Lessons from my 100-yr-old father

My father was not destined to ever be 100 Two years back when I turned 68 I felt a shiver realising that I was as old as he had been when he died That was 1990 The Berlin Wall had just come down George H W Bush was Americarsquos president The Soviet Union was breaking upFor two weeks my father had been miraculously painfree his diabetic neuropathy had apparently receded He was waking up cheerful and full of dad jokes I remember him asking me my opinion of GorbachevWe didnrsquot normally discuss politics We didnrsquot normally discuss anything For two people whose minds continuously churned with questions about everything it was surprising how little we spoke He just wasnrsquot a man of many wordsInstead he did things Jiddu Krishnamurthyrsquos school at Rishi Valley had taught him to make every moment matter and thatrsquos what he did He was my first Renaissance manmdashengineer cook tailor musician teacher dutiful sonmdashand as poor as a church mouse all his lifeIrsquom only just beginning to understand how this saturnine human so difficult to reach or fathom somehow shaped so much of who I am I believe he did it just by demonstrating what it means to be true to yourself Here are five lessons from his life1Never stop learning He once took to spending hours outside a clothes shop watching tailors in spectacles hunched over their work After a few months he brought home a Singer sewing machine We never saw a tailor again He stitched all our shirts knickers even our winter school uniformsScientists now know that learning new skills and languages renews your brain cells and staves off diseases like Alzheimerrsquos and dementia Knowledge brightens your eyes and lights up your soul That was him all rightI personally believe though that he overshot his mark when he tried dry cleaning The house was a fire risk for a week and we lost many dear friends because we reeked of petrol2 Donrsquot feast off your own generosity We only found out after he died how many people he had helped back on their feet while he lived The list included vendors whose carts had been impounded by cops they couldnrsquot bribe colleagues in distress where he worked and others He understood that charity can sometimes belittle the receiver so his loans were always repayable though at a time convenient to the beneficiary Dignity matteredThe one time he spoke about giving a rare conversation that overshot two sentences he said ldquoYoursquore not great because yoursquore generous It was your karma to be generous to that person and that personrsquos karma to get it from yourdquo3 Music is life As children we werenrsquot allowed to listen to western pop music So of course that was exactly what we did My brother and I would take turns ears glued to the old Murphy radio It was a war between father and sons Carnatic music pitted against western popVictory was ours One day we heard the man humming in the shower in his distinct Chennai accent The words were English I wanna hold your hand repeated over and over Pretty soon he was humming Penny Lane and Hey Jude Pretty soon he was sitting with us when we listened to A Date With You on the radio every Friday The Beatles changed that old Brahmin soul foreverMy father taught us that music isnrsquot a door itrsquos a window to let the universe in4 Take care of those you love Obvious as it sounds itrsquos not what we see these days When my mother was misdiagnosed with cancer instead of TB my father became everything to all of us Hersquod cook lunch and dinner before leaving for work hose down the house against the summer heat come back to his tailoring and his music and tend to his wife till she healed5 Disagree but never close the door on a loved one In 1969 my father stopped talking to me Irsquod disappointed him deeply by not moving towards engineering or accountancy choosing to be a journalist in Delhi rather than living with them in Bombay He cut me off without a pennyUndeterred I began writing for a living at 18 earning enough to survive a whole year on my own dime Then Christmas came he visited Delhi on work Of course the angry father visited the unrepentant son still undecided whether to forgive me or forget meI was in bed with a high fever in my wintery terrace room in Lodi Colony He sat for hours by my bedside without saying a word He just was never good at thatThen he leaned down and hugged me ldquoYou followed your noserdquo he whispered ldquoYou were right I was wrong Your father is so proud of yourdquoThe next day he blew his Christmas bonus buying me utensils household linen and blanketsHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper