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| Chai/Image Credit: UTE |
And one day, he disappears.
There is no grand exit, no last conversation that you knew, while it was happening, to hold on to.
One moment, he is there, singing, laughing, telling stories about the railways, drinking chai, talking about life as though there will always be more of it.
Then he is gone.
You are stunned, then angry, then helpless. There is no script for this.
Death is one of those truths we somehow manage to treat as fiction. We know it exists. We have seen it happen. We have stood at funerals, sent condolence messages, watched people disappear from other people's lives. Still, somewhere inside us, we believe the people who make our own lives feel permanent will remain.
Perhaps stories have something to do with it.
We grow up watching villains die and heroes survive. Even when good people die in stories, there is usually a reason for it, a sacrifice, a purpose that makes the loss mean something.
Sometimes a good man just dies.
Someone kind. Someone who made an ordinary Sunday worth looking forward to.
He was not my father, but somewhere along the way, he became one.
He called me Sunday Wala Beta.
Sundays were ours. Chai, conversations, and stories from the forty years he had spent working in the railways. My own father is a quiet man, never one for long conversations. This uncle, this Muh Bola father, somehow filled a silence I had never thought of as empty.
He had a way of giving advice that sounded almost careless when he said it. You would nod, take another sip of chai, and only later realise that the sentence had stayed with you.
"Money is not everything, but money is everything. You don't have to succumb to its power, but you need enough to enjoy life. And ultimately, it is about enjoying life."
That was him.
Practical without being cynical. Philosophical without trying to sound wise.
The last time I saw him was a Sunday.
Nothing about it felt like the last time.
We drank chai. We talked about his diabetes. We talked about buying property. Ordinary things. He behaved exactly as he always had, and I left exactly as I always did.
There seemed to be a thousand Sundays still available to us.
A month later, his son called.
He did not call me first. He called someone else and asked them to bring me along.
For a moment, I was angry.
Then I understood.
My parents are ill. He knew that. Perhaps his son did not want to place another burden directly in my hands. Even in the way the news reached me, there was a strange gentleness.
Tomorrow is his funeral.
I don't know what I will feel.
Nothing has quite reached me yet.
Perhaps it will tomorrow. Perhaps weeks from now.
Maybe I will hear a train somewhere and remember one of his stories. Maybe I will sit down with chai and, for a fraction of a second, expect him to be there. Maybe someone will call me Sunday Wala Beta, and the words will suddenly mean something they never meant before.
I don't know.
But if I had one more Sunday with him, I don't think I would ask him anything. No final advice, no closure. I would sit with him, we would have chai, and he would tell me another railway story, probably one I had already heard. I would listen. That would be enough.
Tomorrow, there will be a funeral. There will be people, rituals, condolences, and all the things we do when someone leaves and the rest of us are required to continue.
But someday, much later, there will be an ordinary Sunday.
I will be sitting somewhere with chai in my hands. Perhaps, somewhere in the distance, I will hear a train.
And for a moment, I will be Sunday Wala Beta again.