AN UNUSUAL LETTER

Dear Son, 

Christmas is so near again.  Every year, I eagerly anticipate that you will come and show me my grandkids. My dreams were all in vain for many years; you may not remember, but I know precisely 14 years! 

I am still keeping the virtues of this land, and I taught you the incredible passion and values of our country. But you forgot them all conveniently to embrace modern fashions around you quickly.

Son, you should remember one thing about the roots. You might have seen the tree is grown on the primary roots and the wet soil that held it so high. We were the roots and earth, and proud of you grown so tall as a fruitful tree. Are you forgetting or ignoring the roots and soil that nourished your growth?

You are also a father now, though not as old and mature as I am. You should know that I am still healthy in mind, but you are already sick with cholesterol and blood pressure.

Whenever I call you, it seems you are too busy on official calls or unfinished projects. As a new-gen guy, you may think that only your generation knows new gadgets and the latest knowledge. Son, every generation is a new generation, when they live as young.

Here, I am left within these walls of the nursing care home, and I enjoy the conversations that are shared with the fading glory, as we are all of the herds of the same feathers, almost abandoned by children and family.

Have you not accumulated so many credentials and luxurious things, many of which will turn useless in the years ahead?

You were told that you need to keep up above the competing peers to survive, and you only care about your career more than your family or parents.

Where there is a will, there is a way- that was a lesson you learned in your English no-detailed class, while you did your fifth grade here, and you memorized that lesson to win a speech contest in the school.

Just because you were brought up with all the parental love and care, you were transitioned to your own comfort zone. You are wrapped in your own interests but never bothered about others' concern for you.

I would like to see my grandson and the naughty Granddaughter. They may not even remember my name and have never seen me in person. I am just a ghost character on the Zoom screen for them. 

I am not sure whether I will be here waiting for you for yet another year or Christmas. Do you have any will for a way? Or I have kept my Will, which makes you and your children inherit what all I painstakingly saved so far.

Hope you come once to encash the inheritance, at least; Maybe you can smile then, looking at my garlanded photo on the wall.

Soil may have been dry and crumbled; roots are withered; but my reminiscences and loving memories will never be faded.

With my never ending love for you,

Your Dad

Chennai 2 Dec 2022