My Dad, the First and Best Storyteller I Knew
Eight years ago, on this day, my dad went into a deep sleep that none of us could wake him up from. Though I’m sad that he’s no longer with us, I smile through my tears when I remember all the stories that he used to entertain us kids with. Like it usually happens with girls, I fell in love with the first man to kiss me and take me in his arms, my dad. I blindly believed everything that he said. He was a bit on the heavy side, so apart from the primitive kind of dance that we did when my friends came over, the entertainment that he offered us was his stories. And man, did we love those!
He told stories of himself, his friends, his teachers, cousins, relatives and some elderly characters we didn’t know. He would always be the innocent bystander in his stories. My granny would have a special appearance in some stories and that would tickle us pink because we could visualize her in the story.
One such story was about Dad’s friend Mangal, who I address as Mangal kaka. In the story, Mangal kaka took the teacher’s advice of planting trees very seriously (which was encouraged more than half a century ago too) and planted a banyan tree sapling on the roof of his bathroom. The plant grew big and its aerial roots grew long. Then one day, when Mangal kaka entered the bathroom, those long aerial roots entered the bathroom and tried to catch him, so they had to cut down the tree. (Did I mention that Daddy also enjoyed watching horror movies? Well, now I did.)
That was very entertaining for us kids. You won’t believe my luck, but just a few days later, Mangal kaka visited us. Now you can imagine a kid’s excitement on being introduced to the live favourite character from her Daddy’s stories. I was totally awed and had a very big smile. I just couldn’t shift my gaze from Mangal kaka’s face. He must have noticed this and called me closer. I jumped at the chance and asked him, “Kaka, it must’ve been very scary when the banyan tree you yourself planted on your bathroom roof sent its roots down through the window to catch you, wasn’t it?”
Mangal kaka’s expression changed and he turned to Daddy and said, “Raju, what nonsense do you tell your girl?”
I was shocked. My Daddy, telling me nonsense! Mangal kaka himself denying the story! This made me doubt all the other stories told by Daddy.
Mangal kaka turned to me and very politely said, “Well, firstly it was a Peepal tree not a banyan tree. Secondly it came by itself, I didn’t plant it there. Thirdly, the roots didn’t come to catch me, they just grew into the walls and became visible inside the bathroom.”
For a little girl who hero-worshipped her Dad, this was a great shock.
Then after I grew up, I saw this movie, “Big Fish.” The story is about a man who tells his son fantastic stories about his life, just like Daddy. The son doesn’t believe the stories and sets out to investigate the truth of his father’s stories. He learns that the stories were actually true incidents to which his father added fantastical elements to make them more interesting and entertaining. (Please do watch the movie or read the story when you have time.) The man in the movie reminded me a great deal of Daddy. I remembered what Mangal kaka told me about the incident. So something like that had actually happened. It wasn’t completely nonsense. Daddy had just given a comic thrilling, borderline horror entertaining edge to a regular incident of a plant growing on the roof of a bathroom. He did this to entertain his daughter, his nephew, and their little friends; and to make them laugh. This was more than 25 years ago when we didn’t have cable tv and internet. We were never bored with Daddy in the house. His stories were educative and informative as well as entertaining. Daddy was truly the best storyteller I ever knew. He knew how to see the lighter side of any incident and turn a regular incident into one that’d make you roll on the floor laughing.
I still miss you Daddy and I hope my children too get a storyteller daddy just like you.
