My father has always been an insufferable presence in my life.

Everything I said or did was deemed to be

because of him. All of my antics as a tomboy, playing cricket with older boys, scandalizing other girls by
telling non-veg jokes, roaming the streets by myself and coming home late; all of it was because of my
father. The fact that I argued incessantly with my mother, that I preferred to be left alone rather than
being surrounded by a gaggle of girls; pretty much everything I did, all of it was because of my father. Not
because he was a loving, caring, too indulgent, ‘my daughter is my son’ saying man. But simply because
he was nowhere to be found for the last twenty five years, my exact age to this day.

The story goes something like this. My parents much like the norm in those days met for an arranged
marriage and got married. I don’t really know what he was like because the only description of him I ever
get is ‘normal’, whatever that means. There are photographs but hidden in dark corners, never to be
ventured into. The only thing my mother once let slip was that he was sensitive and would fret over small
things. Off course this was said with the usual dose of vitriol. If there was ever love between them, I
wouldn’t know, as I have only ever seen bitterness towards him from everybody in the family. But they
must have had a ‘normal’ married life for at least a while because soon my mother became pregnant with
me. As her delight grew with little me growing in her tummy, my father became more and more reticent.
Everybody in the family put it down to him becoming more serious as he was soon to be a family man.
They assumed that the added responsibility of raising a child had made him more mature, more
thoughtful. They never paused to consider that maybe underneath all the silence, huge waves of
uncertainty rolled and storms of doubt raged.

Things came to a head when my mother at long last went into labour and was taken to a hospital. My
father was called at his work and bade to hurry. Apparently, I was a difficult child from the start and my
mother got a glimpse of the future as I refused to come out into the world. After a long intense labour I
arrived at the most inconvenient time in the late night hours, as the monsoon clouds rolled in the sky and
lightning struck, when my mother was exhausted and father was barely awake. The rest of family who
had nervously gathered in the hospital had all gone home. After I was cleaned up and fed, I went to sleep
promptly. Then just as the sun broke the grey sky, my father held me in his arms for a moment. He
excused himself to go and phone the family and was never seen again. The last conversation he ever had
with anyone in the family was with my sleepy grandfather and the only part he remembers is about my
birth. I have questioned him closely over the years and its hopeless. He can’t tell if my father sounded
happy or nervous or scared. He can’t recall the exact words. He can’t even remember if my father said
goodbye. And that’s the whole sordid tale. So now anything ‘bad’ I do is attributed to the father I have
never known. And I am stuck forever wondering what kind of a man he was.

Its my twenty fifth birthday today. For the longest time now, I always celebrate it by myself in the pre-
dawn hours when everybody is still asleep. Later in the day my family makes an attempt at celebration
but I know that behind the revelries, they are thinking of the man who went missing. So I have a mini
party for myself when its not about my father but just about me. I sneak in a cupcake and eat it all by
myself. So, I am doing the same today. I took the cupcake and quietly snuck to the balcony. The sky was
grey and crows were singing me a birthday song. As I took the first bite of my cupcake, I saw a man on the
road half illuminated by the yellow glare of the streetlamp. There was something about him, maybe the
awkward posture or the way his hair curled; a shiver of recognition passed through me. I don’t know why
but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was my long lost father come back to see me. I wanted to ask
him, what it was that he saw in my sleepy little face that made him bolt? I quickly left the apartment and
ran to the street. We stared at each other for a full minute, both taking the measure of each other. At
long last I asked him the question that had haunted me for twenty five years. I saw his lips part, about to
form an answer, when all of a sudden everything went pitch dark. It was as if all the light had been
sucked from around us, even the stars and the moon in the night sky disappeared. The air felt thick like
black tar, the darkness threatened to close in on my throat, taking my voice with it. As I yelled out his
name, a feeble light in the distance came back on. I looked around frantically, but he had disappeared
into the night. Again. Perhaps forever this time.