Soulful

Glossary: Hindi word used: beta = son

Soulfoolful

Some boys in their early twenties show up at their houses immediately after marrying someone beyond their parents’ knowledge. His father would open the door and the boy would say…’hey dad, meet your daughter-in-law. We’ve just got married; please shower your blessings on us.’ Parents don’t agree instantly, not in India at least. Eventually, after some time, they’d accept it.

But I, Jigar Joshi, did something unworldly that morning. Not only in India, but in this whole world it was inconceivable, unimaginable and to some extent…unacceptable. I don’t give a hoot how many words starting with 'in' and 'un' people use to describe it.

It was a breezy winter morning. I knocked at the door. My father opened it.

“Where had you gone so early in the morning?” he asked.

“Dad,” I said, “I want to introduce you to your…” I stopped to observe his visage which was fearful expecting the forthcoming word to be 'daughter-in-law'. But I was to prove his mind wrong. I continued, “…granddaughter.”

I pulled Kim out of cover from behind my legs, she was clutching my finger tightly. I helped her come forward to face my father.

She was cute with cherubic face, her hair-ends dancing on her shoulders. Her eyes were green and deep, forcing people to drown in it. She was about two feet and a half tall. She was five, just sixteen years younger than me.

My father’s eyes looked like two volcanoes about to explode, face red as if from lava. He did not reply at the door. He allowed us to step in, his face rock stern. He slammed the door behind us.

My mother was knitting a sweater on the sofa. She stopped after seeing my father’s expressions rather than seeing Kim.

The fire had been kindled, and the whole family was about to catch it in few minutes.

“Your son has brought home his daughter,” my father shouted, calling me my mother’s son as if I wasn’t his.

My younger sister, Jiya, my elder brother, Jay and his wife came out from their rooms after hearing the loudness rarely heard in the house.

I grabbed Kim’s shoulder firmly as though they were going to snatch her away from me.

“I have adopted her. Emotionally, she’s already my daughter. Just some formalities and she’ll be my child legally. I don’t want to know what you think about it,” I clarified.

“Adopted?” My father’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re so young yourself and you have adopted a child? Are you nuts? You’re just twenty-one and you want to raise a child already few years old.”

“She’s five,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter.” His hands moved frantically with his words.

“I didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion. This is my own soulful decision. I met her when we college guys visited an orphanage last month. I made her friend. I became unbreakably attached to her. People fall in love for a relationship of husband and wife. I fell in love with her as a father. Now I want to give her a father’s love, a surname. Is that a problem?” I argued.

For the obstinate and arrogant that I was, my father knew his efforts to tell me off would go in vain. Normally, a son would ask for his father's permission for such acts, he would not impose on his father, but I was abnormal in that sense. I was driven by my own unique nerve impulses which signaled me to even rebel against my own father to keep Kim home. I was sheltering the needy and I knew I was doing the right thing.

“Soulful decision?” My father yelled, “People will mock it as a soulfooooool decision.” He stretched the word to make sure I grasped what he meant.

“Who will marry you, beta?” my mother said calmly, “Which girl after knowing that you already father a child will marry you?”

“Well, if that’s the problem, I’ll not marry at all.” I shrugged.

Kim was holding back her tears. I had already explained about the situation before coming home and had instructed her to be strong.

“What will the society think about it? That Mr. Joshi’s son is twenty-one and he already has a five year old daughter.”

“I don’t care,”

“Well, you have to. You’re too young to become a father. You’re too young to even get married. This is not acceptable. Send her back to the orphanage.”

“I’ll not,” I said firmly.

"This guy is out of control, he just does what he wants to," my father said to my mother. "Look at your elder brother," he turned to me, "How polite he is, how dutiful he is. He respects us. And you are raising your voice against us? You are one arrogant and wicked guy whom no man would like to father."

I had grown accustomed to such statements by my father. So I simply allowed them to enter through one ear and let it escape from the other.

“Why don’t you understand?” My mother stood up from the sofa.

I tried to understand. We all stayed eerily silent for few minutes. Then I came up with a solution.

“We can solve this peacefully, please. Just listen to me for a sec,” I said.

“How?” My father was curious.

“My age is the only problem, right?”

“Plus you’re not married,” my mother added.

“Then why don’t you adopt her?” I suggested to my father, “You’re forty-nine…and you’re married too.”

My father was dumbfounded. I had made him think intently. I always did, since the day I was born. My mother was given some medicines to delay my delivery as it was premature. The administered drugs couldn't prevent my early birth. From that day onwards, my father knew this boy will be tough to deal with.

He kept thinking. If he said yes, he’d lose. If he said no, he’d lose. If he didn’t reply, I’d win.

He didn’t reply.

Kim and I moved into my room and the whole house fell in a pin-drop silence. Not the peaceful silence, but the silence after the descent in a chaos, the silence after the storm has done its job.

I admitted Kim in a school and started a part-time job to cover both of our expenses. It’s been four years now since that day and my father hasn’t talked to me ever since.

Kim has changed my life upside down. It is rightly said that after becoming a father your character improves. Now, I'm not arrogant, I'm not impolite or rude or obstinate or whatever. Now, I touch my father's feet daily for blessings...not that he provides any. I send him letters regularly saying sorry with a smiley, that is Kim's idea, but my father doesn't respond. I repent in front of God every night for my previous years' deeds, another of Kim's suggestion. My mother and siblings are taken by surprise seeing such a resounding transformation.

I have a full-time job now which pays me more than enough. She’s in fourth grade and I attend her parents’ day functions without fail.

Until she feels a need for a mother, I don’t plan to get married. Even if I search for someone to marry, I’d opt for a girl suitable to be her mother rather than my wife.

My brother, sister, mother and friends have accepted Kim and they really love spending time with her. My father will take time to accept her, and me as her father. Such a moment will come, I’m sure, when she’ll be able to play with her grandpa. Because I know, no matter how forcefully I did it, my decision was soulful…not soulfool.