Today is Father’s Day, so I guess this is a good time to remember my late father from whose loins I emanated when I decided to incarnate upon this earth almost five decades ago. He passed away fourteen years ago, but his leaving this world did not mean much to me really. For a start he is still present in my bedtime prayers, as if he is still around. Moreover, I left home when I went to university, so being separated from my parents was a normal state of being for me.
The other thing is, as I get older I seem to resemble him more and more. Not just in physical resemblance, but also in mannerism and in the things that I like and dislike. In a good way of course. But then I always remember my dear Papa with great fondness and invariably with a little chuckle, for he was a genuinely nice man. A bit quirky, yet again he was a professor.
My father laughed a lot. He had a loud and infectious laughter. He was seldom angry. At least not with his daughters. That’s the thing about fathers and daughters I suppose. They don’t have the heart to shout at them. In any case, I would always come up with some kind of cheeky comments to which he could not reply. And I would say cruel things like ‘you’re a bad teacher. You can’t even teach me. I know a lot more than you.’