January 19, 2010

My dad - Part III

There are still so many other things my dad was good at...My dad was damn good at sketching!! Pen sketches he would make of whoever sat in front of him when he had no work:-). Its a real pity that none of us saved his sketches or I could have scanned them now:-). And he was a real creative person, I remember he would, every year, make Lord Ganesha from clay on Vinayaka Chaturthi, however busy he was at work, during those days!! He would ask us to have the clay cleaned, sorted and mixed with water and ready and he would get the Lord ready in ~ 2 hours flat, atleast 1.5 foot high idol. And he wouldn't just stop with the outline, he would get into details like the nails, toe nails, thread (poonal), dhothi, angavastram etc.., all with clay. It was a delight to appreciate his piece of art and we would feel bad on the day of visarjan (immersing the idol in water). Talking of creativity, I remember that as a kid, he would love to draw fine designs, as bindis, on my forehead.

He really was an extremely talented personality. We had the most enviable book and music collection. He used to read all kinds of books from fiction (Archer / Sheldon) to classic English literature (Shakespeare, Dickens) and he extensively read a lot of books on Hindu philosophy. He taught us kids on the values and teachings from the scriptures.

He enjoyed and experienced a good, satisfying life. I could give a glimpse of his daily routine to substantiate my statement. He would wake up by ~5.15 am; have his coffee and collect his thoughts and work plan for the day. He would then leave for the Gymkhana and play lawn tennis - one set. Get home, read the paper quickly, take a shower and do his daily prayers. He would read a part of Sundara kaandam everyday before going to work apart from his regular Sandhyavandanam, Purushasuktham, Shreesuktham etc. Have his brunch at 8.00 am and off he would be, to work.. a drive of ~ 20 Km to office. He would listen to almost half a concert en route:-). He never called home from office and those days, we didn't have the cell either. He would return by 8 pm if there were no concerts to attend. He would always regale us with jokes and anecdotes from his day at work and ask us about our day.

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