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MY FATHER USED TOTELL ME A STORY

Anu Mullapudi

There was once a poor schoolmaster in a small village. He had a big family and bigger loans. He had

borrowed money from his milkman, his grocer and his headmaster. He couldn’t pay his rent; heborrowed money from one neighbor to pay another. From dawn to dusk all he could think about washow to pay off the loans and save face in front of his insistent moneylenders.

One day, returning from school, he saw a rupee coin glinting on the dusty road at a distance.His heart skipped a beat when he saw that there was no one around. If only he could pick up that onerupee coin, he could buy a kilo of rice for dinner that night. Maybe he could even manage to buy thatnotebook his son needed for his mathematics class the next day. But how could he, a respected school-master, bend down and pick up a rupee coin-and that too, one that did not belong to him? He couldhear the dogs barking at a distance and saw a group of boys approaching, jostling and fooling around.He had to think fast.

As he drew closer to the rupee coin, it seemed to shine even brighter in the evening sun. Hisheart beat so loudly that he was sure the boys could hear it. He then had a bright idea: as he neared therupee coin, he looked around surreptitiously and dropped his kanduva (shawl) on the ground, justover the coin. He bent down nonchalantly, as if to retrieve his shawl, and tried to pick up the coin. Hetried and tried. This was like the Sivadhanusu (the legendary bow of Lord Shiva that only a Ramacould bend)… it just wouldn’t come off the ground. He lifted the shawl to see why and heard a shoutof laughter. He looked up to see the group of boys laughing at him.

Master found that the rupee coin was not a rupee coin at all. It was a soda bottle cap nailed tothe ground so that greedy and desperate fools like him would fall for the prank. He straightened up,and to his horror and shame, saw that one of the laughing faces belonged to his son. Mocking him. Hispoverty. His greed. And his need.

At that moment, he experienced at least five of the nine emotions known to man. Hatred, An-ger, Jealousy, Fear, Disgust… Were there any more that a man could feel all at once? Seeing his son

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standing there with his friends laughing at his ownfather’s desperation at keeping his family fed, clothedand sheltered, he gave in to the strongest emotion—anger. From that red, hot lava, he felt tears threaten-ing to fall. But he kept the tears at bay. He could not—would not—show his emotions in front of these cal-lous brats. He would rush home, have a good cry andbe done with this humiliation.

So gathering up his kanduva and the last ves-tiges of dignity, he hurried away, not looking back.

Master reached home, went straight to thesingle wooden cot in his one-room house and laydown to cry. He replayed the incident in his minddown to the last detail, and just as the withheld tearsbegan to well up, his wife came in with a glass of water.He couldn’t let her see him like this. He got up andwent to the backyard, so he could get some privacy

and cry in peace. There, he saw his daughter strug-gling to draw water from the well, and went to giveher a hand. Sending her in, he sat down behind thedhobi stone to shed those tears now waiting to gushout like water at a dam. Once again he was inter-rupted, this time by his wife who rushed in to tell himthat the moneylenders were at the door threateningto make a scene if he didn’t pay up today.

Setting his tears aside, he ran out to pacify themand buy some more time. As he sent the group away,his wife persuaded him to borrow some rice from theheadmaster’s house so they could at least have onemeal. He left, thinking to himself that once everyonesettled down to sleep, he would find a corner to cry tohis heart’s content.

Finally when the family retired for the day, helay back-content that today’s jobs were done. Anotherday had set, and tomorrow would rise, bringing innewer ways to handle the same old problems. Nowwhat was it that nagged him through the day? He had

to do something. He had to feel something… His eyesbegan to close… he had to do some….

I have been thinking of this story ever since thedreaded call from India came to tell me that my fa-ther had left us. As I rushed home on the first avail-able flight, I shed a few tears, but the raw pain re-mained. Landing at home, my first thoughts were toconsole and be strong for my mother and my uncleBapu, and then the rest of my family, all of who weredevastated.

There, I discovered that my father was morethan just the quiet, funny, gentle man I used to teaseand bully. He was Mullapudi, whom many loved andrespected. Peers, colleagues, admirers, friends, fam-ily, even the auto rickshaw drivers who used to hangaround our home, poured in to pay their last respects.I was touched and amazed and held my tears back.

How had this one man, coming from some small vil-lage, generated these intense emotions in so manypeople, at home and across the world?

I came back home to California, ready now togrieve in my private world. I had no difficulty sum-moning his face, his voice and gestures in my mind.But most of the memories only brought a smile to myface. Sometimes I chuckled at a recollection. Evenlaughed out at some of his classic expressions. Thiswould not do. I had to cry.

I picked up one of his favorite authors, MarkTwain. I remembered reading out parts of the officialautobiography to him the day before he passed on.Mark Twain thus wrote about a man who had be-trayed his good friend (and former President ofAmerica) General Ulysses Grant:

“As for myself, I was inwardly boiling all thetime: I was scalping Ward, flaying him alive, break-ing him on the wheel, pounding him to jelly, and curs-ing him with all the profanity known to the one lan-

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guage that I am acquainted with, and helping it outin times of difficulty and distress with odds and endsof profanity drawn from the other two languages ofwhich I have a limited knowledge.”

My dad had laughed aloud. He knew whom Iwas referring to. “Thappu amma, forget it,” he said.“I have.” I smiled at the memory. And then sighed.This was not working. Find something with morepathos, I told myself.

I decided to try some reverse psychology. I rum-maged through my DVD collection and came up witha Laurel and Hardy film-the all time favorite for mydad and uncle. Just holding it in my hands broughttears to my eyes. I remembered those times when wewould gather around Bapu and Ramana (or Nanna-Mama as all of us kids called them) during their rou-tine soirees over drinks. They would discuss practi-cally everything on Earth and beyond. Nothing wasspared, everything was sacred, and of course, noth-ing was sacred. Talking about a particularly stubbornacquaintance who couldn’t be convinced to see theirpoint of view, Bapu would quote Laurel with a twinklein his eye: “You can lead a horse to water…” andMullapudi would complete with a grin: “…but a pen-cil must be le(a)d!” And all of us would burst intogiggles. As I did now, looking at the cover. Nope, thiswould not do. Think sad, I thought.

I went to make dinner. Vellullipaya Chaaru. Mythroat suddenly wouldn’t function, as if the soccer ballmy daughter was kicking around outside was lodgedin there. This was my dad’s favorite kind of chaaru.He always complained that my “very vegetarian”mother would never make it. Except on Tuesdays(that’s when she fasted). If my mom did make it onany other day (mostly when my husband visited withthem), he would relish the meal with much fanfare(which my mom claimed was fake and soaked in sar-casm). Then the same garlicky joke followed, saidgently time after time, in true Mullapudi style: “If it’sgarlic, it must be Tuesday”. I grinned, rememberingmy mother’s resigned expression.

There I lost again and caught myself smiling.How am I supposed to mourn this man if I could onlyremember him with happiness and recall him in hu-mor? His movies? My favorite and the saddest one ofthem all? Gorantha Deepam?

Many of the dialogues in his movies came fromexperiences of his life, he had in real, walked thosewords. “Kaallo mullu gucchukunte, adhi kantlogucchukoledhani santhoshinchaali kaani, yedusthukoochovakodadhu…” (If a thorn pricks your toe, begrateful that it was at your toe and not in your eye).The eternal optimist, he lived by these words even inthe worst of days.

Towards the end, he suffered a lot from shoot-ing pain in his feet because of his diabetes. Unsus-pecting Vonage was kind enough to give me unlim-ited calling-we spoke to each other everyday. Hewould begin to tell me how he felt and then catch him-self in the middle of his complaint to say: “You knowwhat, I am actually happy about this pain in my feet.The doctor said the problem could have actually af-fected my brain, instead it’s going to the foot of thematter”. I would groan at his puns, and he alwayslaughed, telling me not to worry, and that he was gladthat he could think and write at his age, at this stage.“I would like to go that way,” he said.

My father loved music. I thought I wouldswitch on his favorite music, and then I wouldmaybe… This brought back memories of him sittingin his special corner, listening to music. Sometimes,he would be lost in thought. When I would ask himwhat he was thinking about, he would say,“Inkemundhi, it’s appula-lo alankaaralu!” He wasconstantly amazed at the permutations and combina-tions of Alankaarams in Carnatic music; he felt that ithelped him figure out how to juggle the next four callsof the good souls who loaned him money. I laughedaloud now, at the ridiculousness of the metaphor.

I gave up. Why try when the master of humorwas still at work? He was not going to let me cry inpeace. I might as well keep smiling, knowing he is atpeace.

Smt. Anuradha Mullapudi lives in Pleasanton, California with her husband anddaughter. Verymuch her father's daughter, she loves eat, feed and laugh. She runsJunipero Design, a marketing communications firm.