I miss dad. He's like a ready reckoner, advisor, judge all rolled into one. I miss his floatered big feet. I miss the four new front teeth. I miss the bhaloo dance. And the salt and pepper hair. Lately, I've begun to miss him even more. Perhaps because he has always managed to forgive me despite my follies and falls caused by my stubbornness.
Perhaps because he has been kind when the world was harsh, and ever so sharp when the rest just played along. And he has been the only one, much before Neel, who's wanted me to publish my first book. Perhaps, cuz in his growing old, he is trying harder than ever to be young. To be cool in the true sense. Young in emotions, young in thought, young in understanding the young.
Not because it is easy, but for it is tough. That phrase has stuck with me, Suvarna.
Neel said i'm just being lazy. But really, i am. I need to relook all my poems and edit them. Perhaps they sounded great at 21, but the me@26 does not think so. I'm hungry not for praise, but for criticism. For someone to correct me till it arrives at a point of no return. Like I've always taken myself to one. Living every moment. Breathing it so deep and letting it fill me up to the core. Tasting it, listening to its journey, the way it raises the hairs on my arm, watching it sweep me away even as it stinks sometimes and smells oh-so-delicious.
