My search to find my father ended!
Many might know me as Product Manager and as a podcast host but there is another side of me which not many might know.
Here we go,
My mother is a single mother. When asked about my father, I often had no answers; divorce wasn’t a common word in south India, especially during the 90s. I walked in the hall of shame when the conversation around my father started; I hated my mother for giving me this life, well, I didn’t know whom else to blame. In my childhood, teenage, and twenties, I always had the feeling, I am in an inadequate family. When I looked at the complete families, my sense of being a broken piece stood in front of me, which broke my confidence. My mother never spoke about him; I was scared to ask her the question. But I will always remember that question.
It was 2008 I joined one of the happening colleges in the city, Ethiraj college for women, new friends and new experience. These are girls who are daughters of some well known personalities actors, politicians and media professionals, when they are all debating about whose father is a big shot here, I am trying to figure out my father. I shared about this search with one of my friends, Archana, and she promised me she’d help me find my father. With some minimum information shared by my mother in early ages we both went to the area every week, but we didn’t know his house address, we didn’t know if he has a different family, most importantly he’s a muslim, its very hard to enter houses and ask about him or his address.
Royapettah, it’s a small area with crooked roads, very crowded, we both went in our scooty to each and every house, sometimes people thought we’re sales girls and some families got suspicious about us. This happened every Saturday for all the three years, after the graduation I joined a software company and Archana went for her masters, both of us were still talking about finding him and
The search isn’t every single week now. We reached a place where we’re not going to find him. Our search was not even sensible, how to find someone who lived here 22 years back?I told myself, I hated to burden Archana anymore and she hated to quit this after so many searching Saturdays. We felt like detectives already, we knew every house in royapettah in this five years.
It was 19–5–2013(If you reading it today, exactly 7 years back), Sunday and I got a call from Archana,
Padhu, I think I found his address
What? How did you do that?
There is a shop near the building and I spoke to that guy, I think I found him.
**silence**
I will be there in 30 minutes.
My heart raced to its full potential, I wore the best dress I had, this is the day I have been waiting for 22 years, this is one question I wanted an answer for, If I am going to see him I will tell him I am campus placed at Cognizant, Oh wait, I can finally bring my father to my marriage.
That perfect family picture that I am longing for father, mother and me in between them. In just 26 minutes of riding that Sunday morning I had 1000 thoughts crossing my mind.
I see Archana from the distance, and she got in my bike we are riding to the shop Archana refered to. We went to the shopkeeper, who was easily in his 80's, he told us to go inside a building, first floor and he continued his sales in the shop.
This is not easy, we don’t know this place we’re two young girls and this old man is asking us to enter an old building which clearly has no existence of people, the biggest risk I can take on Archana’s life when I think about it and turn I see Archana opening the big rusted gate. It leaded to a tiny staircase, 1970s built house, these stairs are hard to climb for anyone above 5 feet, I can hear my heartbeat in every step, one because my search of 22 years may end today, I could find my father or we both might get into a trouble, or rather what if he’s living with his family and are you going to tell them their husband had a hindu family with a daughter, and now asking for a property partition? Or at the worst case what if he is dead and my search for my father is getting nullified in a minute. My walk climbing those 20 steps were the longest in my entire life.
There is a small cement sheeted house, a broken plywood door, No calling bell and both our fear increased to two fold, gaining all the courage Archana said “Sir…”
A sharp voice came “Yes, open the door..”
I opened the door to see an old man,
Sir, Jaffar
Yes that’s me and he smiled
His smile, love at first sight can work between father and daughters? I fall in love with his smile.
I knew I knew he is my father, his eyes are exactly like mine, I couldn’t control my tears and I had no words to express, I am still standing outside, I found him.
I FOUND him
“I am Vijaya Janaki’s daughter, do you remember us?”
He paused for a sec..and said,
“I remember, you’re my daughter but I don’t know your name”
Rushed inside and hugged him so tight, tears came out of my eyes uncontrollably though I didn’t wanted it.
The conversations went for hours and hours I told him everything happened in my life for 22 years, including about my boy friend🙈, Archana told him about all our search adventures, and how some muslim ladies chased us out, thinking we’re asking money for some fake orphanages, we laughed and laughed for hours together.
I completely ignored my phone and the world outside. It was us, just us. Archana took this picture of us and here it is, the only picture I have with him, because he decided to be with Allah forever.
I can never forget that day. 19–05–2013
