India connection

Accepting the boy as his son-in-law would have turned my uncle’s cosmic world upside down. The liberal tradition of the West had not changed him a bit. He strictly observed caste rules and was proud of his exalted ritual status. Even today his day starts with the chanting of the Gayatri mantra and the observance of ritual fasting is routine for him.

But destiny cannot be willed and despite all the opposition she chose life with the man she loved. As a wife and a mother, my uncle’s daughter had a tough life in India. Being unable to cope with the hardships of a mundane existence here, she along with her year-old-daughter retraced her steps back to the land of Big Ben.

To ensure that his granddaughter wouldn’t get to know about the whereabouts of her father, uncle severed all links with the land of his birth. Even his collection of cassettes was packed off, never to see the light of the day again.

Once I called Vasundhara to wish her on her birthday. It was her 12-year-old daughter who happened to pick up the phone. Suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, she said, “Do you know my dad? Are you aware of his whereabouts?” My spontaneous reply was, “Yes.”

Though I incurred uncle’s wrath, the end result was the emotional reunion of the long-separated father and daughter. Packing away music cassettes from a distant land could not keep India at bay, or indeed the desire in a little girl to know about her roots and antecedents.

Last evening I rang up my uncle to wish him a happy new year. Playing in the background was the famous song from Roja, ‘Bharat hamko jaan se payara hai…’ I guess he too had bowed before destiny and had accepted the unacceptable.