Music …. There’s something about it that tugs at the heart
strings and jogs the cerebral cortex unlike anything else. Memories,
buried deep underneath layers laid upon by time passed, burst forth all of a
sudden – euphoria, pain, loss, gain …. Upon hearing a particular song or tune.
A moment of triumph, crushing loss, the first time you fell in love, heartbreak
– a shuffling of emotions … all due to the shuffle in your playlist, really.
One of my fondest recollections from childhood is hours
spent playing video games, especially the music accompanying them. Not today’s
electronic overload, but the simple 8 bit chip tunes (to indiscernible Japanese
characters on screen). The pulse racing theme of Contra, that made you feel
like Rambo, to the gentle albeit peppy tune of Super Mario, to the thumping
beats of Street Fighter, making you (almost) believe you could bash up the
class bully the next day. So I was on YouTube, listening to the tones of my
childhood, when I chanced upon the theme of the game ‘Tetris’, as it appeared
on the handheld console Gameboy from Nintendo. As the digitized version of the
Russian folk song ‘Korobeiniki’ rang out, wafting along with the notes came a
plethora of emotions that swept me up and took me back in time. A time when
life was simpler, a time when I was a child, pure, innocent, thoroughly adoring
of my mom and, patently terrified of my dad. My dad, Appa - The strapping young
man with flowing hair falling down his forehead; a thick, bushy moustache and a
fearsome temper. The guy whose return from office in the evening would fill me
with a sense of foreboding. I was mostly a good kid growing up, not getting
into much trouble, and yet even the remote thought that I had committed an
infraction would make me shudder and beg mom – “amma, don’t tell appa, please!”
And yet – the memory of Dad that came to
me at that moment wasn’t of the guy with the imposing manner that I was scared of.
It was of a version of my dad that I didn’t experience much during my
formative years, a version that I desperately wished had been there more often
during my adolescence, a version that would manifest itself years later – on a
wonderful evening in an alien setting (ironically, a place where I would be
referred to as an ‘alien’, but more on that later) – my dad, the friend.
I waited with bated breath as my dad opened his suitcase. Appa
had just returned from a business trip to America! What gifts had he brought
for me? Out came a white remote controlled car (Yay!), a set of plastic cars
(No wonder, upon me joining the automotive industry years later as a young man
out of grad school, one of my aunts remarked, “Oh … You were always meant to
end up there !”) and a brick like grey colored box with pink buttons on it with
a little slot in the back for a cassette. I quickly lost interest in the box,
and spent the next few days happily terrorizing my mom by operating the RC car
all around the kitchen floor. Soon enough though, along with the battery, my
interest in the car ran out as well. My desperate curiosity piqued, I turned my
attention to the grey box. I had seen my dad fiddle around with it early in the
morning with some funny yet catchy sounding music emanating from it. Now, I
noticed the words Nintendo GameBoy on it. Game? Now that sounds like fun! Why
didn’t I look into this before? My dad saw me fiddling around with it and
excitedly came over and showed me how to play “Tetris” – a game in which blocks
of varying shapes fall from top and your job is to arrange them in a way in which
‘rows’ get formed and therefore vanish, reducing the height of the stack of
blocks, thereby freeing up space on the screen and increasing your points. The
goal of the game was to make sure the screen didn’t fill up, thereby ending the
game. With every 10 lines cleared, the level would increase and so would the
speed at which the blocks came down. Simple enough. At first it seemed rather
tough and not so exciting but gradually as I got better at it, the game started
to extend a certain obsessive grip around me. The driving force was two pronged
– a desire to better my own score and also to beat appa’s score. Gradually,
from dreading appa’s return home from office, I started looking forward to him
coming home, setting down his office bag and beaming at me saying” Alright Abbu
(my dad’s nickname for me), what score did you reach today? Gimme that console
now!” We were friends in competition, spurring each other on to outdo the
other, and yet secretly wishing that we would win. And this went on for days
and months on end, father and son competing at a game of Tetris. Till time
passed, we both grew out of it, life happened and we gradually fell back into
the more formal nature of our father-son relationship. And my dad remained just
that – appa. The guy who enquired about my studies, my plans for life and
supported me through it all, as a father would his son. Not the friend who
would put his arm around my shoulder to check on how I was dealing with the
vagaries of growing up, the troubles of adolescence, the worries of young
adulthood. Sure – over the years, there were the odd moments that transcended
our formal relationship; Like the day I got home from successfully clearing my
first job interview, when I put out my hand to shake his hand(yes – that’s how
formal we are) and he actually gave me a hug or when just before I walked into the airport terminal before flying off to the states for the first ever
time, when he caught up with me just out of earshot of mom and said “You re on
your own now, son. Just live your life! (Wink-wink).” I suppose he did have it
in him, he just didn’t know how to express it often enough.
It went on that way, through high school, college, grad
school and ultimately till I became my own man (so to speak) and settled down
into a routine 9-5 life of my own in the US. While my family as a whole visited
me on 2-3 occasions, just once, he came over to the US on yet another official
visit and we got to spend a whole weekend together exploring Chicago. Just
father and son, talking about random things, walking along the waterways
through downtown Chicago, and bonding over a glass of …. Let’s just say – good
stuff ;) And having downed it with the
panache of a seasoned campaigner, my dad leaned over conspiratorially and said
“Abbu … don’t tell amma !” J I looked at him - the flowing hair long since
thinned and receded, the moustache grey and the demeanor, while still fiery at
times, largely mellowed with age, and just smiled and shook my head. The child
had become a man and the man had become almost child-like. And yet – it was
those childhood days all over again. Here was the friend I had longed for and missed for years. I wished for time to
stand still then and there.
In today’s hectic life, with us being on opposite sides of
the world, I and appa hardly get to interact. There is no real excuse for it;
that’s just how we ve always been. Dad has never been a man of many words. It’s
usually mom that monopolizes my interaction with home, relating every single
little happening of the day, just to make me feel like I am still there with
them and not missing out. But every now and then, Appa does go beyond the cursory
“Hope you re doing ok. I ll give the phone to amma”, enquiring about my cricket
matches or some post I put on Facebook, or sharing pics of a rocket launch that
he captured from the beach in Chennai. But typically after a couple of minutes,
we both relapse into awkward silence, not quite knowing what else to say. I
guess that’s just how we will always be.
When I look back over all those years, I can perceive the
influence my dad has had on me in so many ways – some tangible, many
intangible. From the walking style to his ‘classy’ bearing to being there
selflessly for the family, putting our needs and happiness over his, and
equanimity in joy and sorrow, struggle and success; I would say – if I could be
one-hundredth the man my dad is, I would consider myself accomplished.
Inspiration, guide,
living example …. He’s been everything a good father can be. The everyday life
I lead today is testament to that. And yet – whenever I listen to the GameBoy
version of the ‘Tetris’ theme, I will always remember, with a certain
wistfulness, that version of my dad that was, is and will always be my favorite
– Appa, my friend.
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