Versatility!

“Get me some water.”

“I rarely come home from hostel.”**cough** “I can’t do any work here. I am tired.”

Silence for a couple of minutes.

“Do you even discuss with your friends about the way they fear at their father’s arrival?”

“Yes, I do.”**cough**” And have you ever talked about the time every other father spends at/for home on a weekly basis? ”

“There the endless argument has started again” mumbles the queen of the home and walks towards the room with a glass of water, as she finds a way to stop the quarrel between her husband Saketh and son Harsha.

Devoid of a sibling, Harsha found Saketh a promising substitute. Of the very little time Saketh had for his family despite his enormous love for the same, Harsha swallowed almost all of it by initiating meaningless controversies that were rightly understood as an expression of love by his mother alone.   

The door bell rings and Harsha runs to open the doorway at his mother’s glance, knowing pretty well that some old lady would have come seeking his father. He opens the window to look at the same old lady his intuition had warned. Even before he opens the door, he finds the lady midway to the floor ahead yelling “Sirru, nan mela poi wait panren.”

This is not the first time she has irritated him. And she is not the only one who does this to him. They are a big gang of people - people of all ages, most of them related to each other. They come home, ring the bell and vanish uttering the same words with differing prefixes “sirru, ayya, appa, uncle, doctoruu” and a few more.

 “He is an artist, an engineer and a doctor. By birth, by profession and by choice respectively.” would be a confounding introduction to Saketh. As the first son of a reputed Tamil literate, he has his duty of maintaining the reputation. For the 5 paise he got from his father every time he recited lines from literature, for the exposure to literature he had because of his father, for the distinguishable talent he had to write and speak, for his love for the same, for this and for that, he could never cease to be artist. He leaded various organisations. And he took pleasure in leading them. His degree describes him as an engineer and so did his work. His love for machines kept him at joy throughout the day when he worked.

Harsha grew seeing his father as a busy, wife-will-take-care-of-home-attitude man. He never saw him as a responsible, caring individual for he never saw him as an artist or an engineer.

After about fifteen minutes, Saketh left upstairs. Harsha, now in his late teens has been seeing his father carrying heavy books, needles, weight machines, etc. Nevertheless to him, his father was the same old I-don’t-care-about-home man. But these things he was busy with intrigued Harsha though he never expressed.

As soon as Saketh left, Harsha went near the book which his father was reading. It read “Health in your hands”. “Fear of old age, probably” he chuckled. “But then who are these strangers he visits upstairs? Why do some of them call him a ‘doctor’? Why do some of them hold his hands with wet eyes? What are needles for? Does he preach “Take care of your health, your health is in your hands” sort of stuff?” were few of the many questions that popped up.

Away from home, Harsha rarely talked to his father over phone and he talked no more than two minutes when he did. Saketh and Harsha never questioned about each other. They rarely knew how the other’s day was and what the other was upto. Saketh had no time and Harsha was never ready to succumb.

So, for these new born questions in his head, the only option he could resort to was that of opening the book. He checked if his mom was busy in the kitchen and made sure there were no signs of his father coming downstairs. At any cost, his prestige mattered to him the most.

“Health in your hands – Acupuncture!” he exclaimed to himself. He turned page by page and all he could see was not science but his father’s grit. When he was waiting to put aside his books for lifetime in another 3 months, there was this man in his late fifties with a doctor's degree. He pulled himself out of shame and astonishment and saw on every page a cure for various diseases. He recalled the people who rung the door bell with similar cases. Then on a lighter side of symptoms, he found on a page the points for relief from cough. He had no needles, degree or experience and he was not going to ask his father about anything. But there was one other choice- acupressure – that showed way for his urge to try. There were four points in all and all of them were points on hand, easy to locate. He spotted the first point that was named “Lung 8”. While he was reading further with his other hand on the spotted point, “Give pressure anti-clockwise, 21 times” said a voice. Harsha immediately closed the book and tied his hands in the front. He saw his mother standing there, pleased. “It will take just 3 months to learn from your father. Let me know if you wish. I will talk to him” she said reading the desire and hesitance from her son’s eyes.

Harsha saw a cup of coffee in his mother’s hand for him. He snatched it and went upstairs eager to see how the place looked like. He wanted to see his father as a ‘doctor’, he wanted to see happy faces of going-to-get-cured people. He entered the room upstairs when he heard the old lady asking his father “Idu dan unga paiyanah?” Harsha was full of pride, pride to be known as the son of somebody who was an epitome of versatility! Pretending to be in an irritated state, he held the coffee with crossed face “Mom asked to give this.” His father chuckled and got the cup having guessed his son’s intention and not wanting to hurt him. Harsha wanted to stay but had no option but to leave.

As he got down trying to reason out why his father chuckled, he recalled an empty coffee cup beside his father and hit the back of his head with his hand, smiling wide!