand from her tiny feet reaching for his magnetic persona, with the lazy sun making a halo for him, made it look like magic dust was descending on her father. Magic dust that caressed his brown face as he looked skywards challenging the Gods with his invincible smile.
This is how I will always remember him, the man whose blood runs through my sluggish veins, my father.

Twenty two years onwards, I sit in my room, isolted, ashamed thinking about the Magic Dust God who becomes more of a mortal being to me with every passing year, as he exposes his vulnerabilties in front of me. Fearlessly in front of me. My father, the mortal, seems more beautiful than the Magic Dust God as I drown in a sea of Ave Maria and Moonflower. He seems so fragile, so strong, so brave, so exposed.

Sundays were glorious. Summer time mangoes glugged down my elbows, winter dew settled on my bulbous nose like a moist bandage, yellow autumn leaves hid themselves in my black hair. Seasons came and went, but at the stroke of 2 pm, without fail, Daddy marched me away for my English lesson. An hour of reviewing lessons, asking me questions, a severe spelling bee where nothing but 13/15 would do. This would be followed by him giving me a story book to read, he let me choose what I wanted on our weekly expeditions to the bookstore. He reviewed each book with me. I loved Rapunzel the best. He even did mathematical tables with me, when Ma grew tired of my playful nature.

When my Magic Dust God wasn’t rebuking me for making mistakes in English and Math, he was busy buying me the best of clothes, treating my ears to the best of music, taking me to the most amusing of amusement parks, shielding me from Ma’s glowers, cheering on from the sidelines as I played a match of tennis. He taught me to keep my mind as open as my mouth, to the joys of food. To lose myself in music. To immerse myself in books.

Pampering makes a single child a raw nightmare. Didn’t anyone ever tell my father that? Why did he pamper me so? It would be his undoing. My undoing. I became a raw nightmare. I made him sad. I made him disappointed. I made him lose faith in me. I made him a man with no daughter to be proud of. I made him a man who needed to knock on his daughter’s door everyday just so he could look at her ungrateful face. I made him a man who looked as though there was no joy left is his life. My Magic Dust God now looked up to the sky Gods, hoping for some good to descend upon him, almost sorry for challenging them years back.

And while my father keeps the flatscreen TV spurting nonsensical political news company, squinting through a nascent cataract, all I want to do is hug him and tell him I am sorry for being such a disappointment. Yet, all that comes out is, ‘I am going out for dinner.’

There goes by not a day when I hear of a classmate, a colleague, a friend, losing/ close to losing her father. And every time I hear this, the wind gets knocked out of me. I feel faint. I want to know how my Magic Dust God is doing. I call up my Ma urgently and ask her. She says all is well…and why don’t I just call him up and speak to him? I don’t know Ma. When you disappoint someone you love, you never want to show face ever again, you never want to hurt them ever again. The man doesn’t deserve to go through life trying to make a right of a wrong. Trying to make a right out of me.

I will never forgive myself for not being there when his father, Chachan died. When his mother, Ammachi died. When Tin Tin, his son, died. I will never forgive myself for not being there when all he clearly needed was a daughter. For not living out my dream. For letting his nieces make tea for him while I sat in my room. For making him lose his soulful smile.

There is a part of me that shivers at the very thought that Magic Dust God is now a mere mortal. That he can no longer protect me with a swish of his muscular arm. That he is just as vulnerable as I am. That every car that passes his path is just as prone to colliding with him. That every thought that passes his mind is just as capable of messing with his heart.

And yet when I hear my friend telling me that my father dug a grave for his canine son, with his own hands, I know the Magic Dust God hasn’t died. I look up and smile and glance sideways to see my father , still so glorious, so pure, so strong.