I love you papa

Latest song “Baba” sung by Priyanka Chopra for the movie “Ventilator” releasing on 4th November 2016 is a beautiful tribute to a father-daughter relationship. This is not something I was planning to write about. However, after hearing this beautiful song I am compelled to pour my feelings in words. With a very heavy heart and tear filled eyes, I go down the memory lane and open the album of my life where I find my beautiful parents standing strong with us in each situation of life. From being a girl to a woman, a lot about me has changed as I’ve grown older. Except that even today, I feel like wrapping my hand around my dad’s finger when I see him.

Most ordinary is his appearance simple face, lean body and chevron moustache, characteristic of most men his age. Men like him seemed to be a common, everyday sort of sight; of the sort, one might find on any street in the city. But he is a special man. He is the king of my life as I am his princess.

They say “Behind every great daughter is a truly amazing dad” well, I have always lived by this line. Behind what I am today is my papa.This does not belittle my mother and her efforts in my upbringing. She was always the strong backbone of our family but my papa, my hero he was a silent supporter of my mum who stood by her in each storm of life. I am very proud to say that no man I ever met was my father’s equal, and I never loved any other man as much. He is the pillar of my life. A father’s tears and fears are unseen, his love is unexpressed, but his care and protection remain as a pillar of strength throughout our lives.

Losing my mother to Cancer had a very deep impact on our whole family and we almost crumbled, but there stood a man, strong, composed like a rock. His hearts was bruised, he was greaving as he lost his love, his life partner but there he was strong like a mountain for us. I could not imagine my life after we lost our mum but my papa he helped us in each step taken by we siblings.He buried his grief deep within for us.Till date, i have always seen him remembering my mum with a smile never complaining about anything. There have been many instances when I broke in front of him thinking about my mum but he never lets a tear go down his cheek. It really takes a courage of mountain to not let a tear roll down.

Like any other man about to retire, he had plans for his life post-retirement. He was just 4 months away from getting retired. He wanted to spend the old age in our hometown in the house which he and my mum had built with love and affection. They wanted to see their children getting married from that house and bringing in their grandchildren to play with down the line few years. All his dreams had shattered with a blink of an eye. But life, as we know, does not stop, it goes on. Since then, the bond with our father grew stronger as he played a dual role of a mother and a father. We got all the strength and motivation required to live from our papa.

Till date, I can say I have got best of life’s lessons from my papa. He is the one who stood with me in the worst and best of my life’s situation and with his support and guidance I have managed to come out with beautiful colours. The beauty of our relationship, and probably every father-daughter relationship, was that I always believed him. Believed in his ideologies and his promises, as those promises were always fulfilled in more ways than one. In my early teenage days, everybody would say my limbs are long and have beautiful long fingers just like my papa. I took great pride in being compared with him although I would pretend to be cool about any such comparisons so as to not cramp my style. Today when I look at myself I have grown to become a woman who is a spitting image of my mother. I have taken after my mother. I resemble her in more than one way. When I dress up in saree, I never fail to see that expression in my father’s eyes which reminds him of my mother. And he with full of affection tells me” poori mummy ki copy hai”

I was always Daddy’s little princess a reflection of the king that he is. There is no way to bring back a loved one but there are so many ways to show them how much we care, both when they are alive and after. Today, with the affection and bond we share with our father we show our mum that he is taken care of and is loved by all of us.

I want to dedicate this blog to my father for his endless love, affection and dedication in raising /holding our hands us till now. My Papa…