"Ekhon kemon acho? (How are you now?)” “Thik achi ami. Aajkal shorir kharap holey tomar jonnye khub mon kharap laagey. (I am fine now. These days when I fall ill, I miss you more).” The helplessness in my father’s voice spilled over the poorly-connected video call last week. Baba had been unwell for over a week and regular visits to the doctor had not helped ascertain the cause. I had called to enquire after his health but the ease with which he revealed how his heart ached for me astounded me. Over the years, Baba, unlike Ma, had perfected the art of solemnity. The rest of us — Ma, Didi and me — would often be emotional over mundane things. Baba seemed to have shouldered the responsibility of never being effusive. And, yet, here he was, a soon-to-turn-70-years-old man admitting that he missed his younger child. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to steer the conversation towards other things. I knew how difficult such an admission must have been for him. As if sensing this, he turned his gaze away from me and disconnected the call without a word. Baba is slowly ageing. The realisation escaped me when I stayed in Kolkata for 24 years and saw him in the middle of mundane activities. It strikes me now when I live in a different city and meet him only twice a year. I see his hands shake while holding the tea cup or hear it in the excuses he makes for not eating mutton, once a favourite. He finds it difficult to chew, even though he will never admit it. I often catch him looking at himself in the mirror, trying to hide a strand of grey hair; sometimes, after climbing a flight of stairs, he retreats into a corner and massages his knees, too proud to complain of the pain and too ashamed to seek help. Ma, on the other hand, having heard and taken care of our complaints all our lives, exercises no such restraint. Age has reduced her efficiency; it has also robbed her of her audience. Many an afternoon, she will frantically call me up to complain about the lack of water in the house or a throbbing headache that refuses to subside or simply to hear my voice. Complaining and bickering, my parents are both dealing with age and the insecurities that come with it, differently. Their fears are different and so are their ways of coping with them. While Ma has always been deeply invested in our lives, remembering exam dates and phone numbers of friends, for most of my life, Baba could not remember the class I studied in or my birthday. It would need a prompt from Ma for him to wish us on our birthdays. As he is growing older, however, he has stopped depending on Ma to know about my whereabouts. Armed with a mobile phone, he calls me every day, sometimes in the afternoons, minutes after Ma has called. He remembers the days I am off from work, the month I am supposed to come home, and, last year, without informing any of us, he had bought tickets to visit me on my birthday. When I met him at the station and told him he really didn’t need to do this, he patted my head and simply said, “Tomaye koto din dekhini (I haven’t seen you in so many days)”. I could sense his love, but also his acute awareness of mortality. Sometimes, when I see him sleeping peacefully and catch myself following his breathing, I understand the fear is not only just his. Yet, despite his reticence, Baba has been strangely assured of our love for him. Growing up, it was Baba who would ask Didi or me to take sides during a domestic squabble. Our refusal to support either him or Ma was seen as a sign of betrayal by him. Ma, on the other hand, understood what our silence meant — that it is difficult to be objective when it comes to parents. With age, however, Ma’s insecurities have come to the fore and so has the fear that, perhaps, her daughters will now take sides. “You do love your father more, don’t you?” she asked me this time when I visited Kolkata. We were talking about Baba’s failing health. She was worried about him but the petulance in her voice was unmistakable. Ma and I don’t look alike. I am two shades darker than her, have not inherited the mole on the left cheek that Didi rather proudly flaunts, and yet, that afternoon, I could see where my insecurities come from. When I was a child, I would repeatedly ask her who she loved more — my sister or me. After trying to dodge the question, she would finally give in. Holding my hands she would say, “It’s you, it has always been you. But do not tell your sister.” That afternoon, I had fished out her hands, held them in mine and told her, “It’s you, it has always been you, but do not tell Baba.” She still looked away but I think I saw her lips curl into a smile. Just like me, that is all it took to appease her.
