Dad- The colossus in my living room

This post is an excerpt from a tribute piece I wrote for my dad on the eve of his birthday.He's the Sun in my horizon, that I've often taken for granted, content with the illumination of the tubelite in my living room .

Dads are like tall monuments, the greatness of which needs to be seen from a distance and heard from a prudent stranger. This is me, writing about the colossus my dad is, from a objective distance as a prudent stranger.

 During my delivery,the maternity ward witnessed two births. One was me covered in organic goo and other my dad. He was a self made man,every inch of him.Having an educational foundation in Tamil medium from an agrarian village which was waking up to the invention of telephones and speed posts, here he was overseeing the birth of his first progeny at an uptown nursing home at the heart of the city as a practicing Chartered Accountant .


Shy of English and urbanization, he had walked into a city as a youngster inundated by poverty with a family that looked up to him.He had fire in his belly,instead of food during a lot of the initial days of his career.His growth through the thick and thin of things had made him a more humble person than proud.


Dad's a multifaceted man,who's got no pretense about flaunting it with lesser mortals around.I've seen him as a kid and a teenager raise two houses from a blueprint level to a civil monument that had the neighbours salivate at their elaborate detailing. I've never been very excited about being around mortar,cement and semi-finished structures with sweaty labourers clocking painful man-hours all my life.But my indifference to the nitty gritties of construction as a process hasn't stopped me from admiring the authoritative connoisseur my dad was.

I've always been able to afford the leverage of being a passive participant to the proceedings at home, thanks to his relentless contribution to everything at home ranging from fixing an electrical anomaly at the bathroom to a motivational soliloquy to a crest fallen member at home.

If altruism was a cherubic south Indian who quoted Vivekananda at drop of a hat,it would pretty much look my dad.People are of two kinds,givers and takers,he's of the former tribe.He has always been unconditional, his habit of giving has never been contingent on the credibility of the receiver be it advise or a timely assistance. As much I respect this,I've had an issue or two with this unabashedly saccharine side by virtue of which he has been taken for a ride by some. Some of my grey shades I realize, were fashioned as an antidote to the white shades I've disagreed with in his personality. It takes an extremely strong person like my dad to be genuinely good irrespective of the stimuli faced, I'm neither one nor do I intend to go there someday.

Dad and me are dissimilar people from diabolically different school of thoughts who ensure the house is never short of fireworks and heat.Most of our altercations don't end with logic as,more than fact we tend to clash at ego levels. His is laidback and assured, mine is brash and pushy.that both of us tend to get personal more often than not.


When ensconced in solitude,I've repented my modus operandi and the vocabulary employed with him at proving a point that more often than not my conscience has itched me.His intention en-wrapped in harsh words have dawned upon me like medicinal effect of a bitter pill,hours after a conflict.
Life would keep hurling myriad situations at any given individual through various stages

,I'm no exception to this.All I can try is to be as thankful as him when they turn out favourable and be half as graceful when they don't.