Back to square one!

 

My dad is a simple man. He has been a practicing general surgeon for decades now. He enjoys his government job like any other chronic government official.  He sleeps late, almost everyday and wakes up a bit late for his office. With a towel round his belly, and an old song on his lips, he goes directly to the pooja room after bath and lights an agarbathi that’s fills the house with its fragrance. 

He is that kinda person who socializes extremely well and cracks good jokes for everyone to laugh. People love to have him around. I learnt the socializing part well but when it comes to my poor jokes, I end up laughing at most of them, inevitably alone. He is always, well, most of the times in a constant thought loop, unable to hear you talking to him even though you are standing right beside him. Hell, once, he even asked me, who I was and what did I want as I stood at his cabin door waiting for him to finish talking to the other white coat bearers. That’s a different story all together!

He never did really beat me when I was a kid like my mother used to (to teach me the hard lessons) but the few times he got angry, I used to feel real bad. He used to let me enter the OT in those long scrubs while he was operating and let me stare at the blood soaked meat and the puddles of pus. He got me an ice cream each time I fainted off the stool and whenever I visited the dentist. I always preferred him for injections. He knows the ‘pain free’ way, believe me.

He made crazy bets with me for all sorts of change and got me speaking on topics to earn my prize money that went in my Santa bank.

He is a workaholic.  He loves the share market. He is also very generous to his poor patients. He spent years away from home, my mom and me for studies and clinical experience. He is always there to join me into an institution and re-visits the place to take me home only after the course is over, years later. He was there for my medical college counseling but he hasn’t visited Manipal, since then. I go home for vacations, of course! Yesterday, in one of his enlightening hour-long/once-in-a-week conversations he shared with me something that goes like this-

(Do leave your comments; I’m sure he would love to hear from you)

Into a mysterious world I entered naïve and innocent with perhaps a vacant head. All these years I continued to live in the same mystery and yet again I feel the same, fearing atrophy and turning vacant, as I can’t recollect names and dates which once I did so well. I wouldn’t compare to say that an unripe and a rotting ripe fruit are the same but I’m back to square one, I would say.

I fought with my father to get what I wanted and the world thereafter. In little arguments I spent so much of my life and all I learnt was to learn to compromise in the end.  I flew away from my native town in search of life and now, I fear my children will fly away from me. Back to square one.

They failed me in my final MBBS for not delivering the answer for a single question. I wondered why? Maybe, all the others did well and they needed someone to flunk and they found me and I convinced myself to reading the same for another six months. Back to square one.

I struggled in my government job for many years as a doctor and saved enough to invest in the share market to make some good money. I created many occasions and shared enough drinks to impress those expert brokers and businessmen and spoilt my health alongside. I made a lot of money but now; I invest it all to enjoy good health. Back to square one.

When our lifetime is almost spent and all the time is gone. What is that we see when we look back to? Life teaches us both good and bad. It leaves us experience to teach but aren’t we back to square one?