To The Man Who Loved and Lived-Part 6

Almost 12 years ago I was doing interns in Bangalore. Three months into the city and I could travel length and breadth without any glitch or worry. It was the novelty of knowing the place. when I first came here I was wide-eyed, naive and scared like many others. My father was relatively street smart, however, he could not maneuver and get hold of the place. He would have done it if he stayed here for a long period of time. But my parents' visit was never more than a week. During one of those visits he expressed his wish to see Vidhana Soudha, High Court, and Lal bagh. I have taken off on that day and decided to explore as I hadn't seen those places myself. My mother refused the moment we started discussing how do we go about that. She is a kind of person who fails to understand why anybody will leave the comfort of home to roam around in dust on a wintry day.

Father and I left the home around 8 0'clock. I had the monthly bus pass and bought a Day-Pass for him paying around 70 INR. In BMTC buses women sit in front and men at the back. I told my father in clear words not to get down anywhere. If the stop comes I will come to him and we will get down together. He got the window seat and clearly enjoying the view. However, that didn't stop me from turning back and looking at him to make sure he is still there. I'm raised to be a paranoid. One more thing common between my father and I are we both love window seats. During childhood he used to let me have the window seat while traveling. Once I realized his preference about that I let him have. Both of us like watching the world go by. According to me it is a sin to sleep while traveling especially during the day. You don't know what and all you have missed in those moments. I digress.

After getting down in majestic, we took another bus to Vidhana Souda. Once we got there we walked on the pavement side-by-side, he telling me many stories about politics and high profile cases of his time. He bought Bhelpuri for me and tea for himself from the street vendor. We never had camera-phones back then, so there wasn't any photos to capture those moments. Somewhere during that time he announced we will go to Lal Bhag some other day and today we will just sit in a bus and travel in-and-around Bangalore, which we did till early evening. I still don't know whether he had gone to Lal Bhag in later years.

He had this child-like curiosity. Though he was resistant to changes slowly and steadily he accepted them nonetheless. He was all ears when we tell a tale about something or other. The one thing he was not good at was sharing his worries. He kept all his stress, agitation bottled up inside. He never wanted us to stress over anything. And basically he was secretive. I wonder if those concealed emotions and tensions over a lengthy period of time could have killed him. It is sad he never realized his children are grown up enough to shoulder his emotional baggage. How I wish we could really have a hearty conversation now, not just talk.