There is no plot here

Papa did not frighten me as a child, a very small child.

And then he stopped frightening me from when I was as high as I would get- which was about when I was a teenager.

I wish those years in between had been different.

The other day he said, "No one ever wanted to know who your father really was." He laughed as he said it, but I think he was very sad.

To me Papa has been the centre of any universe he occupied, but that maybe because my life revolves around him.

The reality is that he did have a rather fearful image which he built with great effort- it might have been easy to ask him questions in a less charged atmosphere.

I wonder why I did not feel afraid like the others.

Once his size stopped frightening me, I saw Papa like any motherless child. I had a mother and he did not. I never heard a story about the thriving relationship between the father and son before my mother's arrival in the family. I don't really remember Babbaji, Papa's father. But I have these impressions about him, which I have decided to call memory.

He came to stay with us for a while before he passed away, and it was a miracle of sorts.I was too small really. Around three years old.

I have concluded that Babbaji was worse off than Papa- as far as expression of love went.In Babbaji's days, fathers were not supposed to declare their interest in their children. To show love, women cooked, and men disciplined whoever they could.

"I love you" was reserved for films.

In the home- visible love was an embarrassment. I don't remember any baby talk around me.

"Poor Papa" was my response to his childhood, so what if everyone called him Raja.

Babbaji may have been a little overwhelmed with grandparent-hood. But I hear he liked my mother. She was respectful and caring. It must have helped to have a bridge between him and the son.

Babbaji could read stories from books, and my favourite story was the Russian tale about the cabbage that wanted to have a bath one morning. But by the time the cabbage was undressed, the sun had set.

I have often wondered what happened to the cabbage then? I mean, since it could not have the bath, did it have to put back the clothes ? Did it return for another attempt?
But anyway,I think it was a good story.

Sometimes one cannot get to the destination on time, and there was no mention of the cabbage being devastated.

Papa says he might tell me his story, and I am thinking of that cabbage. I think he has not made up his mind yet about the bath.

He is tentatively standing there, next to the water, testing the temperature and making up his mind.

I am game. I have enough material to write what I want to anyway. But I think I will tell him that it might be better to keep an eye on what I am doing, and if he helps me then he gets to have his say, plus a veto.

I did promise him I would wait till July 2010- but what the hell, I am allowed to surprise him some time, like now?

I am writing, and all he has to do is live to a happy ending.