All his perfections were so rare,
The wit of men could not declare
Which single virtue or which grace,
Above all the rest had its place
Some time back, my granddaughter Aditi and I were having a discussion about the people who had the maximum impact on our lives. That conversation made me decide to write about the person who had the maximum impact on me, a person whose life was a profile in stoic courage, who faced adversities head on, and emerged a winner - an astonishing saga of grit and determination. His life can serve as a lesson for the future generation. This is not a chronological sequence of events. In trying to showcase the essence of the person, I have narrated events which bring out his infinite capacity to delve into his vast reserves of inner strength to help him swim against the tide.
* * *
At one corner of a large compound, a little girl of about four was playing by herself. She heard the familiar horn of the car. She left everything as it was and ran to the front of the house. An elderly gentleman had just alighted from the car. He was tall, with aristocratic features and ramrod-erect posture. The little girl rushed up to him. The elderly gentleman threw the girl up in the air, pretended to lose his grip on her, and caught her in the last second, grandfather and granddaughter rolling with laughter. This was a daily routine, until one day the old man’s wife shouted at him, “You are no longer young, she is getting heavier, you will break your back one day - stop this!”
A thirteen year old girl has written an especially good essay and grandfather showed it to every visitor to the house. “My granddaughter wrote this.” I could go on and on - I was the young girl, of course.
Only much later in life did I realize the significance of these actions. My grandfather did not want me to feel the absence of a father!
To be continued...
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