Reflections on Fathers Day

A few weeks ago we celebrated Fathers Day. It was a beautiful day spent in the company of family and friends. During the food and fun filled afternoon I could not help thinking about my own father whose long shadow has always loomed high over my life these past sixty-five years.

A six-year old boy has but fleeting memories of a man who as patriarch of a large clan lived his entire life more out of religious, cultural and social obligations to the community and an extended family than the narrow interests of his own immediate family. He was an honest public servant, an avid hunter, a dependable friend and a generous provider. Years later when I would come across some one who had known him, but did not know I was his son, I would learn a bit more about him. But those occasional snapshots have been but fleeting glimpses into his rather short life. He was 58 years old when he died of a heart attack leaving behind a young widow of twenty-eight and five children. I was only six at that time.

And still some of the memories are fresh and vivid. The evening ride in our tonga (buggy) to visit friends in the cantonment, the elaborate open house on holidays, summer picnics outside the city at Gorakh Dibbi Talaab (pool) and occasional forays into the countryside for hunting. It was on one such hunting trip that I learned my first hunting lesson.

After an afternoon of bird shooting in the countryside, as we settled down for a picnic snack on a meadow, a flock of black birds landed on a distant cluster of trees. While the men tiptoed their way towards them, I was asked to stay put. As they left I picked up a 12-gauge shotgun and decided to shoot a bird or two. Putting the cartridge in the gun was easy, cocking the hammer was not but I managed. I held the gun like a pole between my feet, the barrel clearing the top of my head by inches, and pushed down on the trigger as a bird flew overhead. An unexpected gun shot in the frontier hinterland always spells enemy fire. So everyone hit the ground but when they realized what had happened they hurried back. Shaken by the blast I was still standing with the gun between my feet and my left hand wrapped around the hot barrel when they arrived.

Nothing was said at the time. But that evening my father had a lengthy talk with me about the guns and hunting. Many years later when I was teaching my own sons about handling guns, the hot barrel of the gun, singed forever in my mind, was always there.

Not being able to understand the finality of death I believed my father’s absence was temporary. Like his extended hunting trips to the southern mountains he would also return from this journey. For many years I looked for him in the crowds at the bus depots and the train stations, the usual places where you find lost people, but to no avail. From that particular journey he never did return.

It took many more years to accept the permanence of his absence in my life. Some how my four half brothers, from my father’s first marriage that had ended with the death of their mother, stepped in to fill the vacuum. They were ordinary men but with extraordinary embrace to carry on the family traditions and their individual obligations to the family.

There was Ijaz, the revenue officer, eldest of the four, who inherited the family mantle and kept the family together. Zulfiqar, the civil engineer, was stern like our father and never hesitated to use the boot to instill sense into us young ones and provided for our education. Mushtaq was the happy-go-lucky civil servant who laughed his way out of this world when he died of a freak drowning accident. And then there was Sardar the agriculturist who carried on the hunting traditions of our father. Nazir, my real brother and five years my senior was an engineer and a renowned soccer player and a mountaineer. Without a script or a plan they provided a nurturing milieu for their younger siblings.

They are all gone now. Left behind are the memories and traditions, yellowing snap shots and occasional mementos. Among these is an oil painting of our father that hangs in my study. So when I see my father, with his full graybeard, Peshawari turban and frock coat, peering down from the wall I am assured that he has been an integral part of my upbringing through my brothers and the rest of the family.

Every year on Fathers Day as I reiterate my love for my children and emphasize the importance of family ties and relationships, I am always reminded of the ramshackle homestead tucked in the narrow alleys of the walled city of Peshawar. That house and its inhabitants have long passed on from the scene but they continue to shine like a beacon in my mind’s eye. As I enter the mid-afternoon of my own life that thought is indeed comforting on Fathers Day. Or any other day for that matter.