Appa has started wearing a belt. I noticed it a few days ago.
He has been a man of few changes. For a man who worked in the textile industry for majority of his life, he wore such boring clothes, my brain as a child could not fathom how he had the heart to buy the same thing over and over again. He has always worn a crisply ironed white half-hand shirt, and beautifully creased formal pants in varying (only) dark hues of brown, grey, and green (only), shirt always tucked in, no belt. They have to be stitched at A1 tailors. At home, he is in a white banian and a white veshti. Once, years ago, when I was in middle school, someone had gifted him a soft beige (or maybe it was sky blue) collared t-shirt. He hid it from everyone’s sight until one day, I spotted it and begged him to put it on. He has always been an athletic, smart-looking, photogenic man, and I told him earnestly that he looked ‘super’ in it. ‘The white shirts are boring, appa!’ He moved his limbs around and declared that something about it did not feel right. We never saw said t-shirt again.
He dislikes eating before bathing. As long as we lived in my hometown, the ritual before eating involved 7 crucial steps. Reading The Hindu, boiling water in an aluminium paanai in the backyard, sweeping the whole house, taking a hot-water bath, wearing white veshti and picking Nandhiyavattai that bloomed in plenty, Kondrai of 2 colours - orange more than the yellow, Sangu poo of 2 colours – blue more than the white, Sembarutthi – a couple of flowers in full bloom and a couple of them buds, Adukku sembarutthi – it gave us flowers only if it was in the mood, that-flower-that-is-white-and-tiny-and-has-an-orange-stem-and-is-so-easy-to-pick-all-you-have-to-do-is-shake-the-branch, and a few leaves or fruit from the vilva maram in the gold-coloured brass basket (or in separate plastic covers if we had a good bloom on our thottam) (this entire thing is step 2), prayers, and putting on banian and a good dose of Gokul Santol. Followed by this elaborate ritual, he would go to the kitchen, get instructions from amma about which vegetable had to be chopped which way for which dish, get it all done on the Anjali vegetable cutter, and then walk out to catch me doing things other than having my head buried in the books and promptly yell at me, ‘Idhu elaam enga urupada pogudhu!’
I will be honest. Appa and I did not have the greatest relationship, especially when I was still in school. So much so that when I saw how he dealt with my brother 7 years younger to me, it felt like a betrayal. He was a hot-headed person when he was young, he was a hot-headed adult when he was married and had one child, and then suddenly, he was figuring how to pack a lunch his second child would finish in school without telling him to make his own food and his staple urupadama-poga-podhu.
Appa and amma got married quite late in their lives. He retired from work when I was barely in high school. Thambi was still in 4th STD when we moved to Chennai, and appa would drop him in school and pick him back up every day. One day, thambi came back from school and told appa to get his hair dyed. Appa curiously asked why, and he tells that his friends asked him whether it was his dad picking him up or his grandfather. I was expecting a lot of scolding and advice that would definitely bounce off of a 9-year-old’s head, but he laughed and said ‘Why don’t you tell them who I am?’ and to add more to my surprise, thambi said ‘I know pa, I thought you might feel bad if someone told you.’
Appa and thambi share stupid jokes that only they can laugh at and my mother can awkwardly twist her mouth at – she does not laugh easily, lest we find out she is capable of finding things funny.
‘Loose ah pa neenga?’
‘Naa loose na apo nee tight ah? Hahahaha!’
As he grew up, thambi started calling appa’s jokes ‘mokka’ and appa would find that word funny, say ‘mokka!’ aloud to himself and laugh.
‘Loose ah pa neenga?’
‘Naa loose na apo nee tight ah? Hahahaha!’
As he grew up, thambi started calling appa’s jokes ‘mokka’ and appa would find that word funny, say ‘mokka!’ aloud to himself and laugh.
Once in college, thambi developed a habit of going to our hometown alone once in a while, and on one such visit, he met a whole bunch of people from appa’s side of the family and unearthed interesting stories about the father. The biggest shocker was that he had, at 17, put his whole life on pause to come to Chennai, find boarding in some mansion, and walked up and down several studios to give a shot at acting. Even if somehow, I had found this out, I would have never had the courage (or comfort even, I think) to have a casual conversation about this with appa. Thambi does. He even gets appa to act on camera sometimes (mi blurry phone camera only). He once made him act out one of his favourite scenes from some Japanese movie, and added the music from the movie on top of this video he shot. I was shocked when I saw it. I asked him how he filmed it without appa knowing what was happening. I was then informed that the scene is of the female lead walking from one room to another, he showed appa the scene, asked him to imitate the action, and filmed it at 11 in the night a few days ago. I think I stopped breathing. Thambi casually told me that it required a couple of retakes and appa had said ‘Enna da director nee? Oru take la elaathayum edukka venama?’
Appa and I have lesser screaming matches now. He disagrees with most of my decisions, but tells me I need to take some of them anyway because that is how life is. I have not figured out yet if he is being wise and kind or if it is some twisted South Indian parenting trick to get us to do the opposite. He is even kinder with thambi now, I have stopped trying to decipher how this is the same man I grew up under. I have made peace with knowing that every family member will always say with wonderment ‘Kandhan madhiri porumaisaali yaarume illai!’ I think have stopped looking shell-shocked or rolling my eyes at such instances also.
He is getting hard of hearing a tiny little bit, it is noticeable when he inches his chair a little closer to the tv on full volume. He still does not like people doing his chores for him. If he wants something done, he puts on his white shirt and creased pant, picks up a rolled up, fading RMKV big-shopper, wears the black Bata chappal (‘no need to buy a new one, you can barely see any damage’), and walks away to the post office and Pazhamudhir Nilayam. He wears a belt these days, I think because his waistline has dropped. I barely have any pictures of him. I cannot get to point even a phone camera at him, let alone the DSLR that helps me earn a living. It is very hard for me to explain why.
He turned 75 sometime last month. It took a while to sink in. Morning of, I walked around the house searching for him. He was standing in the kitchen in his white banian and white veshti, making dosai, hands on his hips, frowning at the sizzling batter on the dosai kal that is older than I am.
‘Happy birthday, pa,’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘Happy birthday nu sonen.’
‘Oooh. Inikku birthday ah? Thedhi enna? Kulikaama saaptutene.’
‘Happy birthday, pa,’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘Happy birthday nu sonen.’
‘Oooh. Inikku birthday ah? Thedhi enna? Kulikaama saaptutene.’
Appa, caught mid-yawn.
