MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER

                     From Rebellion to Reflection: Becoming My Father’s Daughter

As a 13-year-old, the only person I wanted to impress was you. Today, 13 years after you are gone, I still seek your approval in my mind.

Professor (38 years in St. Paul’s, Calcutta; 5 years in Presidency College, Calcutta)
Writer (Syndicated column in Jansatta every Sunday till your death for God knows how many years)
Politician (General Secretary, Calcutta North, Communist Party of India)

These were your worldly achievements—not a mean feat for a boy who left his small village near Unnao in Kanpur at the age of 14. An orator par excellence, the world listened when you spoke. They listened because you were a master storyteller, able to draw deep insights from any incident and weave them into captivating narratives.

As a human being, if I had to use one word to describe you, it would be “trusting”—to the point of being naïve. You trusted because you always assumed the person in front of you had the same idealistic intent as yours. So many times, you went out of your way to help someone secure admission in a school or find a job. Many times, so many took advantage of you, but till the end, you remained the same. I learned from you that “God is the God of the innocent.” And He never failed you.

Never for a moment did you make Rinki and I feel you missed having a son. “I don’t have a Rajpat to bequeath to a male heir. My daughters would be equally capable.” End of discussion. In your own way, you set out to make us capable. The only route to capability was education, you thought. You were the happiest when you saw me study. That’s what you constantly did yourself. I learnt from you that a teacher should remain a lifelong learner. I saw you constantly read—four newspapers every day, countless magazines, and n number of books.

You never really cared about materialistic life. You kept insisting that there is no end to consumerism. However, you did not take into account that the entire world did not function the way you did. They often judged you by the shoes you got repaired four times before buying a new pair or our one-bedroom house, which would sometimes be bursting at the seams with your students, colleagues, and comrades dropping by. Both your daughters would be transporting endless cups of tea to the so-called drawing room, which had one table, four chairs, and a sofa that doubled up as a bed.

The discussions permeated into the other room and were shaping my worldview. It was a worldview that I rebelled against. I wanted to run away from this so-called idealistic communist world. All the times you stopped me from exploring the world with my wings resulted in one last rebellion, where I left my P.G. in English to do an MBA from Delhi.

Today, I am sure I was not running away for the so-called MBA but wanted to run away from you and your expectations of me.

That was 25 years ago. After a lot of experiments with life—a few succeeded and many failed—I realize why your closest friends still call up and say: “Jaya, you have your father’s soul.” Voilà—I have become the replica of a man I had once run away from.

You always felt I could write. I saw you the proudest when a small article I had written was published in Junior Statesman. I believe you felt that you had passed down the writing gene to me.

You know, Papa, in my mind, I just have one reader that I write for. It’s you. Wherever you are, I know you are happy that I have finally started collecting my thoughts and putting them up there in my blog.