Life's Turning Points

I apologise to readers for having neglected this blog . The past few months saw me travelling abroad ( for the first time in my life outside South Asia) ... It was divine walking down the streets of a cold , windswept European town. Suddenly , India seemed far away --- and suddenly it was as if it existed in another world..

Seeing gay people free to live their lives the way they wanted to without having to hide anything about their sexual identities was a pleasant shock. I knew about it and had heard about it .... but to see it with one's own eyes is a different experience.

This is not to say that the world in Europe is perfect . There are of course a lot of glitches , but its still incomparably more liberal than it is in India.
One regretted as to why it wasnt possible in India to be so , but then India comes from a different cultural , religious and historical tradition. Almost everything in India is different from how it is in Europe.

Back home in India , when i returned i saw that my father's health is declining.
I have had an atrocious relationship with my father ... We both gave each other a lot of pain .. and just to spite each other.

I still think he was wrong and stupid in so many ways. But now I feel sorry for him , I feel bad for him.

His health is bad and declining , I think he wont live long .. ( I hope i am wrong)

I remember him when i was a kid . He was for the most time , bitter sarcastic and cynical . Yet at others he was child like and very enthusiastic....

He would tell stories of his parents in their house in Calcutta , of their wealth and splendour .. of Burma and its teak forests and rubies .... of the family memories of Asia's richest country.

As a kid , i would not understand ... for me the the miserable heat of the north indian summer was a more pressing reality. Now as an adult , i can better understand how difficult it is for an adult in economically straitened circumstances to face the situation when you grew up in the lap of luxury.

But then , i did not understand......

As memory goes back , I remember South Delhi of the late 80's and the early 90's. My father racing to listen to the cricket news.

Today that enthusiastic man is gone and there is a broken , older man at death's door.

I cannot forgive him , but i feel sorry.. Both for him and myself .

Did it all have to end this way? It could have been so different.

Since i dont have any siblings , These are thoughts i just have to keep to myself.

I just hope things are different from now on .. One has to make them different , by whatever means necessary