Dearest Papa,
This is the first time I am writing to you. I don’t have your email or postal address since you have gone to the heavenly abode, but I am sure that you have access to this letter and can read what I am penning down. I believe that this letter will reach you, carried by memory, love, and all that remains unspoken between us, and through what I am trying to articulate now.
Mummy has fond memories of meeting you. Yours had been an unconventional marriage. Mummy is three years older than you. You met at the wedding of your elder brother and sister. Just like Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit fell in love with each other in the 1990s blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, you both fell for each other. Because of your age difference or perhaps simply because you chose your own life partners, some of your relatives were against the relationship. However, you took the blessings of your parents and tied the nuptial bond. In fact, you married twice – court marriage and conventional marriage – on different dates. After that everyone accepted the wedlock and everything fell into place.

You invariably encouraged mom to finish her M.S and become a doctor. Having done your Post Graduation in English Literature, you yourself aspired to be a civil servant. You could not crack the most difficult exam in the country. It didn’t deter you. You started a textile business which crashed. Then you joined a college as a lecturer but for some reason that college was shut down. By that time, I was born. At that time, you and mummy mutually decided that since her educational qualification was better than yours, she should become the main breadwinner of the family. This was in the 1970s and you ignored the taunts of many people that you were going to be ‘Joru ka Ghulam’ (wife’s slave) and live off your wife’s income. It took some tenacity to do so.
However, you carved a niche for yourself as a party member of the BJP, though you didn’t make money but helped others as much as you could. Your final post was that of Conveyor to the Election Commission in Bihar.
My grandparents supported my mother by not demanding her to do household chores after coming from work. She wanted to spend some quality time with her kids after work and not waste her precious time in the kitchen. There was a domestic help and mom hardly cooked. That too was unconventional for her times. You never complained. You never got an opportunity to invite your friends to taste ‘bhabhiji ke haath ka bana hua khana’, (food prepared by sister-in-law) but you were happy with the arrangement.
Mummy often recalls an incident from my childhood days. I was not even a toddler yet. Once you would not get up from the bed even after a long time since dawn. When mummy asked him why you were not getting up, you wondered how he could when I was sleeping with my leg on his belly. I would wake up if he woke up. That was the kind of emotional bonding you had with me, and subsequently Puneet (my brother).

I recall that it was you, and not mummy, who accompanied Puneet and me to Parents’ Teachers’ Meetings. You were the one who dropped me off to tuitions, mummy often had to flee to her nursing home for emergencies even on Sundays. Again, you never grumbled.
You lived with me in Delhi for a month while I took admission tests of various colleges of Delhi University, something you could do because you didn’t work. I am forever grateful to you for the crucial guidance you provided me around that time otherwise I would have been lost in the rigmarole.
Like any father you had a simple dream of getting your daughter married, but when you realised that happiness in marriage eluded me and that it was an abusive one, through teary-eyes you accepted my divorce. Only mummy was a witness to how many tears you shed on countless nights when you saw me crying because I was shattered – it had triggered my bipolar anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, acute depression and suicidal ideation. You would always tell mummy to be with me because I needed extra care during my dark days, never worrying about your own needs. She spent time with you after I slept early anyway.

You fought bravely with the chronic kidney disease that ailed you. Just days before you passed away you made everyone happy by telling us that your dialysis made you feel better. But the illness got the better of you and you passed away due to the silent heart attack on 22nd April, 2025.
The wounds still fester.
Papa, I miss you in ways I hadn’t thought possible. You would recline on the deewan and watch the news all day. And yet you would mute the television while either Mummy or I prayed. Her day revolved around you and now she doesn’t know what to do with that time. Learning to adopt new hobbies.
Your presence in the drawing room made sure that nobody could enter the house without monitoring. And you welcomed the guests wholeheartedly. You were a generous soul who would help anyone who asked for your help. You were pious, that’s why God blessed you with a painless death. The unexpectedness of your demise hit harder.
You would always be my silent cheerleader, liking all my Facebook posts surreptitiously. I miss your name mentioned below my posts. You would be happy at my smallest accomplishments, who else cares about those?
Now you are a picture on the living room wall. But along with Baba and Dadi, hopefully you are in a better place than this world, in another world. But I will keep missing you in ways I didn’t think was possible.
Yours lovingly,
Richa.

By Richa Verma
Richa is an online English teacher, independent blogger, voracious reader, movie buff who is smitten with wanderlust, and a homemaker. She can be contacted through her email address richavermamh@gmail.com
2 Responses
Emotional and touching ❤️.
I too have very emotinal bonding with him as a brother. He has played a great role in my life. He was like my older brother.
Good and heart touching tribute by you to a wonderful father