broken family relation

Father’s Day 2016: Imperfect Father, Imperfect Son A roaring father lion in the plains of Serengeti whose cub only dares to play from a distance, a father distant, a father reluctant to play silly games with the boy, but a father whose two sharp eyes were ever watchful for his son’s well being, a father who protected and a father who injected the everlasting values of wisdom, and encouraged a tireless journey towards excelling in life; such was the relation of my father and I. Such is my memory about him. My father was a busy man with a temper as volatile as high octane gasoline, a man who at times could not separate problems of his work from that of his family life. Yet a man of principle he never learned to bow down to any one, a man uncompromising to the bone of his back. My father was a handsomely featured man, a sharp Aryan nose, reminiscent of the Conquistadors of ancient India pasted right at the exact proper place of his symmetrical face, a deep investigative gaze exuded from his relatively small eyeballs. As a child, I grew up with fear of my father and my relationship with him was schizophrenic at the best. He left for work early in the morning before we were awoke, coming back from work deep into the evenings, sipping his tea he would be drowned in the newspaper of the day in the easy-chair at the porch. He was exceptionally calm most of the times yet, from time to time, he would burst into violent fits of spousal abuse, hitting my mother with his hands and feet. These rages were though not long in time, they were long in agonizing fear and all of us would scream out for help but nothing would stop him, he would hit anything, living or dead that came in between him and my mother. He was a lion with a killer instinct, once he focused his sight on the prey, he was transformed into a different deity: he was the Shiva, the Pasupati, Lord of the Beasts for that time! I was always afraid that one of these days he would not know when to stop and he would certainly kill my mother. Growing up in the sixties and seventies, as a child, I grew up with mortal fear of two things: Nuclear war between the Soviet Union and USA and my father’s rage, not knowing which one would kill us first. I was not sure which one was more dangerous. After each of such violent rages of my father, after our helpless screaming and crying, came the calm after the storm when I flew in my own world of imagination, into the land of idealism and Superheroes. I imagined myself of building nuclear shelters to save the humanity, I imagined myself to be grown up so strong that one hit of mine would knock my father unconscious; I imagined to be the Samson, to tear the lion apart into pieces. I had fallen asleep, many times flying with the wings of imagination in the distant lands of Scheherazade and 1001 nights. Back in real life at other times, my father’s care and gestures were so visible, palpable and kind. At times he was so prescient that, it left me totally confused, even with a hint of guilt for wishing bad upon him. I remember, as a little child in the days of elementary school, like many children in Bangladesh I was fond of Hilsa fish, considered a delicacy, caviar of the Bengalese. The Hilsa fish season was short lasting in those days, with no provision for cold storage yet available in the country for year round supply.  And needless to say that the fish was and still is very expensive. In one season while eating a deliciously cooked Hilsa I cried out to my mother, “Mom, I want to eat the Daddy Hilsa, not just the baby ones!” meaning the biggest of the Hilsa fish, which my father had overheard. Within few days, he bought the largest Hilsa available. Carrying it on his shoulder, a porter brought this to our house for cooking. It was about a mile journey on foot and crowd gathered around it admiring that “Headmaster”, as my father was known by his position in a local High School, had bought the largest Hisla fish for his son. Then in 1971, when I was ten years old, suddenly one day my father evacuated us from the hometown with just few hours of notice, much at the consternation of my mother.  This was long before anyone else in our town thought of doing so. A prescient action like this protected us from being witness to all the destruction, rampage and killings that would later become a daily event of life as the war broke out between independence seeking Bengalese and the Pakistan army. “A grave curse is coming down to this nation and this country”, my father predicted at that time to calm my mother down as she was worried about leaving everything behind and logistics of evacuating a large family with just few hours in hand. His prediction came out to be true to the letters on that same day of our hurried journey to escape, as we for the first time came across dead bodies floating in the rivers. His timely action meant that we were totally unscathed by the ravages of war and famine that accompanied each other shortly. During this time of war, my father was fiercely critical of the killings and atrocities committed by both sides of the conflict. Years later, by now I was in the Eighth Grade, a young teenager, crossing from one milestone to another of my life. Few of my class mates and I had to represent our school in a state examination for scholarship that was held in a town six hours journey from home. The school, which was different than the one