On April 4th this year, the concept of loneliness had hit me hard. If you remember from the post, I had left my siblings – who count on me – and had suddenly realized that I am without my parents. Not that I was dependent on them much but the realization that they were not there – to be dependent on me – hit me hard.

This Father’s Day was the first one without him. I let the day pass first so that I could see all the love kids expressed about their fathers in social media. The following day, the family left for home and then the office folks started pouring in.

In the evening, I stepped back from joining them so that I could finally spend some time by myself. Grabbed an Old Fashioned, sat in one of the Adirondacks that Sharmila and I would spend every morning and then listened to music that reminded me of my parents. The evening gave way to night … just like it was that day on April 4th.

Finally some personal time that I could give myself permission to grieve…

“Na jane kyun hota hai
Yeh zindagi ke sath
Achanak yeh mann
Kisikey jaaney key bad
Karey phir uski yad
Chhoti chhoti si bat
Naa jane kyun…”

Roughly translated (improvements welcome)

“Don’t know why
This keeps happening to me
After somebody has taken leave
My heart is suddenly flooded
By memories… of that person…
… of the snippets of dialogs we had
Don’t know why….”