Dad

This just happened at a mall

Some guy: Sir can I take a selfie with you?

Me: Why?

Guy: I am a huge fan

Me: Of what?

Guy - your comedy sir.

And then I remembered - oh I am a comedian! Last 2 weeks I have been completely disconnected from everything.

2 weeks back my father passed away.

It was sudden. I guess death is always sudden even when it’s not.

Oct 02, 7:35pm, my mom called me crying - ‘Anshu come fast, papa is no more’. And just like that in a split second, our family changed forever…..an era was over. Leaving all of us numb. I guess that’s the right word for the feeling we are still feeling - ‘numb’.

A friend advised - Grieve Anshu. Don’t hold it back. It is natural and it is necessary. But death is so busy. So many rituals, so many processes - where is the time to grieve? As I sit in a coffee shop alone writing this, I still can’t grieve. There are things to take care of. Mom to take care of.

My dad was the most honest and hardworking guy I have known in my life. He always stuck to his fundamental principles - Work hard and do the right thing. He wasn’t a very social person. He wasn’t into arts or entertainment - music movies etc were just not his thing. Me becoming a comedian was not his thing. He had come from a village. His sole objective was to make something of himself and take care of the family and boy did he do that right!

Growing up, we were not rich but he made sure, we got everything. We got it a little later than others but we always got it. Everybody had telephones…we got it later. Everybody had a car, we got it later. The first TV, first colour TV, first music system, first telephone, first scooter, first car, the first house - he built it all - one step at a time - he won! I hope he realised that not many grow up in a remote village in Haryana and then go on to do a Ph. D. in Economics - you won dad! You won in life.

But when you come from behind, you are always catching up. Even if you are ahead, that feeling never leaves you. It never left my dad. He always worried about the future. Even when his kids and his grandkids were doing well enough to buy Jordans worth 50K just for fun, he would still worry.

I grew up seeing his strictness and like any kid, saw that strictness as a negative. So I built my life and personality as his polar opposite.

I will not take life too seriously.

I will not take money too seriously.

I never agreed with his concept of not enjoying life. Perhaps it was easy for me to disagree. I didn’t come from a village with nothing in hand to a city like Delhi. Unlike him, I was given most things in life on a plate. It is easy to be a rebel when you are taken care of.

Despite his strictness, one of my biggest fears in life was losing him. Back in the 80’s, when I was a kid, we would play in the playground outside our house. My dad would be out for work. For some reason, every evening, I feared that my dad would not come back home. That something bad would happen. I would keep looking at the road leading to our house. And then I would see his Bajaj Chetak scooter pulling in and suddenly my football level would go up.

One night in 2008, my mom called me at 2:00am in full panic mode - My dad had gotten his first epileptic seizure. Mom thought he was gone. Her words that night on the phone - ‘Anshu something had happened to your dad’. By the time I reached his house he was fine but till today If at night I am sleeping and I get a phone call.. any phone call….my heartbeat goes up and I cant’t sleep after that. The fear that that little kid in the 80’s had, never left me.

On Oct 02, 2023 that fear became a reality.

Death teaches you nothing. Death is not a teacher. Death is a school shutting down. The final bell ringing. Class is over. Era is over. Deal with it.

As my son said in his prayer meeting speech - The men in the Mor clan are not very good with expressing emotions. Part of me, right now, feels this massive regret of never telling him what he meant to us. Another part of me knows that his strictness would never allow me to say those things anyways.

What would I say to him if I had another shot?

I guess just these simple words - I love you dad and there has not been a single moment in my life where I was not proud of the man you were.

Few days back, I went on stage for the first time after he passed away. As I was getting up on stage, I realised that my dad never saw me perform comedy live. I never called him for a show. Now, he would never see me perform live.

But wherever you are dad, know this - from this day on, there would always be an empty chair at my shows for you.

Rest in peace papa.

Love

Your son.