Azad
What is it? Is it when I was trying to ask him to give me a ride in his official government issued jeep while the sun stood bright on a summer morning before he went to work. He is wearing a brownish-grayish Safari suit smiling at me. Or is it when I ran to sit in his lap while he was praying in the Puja ghar at our ancestral home in Sitamarhi. I am probably 3 and I wet his lap while sitting and somebody is scolding me while he sternly waves his hand at them and protects me.
It’s been a month since the fateful day when I heard the news of his passing away. I have so many memories of my Dadajee that multiple tomes of books could be filled with them. But I thought I should begin from my first memory of him.
Since I remember, vacations were all about meeting Dadajee. I remember traveling in train from Maharashtra to Bihar with a leg dangling outside the sleeper class window thinking of all the important things that I have to show and discuss with him. I would collect copies of ‘Champak’ or puzzles and questions along with poems that we were taught in school to proudly show and tell. This would be accompanied by multiple irritating reminders from my parents not to ask him about why does he not eat chicken. I of-course would end up giving in to my curiosity and asking him the same question. Being a traditional set up, we would have separate utensils for vegetarian and non vegetarian food as is common with many Indian households. It would irk me to see him not having food with me the day chicken would be cooked at home. Why? Because it was my thing to have all my meals with him. Yes, every meal. I would not eat till he would be home from wherever he was and then we would sit together, recite a short prayer that I still murmur at times before eating and then begin. It would also entail factoids about how food is prepared. What is the traditional way or cooking food. How did they he have food while he was a kid. What kid of different ‘tadka’ we have for our food and why does it vary with season. Which season is good to produce rice or wheat or other things that we eat.
And then we would proceed to our spot- the Verandah. It had a Diwaan and a massive masnad where we would sit, talk and doze off. There is a railway bridge a few kilometers from our home and was visible from the Verandah. Every time I would hear the whistle of the train, I would stand up or rush to the other side to watch the train. This was when he taught me how trains were built and run first. How could steam power an entire train and who invented the steam engine. Later once we grew up that British era railway bridge was used to teach me how to calculate loads on every joint and how to calculate the load bearing capacity of the bridge. This is where we discussed how Biharis are not considered good at entrepreneurship and why should I strive to change it. How being able of giving employment and pulling people out of poverty should be a goal not just being employed. A dream I still am chasing.
We would lie down on the verandah, he would doze off and I would watch the pigs passing by or the goat herders herding their livestock through. I don’t remember this but I have been told that once I wanted to ride and pet a small goat. While everybody laughed it off, he requested a goat herder to bring a few goats so that I could play with them. How do I believe this? Because I have a picture of me sitting on a goat aided by an adult. Poor goat. Lucky me.
I was a lanky underweight kid who was barely average in studies. During my initial years of schooling, I was bullied a lot too. But by the time I became an young adult I was very confident. In fact I was weirdly confident, even over confident at times of my abilities. It always was a source of strength and helped me strive for things way out of my league. One of the reasons is my Dadajee. He would hype me up like I was a rockstar! He would gather a small crowd of 7-10 people, which is very easy to find in a joint family by the way, and make me read the editorial from Hindu which was a benchmark for good English back in the day while telling everybody things like, “see his diction”, “see how beautifully does he pronounce such complex words”, “have you heard a 10 year old be so confident?”, “he is meant for big things in life!” This may sound comical now but it meant the world to me. There were multiple nights where my aunts and uncles would gather around both of us and I recited poems by Dinkar or something written by Bacchan or Srimadbhagwatgeeta. They would discuss the nuances of the text while I would sit and try to nod as if I understood. My underachievement in academics was never a problem for him because I was better than what marks I had on my report card. So many times my parents would tell him to tell me to study and he would just scoff at them because they didn’t get how brilliant I was. There was somebody in my corner against the entire world, against the education system, against the boring teachers, against the dreary textbooks, against the pressure to perform. I cannot emphasize enough what it meant to me and the effect it had on me.
This does not mean he was anti education. In fact, He was an educator by nature. Numerous people who have reached good places in life serving the nation will testify to how much has he helped them study. Not only that, he would make studies fun. Knowing about Archimedes and his eureka moment was a story that I heard probably when I was 6 or 7. A Greek’s (Erathosthenes) experiments with curvature of earth, solar system and fluid dynamics in form of glutton’s cup were all told to me as stories when I was a kid. These were also interspersed with stories of Shibu and Nibu, two characters he built just for me and all his grandchildren. Once Nibu and Shibu took a journey from Kanyakumari to Mount Everest to have a word with Lord Mahadev about their homework. In the process they taught me about flora and fauna of India, the various hills and states they crossed, what they ate in those states and at what speed were they cycling. This story took 10-15 days to complete but I loved every bit of it. And no, he was not building a story spontaneously to amuse a few kids. He had planned the entire story, just for us, just like he would write so many poems for us. When I went home for his last rites, I could still find notepads where he has tried to write a poem for some lucky kid.
He also instilled in us a habit of writing. He would write letters to us no matter where we were. The first letter that I remember is from when I was 4 and in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh where Papa was posted. This was a regular affair which continued till last year when he was too old to write without getting tired. His letters would have everything from national affairs to international. From his theories and ideas on space, time, aviation and governance. My father made sure I kept his letters and replied to every one of them. This habit of writing also meant good handwriting. When I was home for summer vacations in Class 5th, he made me a bamboo pen with a broad nib called ‘karchi’ which was dipped in ink and written with. In phase one, every alphabet from Hindi and English was supposed to be written multiple times and it was only in phase two that I started writing sentences with it. Needless to say, I still write like that.
He instilled a fierce sense of national and cultural pride in me but made sure I did not lose the spirit of asking tough questions. When I was a teenager and was getting my first whiff with politics, I was naturally right leaning. He made sure I read left literature before I embraced anything. His philosophy was that nothing in world is without its own follies, you need to know about them before you embrace it.
Dadajee’s love and knowledge of Ramcharitmanas was legendary. He tried following Lord Rama all his life. But this did not mean he did not know about other aspects of ancient Hindu texts. One could talk to him about Vedanta or Upanishads and learn about them in simplest possible ways. Not only learn about them but also learn how to admire them. One of my aunts decided to pursue her PhD in ancient Hindu philosophy inspired and guided by him.
About 11 years ago when he was in Delhi, I had just started working and I decided to gift him a mobile phone. Everybody in the family had their apprehensions on how a 80 year old man would use a modern marvel like cellphone? But guess what, he got used it admirably. So much so that later when I gave him a first version of kindle, after amazed at how such a small device could have thousands of books, he soon was adept with it. In fact till a few days before his passing, we would communicate via telegram on his iPad!
On his second last trip to Delhi 3 years ago, I think he saw me slightly demotivated and becoming a typical corporate slave without a spark. On a winter morning while we were sitting in the sun in our small balcony, he asked if I was comfortable in life. If I was earning enough money. How much money was enough money for me to start helping people? Do I still want to help people and help build the nation? If yes, when was I going to take the next step. When was I going to use my new found comfort and prosperity to better other people’s life as I had once tried to do in my teenage years? When he saw me struggling for answers, he discussed with me the concept of Zakat that Islam espouses where one gives 2.5% of his wealth in charity after meeting a basic criteria. Upon his advice, as a starting point my friends and I decided to start a scholarship fund where we have pledged 1% of our salary. But as I said it is just a starting point.
Why am I writing this? I think because I am yet to find a more complete man than my Dadajee. He may have had his share of faults, but I cannot think of one while I write this. Very few people have had such a decisive impact on my life as my Dadajee did. And he did so in a way that was positive and non intrusive. I say this to a lot of people and I shall say this again- if I ever manage to do anything good in life, it would be because of him. And if I don’t I will still be happy that I tried and failed.
P.S- Pitamahshreshta (पितामहश्रेष्ठ) is how I started greeting him later and he would laugh at me.
