Happy Birthday, Dad.

You would have been 67 today.

What would we have done, I wonder?
We'd have said, let's go out and eat!
Or  let's go out of town.
Let's do something, I'd have begged.

But I know how we'd have celebrated your birthday.

It would have happened in the way you loved most. With your family. Your brothers. And a visit to the temple. That is, if we weren't travelling to where Bapa was.

We'd have started the day by going to Dadar, early morning temple visit. And you'd have gone to work after that. No celebrations. The brothers might drop by. No biggie, you'd have said. We'd have protested the boring 60s and gone on to work.

You'd have returned at 6pm, rung the bell, one hand on the grill, with fingers wrapped around the metal bars as I'd open the door. As always.

I'd have helped carry your bag inside, wishing you again, grinning from ear to ear and wait patiently outside as you'd wash up, change immediately into "home clothes" a habit you've passed on to me, and then we'd sit for the one thing we both cannot do without. Evening chai.

We'd sit at the dining table, look down our noses, our similar, straight noses at mum's coffee, smile the same smile as we tease her about it. You'd ask about our day, and raise your eyebrows at my stories, wrinkling that lovely regal forehead. I love mine, because it's like yours. Your hair, a lovely mop that never did properly get to go a complete grey, would be neat, not out of place, like mine. No, I dodged your neatness and attention-to-detail gene. You should have tried harder. :)

We'd talk, as I loved to with you, I wouldn't probably be in the mess I am in now, because you wouldn't have let all those things that happened ever happen to me had you lived. So, we'd be discussing all sorts of wonderful things. We'd talk about my writing. You went before my first byline appeared in the paper. The Free Press Journal. I remember looking at my name in black and white and feeling that ache, and knowing that day, that nothing would make me whole again. I shouldn't have waited for a byline. I should have tried to make you proud of me every day. 

I'd have wished you probably a 100 times by now. And you'd have laughed, gosh that delightful laugh. And graced me with that smile, that smile that lit up the room. At least for me. No matter how dark that room was. Any room. Anywhere. Do you know that that's the first thing people remember about you now when they talk to me about you? How your smile made them feel that everything would be okay. No matter what they were facing. That when you sat and talked to them, they believed. In everything that you stood for. And why wouldn't they? You stood for God so much. And He lived in you, towards the end. I felt it. So everyone else must have.

By dinner time, the brothers and your sister would have started arriving. The "No biggie" would have turned into a massive gathering of 7 families, children included, and then some. There would have been around 40 people cramped into our house, and the cacophony that would usually annoy neighbours would have been met with indulgent knowing grins instead. The Mehtas have assembled they'd have said.

I'd have gone to mum in the kitchen, what about food, what will we do? But Mum would have known better. Of course, she would have. Make enough for 50 people, my mum would have had said to the cook that morning. She knew.

The house would have been full of laughter, and crying (some kid's going to fall on his head, of course) and so much food (it IS a Gujarati household). By 11pm, the stories would have begun, the legends of the brothers, the house they grew up in, the stories of Ganpati Visarjan when 5 engineers sat and designed Ganpati sets to rival professional art directors, complete with pulley systems for tiny toy wells. The stories of their legendary absent-mindedness, my father would win centre-stage here. Stories of him leaving without his shoes, of promising to pick people up, forgetting all about it the next minute and actually driving PAST them and WAVING at the hapless victim, of him forgetting to put the role in the camera on an epic family holiday. Stories of the deepest bond that they shared, never needing friends because they had each other.

I'd look over at you. Your face would have been alive with joy, with happiness, with the comfort of family. The sort of celebration you'd have loved the most.

Instead, today we go about our day. No special food in the kitchen. Maan wished me in the morning :) and I ache that Maan and Aarya never met you. You would have loved Maan. Did you know Vaibhav brought her to meet you the day before you left for Lonavala? And you weren't home. They thought of waiting. But then, as we all think, so so stupidly, there's always tomorrow. Little did they know.
You'd have been so proud of Aarya. She asks about you many times, about Dada. She cried once too, and said she's missing you. I suspect she saw her father missing you. He doesn't talk about you to me. Ever. I suspect he cannot. I miss you with everything I have, and yet, I suspect sometimes, that he misses you even more than that.

I dream about you often. But you are still as vivid in my dreams as you were when you left. I am not sure if I am happy or alarmed by that.

Dates are cruel things. They fuel memories and make them stronger. You can combat a memory on a normal day. But attach it to an important date, and there's no stopping it.

I concede. :) I miss you. Every day.

So yes. It would have been a lovely day. Because of nothing else but that you'd have still been here. With me.

Happy birthday, Dad.