Remembering You...Baba

For most part of the day today I was glued to the TV. Being a tuesday it spared me the ordeal of dropping and picking G(daughter) from ABACUS,the mental math class she has joined for the summer.And I am happy I did it.Had it not been so I would have missed some remakable moments from MJ's funeral which will be etched in my heart till I leave this world.

I remember the release of “Dangerous”.It was all over.I was probably in seventh standard then.Growing up in Shillong with its pop entwined culture had its advantages.I loved the song "Remember the time" and kept on playing it over and over and getting on to my Ma's nerves.Baba was always patient about it or didn't say anything about it.

On the evening of the cursed thursday MJ passed S(husband) and I sat discussing him for sometime,spent some time on Youtube looking up his videos.That should have been all.This celebrity death too would have wandered off into some untreaded realms of my not so remarkable memory.

But the last couple of minutes of the Jackson memorial service today took me right back to a hospital lobby 8 years back.It was MJ' s 11 year old daughter's tearful eulogy which had tears welling up in my eyes too.My baba died 8 years back.True, for a couple of years it was hard to manage the pain.The thing about pain is either you manage it yourself or you seek help in managing it.Thereafter I got married and life took a new turn and the pain dulled.

There does not go a single day when I do not think of baba.The sense of loss that day and today is no less or no more.I remember sitting in a catatonic state that day in the hospital.Tears too had dried up.At that point that day i couldn't imagine how life could go on without him.I sat there remebering every single thing I did with Him and which was part of my daily routine.

I grew up waiting in the evenings for the door bell to ring and running to the door to have baba back from work.The evening rituals of tea,snacks and the incessant narration of the day's activities first by me and then by him.Poor ma never had anything exciting to share except the excerpts of the not so brief phone conversations she had with dida(grandma),masis(maternal aunts),pisis(paternal aunts) and the likes.During school years, later part of the evenings would be spent in him continiously trying to help me in my studies.And in even younger years probably in kindergarten his job was to sit and draw with me to keep me from disturbing my sister who was in high school by then.The years before his demise when I was well in my post graduation ,the evening chats could be about anything and everything,from boyfriends to global warming.

That day at the hospital I sat there dreading the vacuum I am inheriting for life.I was seriously thinking how to manage Ma whose routine of life was so sequenced with that of baba's that I feared that she would be lost forever.But today in retrospect , she was way stronger than I was.The next two years until my marriage we (Ma and I) developed a bond which never existed when baba was there.

The day I got married to S(whose details i very coyly first shared with none other than Baba),I felt his absence the most.He was not there to give me off.I cried a lot.Was it his absence or the guilt of leaving Ma all by herself,I dont know.When he left us he was 58 and I was 24.I always felt He went too soon.To this day when I see friends' parents visiting them here in the US ,I sit thinking what it would have been like to have had both my parents here.Wishful thinking...huh.

Baba never got to see G.This is again something which brings back all the poignant 'if this' and 'then what' thoughts.Its sad indeed.But not having Baba around has most definitely made me strong.I grew strong not by choice but it helps to be strong.

I have a loving family and his absence has made me appreciate this more than ever.I have made some difficult choices in my life to be with my family.I want to live a long and happy life and be with G just like Baba did with me,only longer.I want to live on in her,just like the way baba lives on in me.

11 year old Paris's unrehearsed feelings for her Daddy gave the Jackson memorial the dimension which people are going to remember for years.I guess it doesn't matter who you are and where you are ,losing your father gives one the same kind of pain.I am happy that MJ's legacy will live on in his three kids.I pray to God that MJ finds peace.But more so I pray for his children.