Walking with Papa: Part IV – Of Sweets and Eye glasses

by | Jul 25, 2020 | Uncategorized | 55 comments

Papa and I have not been walking much lately as he hasn’t been well. He has increasingly become more frail and refuses to get out of his room and even his bed sometimes. He spends all his time watching TV in the comfort of his bed – “care of rajai (quilt)” he says. He now has two TVs in his room – one with screaming channels (Hindi) and one with streaming channels (English).

Today I tried to persuade him to go for a walk with me, albeit a short one if he gets tired. I could see a lot of people on the streets from his window and reminded him of all the good times we had criticizing all and sundry in our past walks together. He instantly perked up and guffawed – the thought of slanderous maligning of other people without rhyme or reason while keeping a hoity toity sense of self- importance is always a happy one!

So we got into our warm jammies and set off with a purposeful agenda – we would decimate as many people and things as we could with our sharp eye and sharper tongue. The world needed our opinions about so many things. Time to fulfill our duty towards mankind with our curare-dipped rejoinders, the withering putdown, and the sick burn – we were the self-appointed fun police festooned with a superior intellect, out to align everyone’s throat chakras with humiliating precision.

Right as we turned into the Main Road we noticed the small grocery store across the street, amusingly called Manoj’s Store (Monty’s good name is Manoj and there are multiple small stores named after him around our home!). It was unusually crowded. Everyone was trying to purchase things on their list as quickly as possible. The jostling, the elbow jabbing, the extended hands, and the hopeful faces were just annoying – no regard for a queue, first come first serve, or basic civic sense. I could hear Papa scoff at them and mutter something under his breath. He had little patience for such impudence. With an affronted flick of his fingers he dismissed the eager crowd as “jaahil” (rustic) and kept walking. Not to say that when HE had to purchase his medicine at the drug store nearby, he ignored everyone waiting before him and in one quick stride reached the front of the line to demand immediate attention.

We crossed the street to keep walking on the curb of the main thoroughfare. Right before us was Mithila Opticals – a small store for eye glasses. In the past I had bought several pairs of prescription glasses for myself from this store because it was much cheaper than in the US. This never went down well with Papa. He couldn’t stand it. In his eyes (no pun intended!) this store was beneath me. It was too lowly. He kept recommending a fancy store in the city. I always told him I would try it out but never did. Why would I? I wanted the cheapest glasses possible for daily use. Papa continued to be skeptical of the quality of the eye glasses. I don’t blame him – they were pretty basic horn rimmed eyewear. So to please him I ordered a rimless golden swanky looking pair with progressive photo-chromatic lenses from Mithila – he was thrilled! Now it’s worth your while, he said. Regardless, the screw got loose after wearing it only once. No American lens store would touch it, lest tightening the screw may crack the lens and they couldn’t take a risk with ‘such an expensive pair of glasses’!! Three stores told me the same thing, while admiring the high quality of the eye glasses! I had to bring it back to Mithila to get it fixed. Great job Mithila, right?

We turned around to return home. Papa was getting tired. There was a sweet shop on the way back. Papa insisted we buy some high calorie desserts. I obliged. There was a fly sitting on the counter. It was rather disgusting but I kept quiet. Papa, not so much. The store owner got an earful about hygiene and cleanliness. But we did not return the sweets. I planned to donate it to someone local and indigenous, whose bowels were equipped to digest the worst ova and cysts of parasites without any clinical symptoms.

Papa held my arm and I held his. We did not want any accidents. He had recovered from a foot fracture due to a tripping injury a few years ago. We did not want a repeat of that.

You are never too old to hold your parent’s arm. You are never too old to experience the same comfort and feeling of safety in your 50s that you felt when you were little and clung to their fingers wherever you went. You just knew that they would give up their life to protect you.

It’s when your parent holds your arm that you know that life has come full circle. It’s their turn to feel safe and comfortable, their turn to be protected. Make sure you have enough space in your life for that.

 

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