Son of my Father

he night I returned to Bhopal, I left home telling Amma that I would be back soon. I walked along the same roads along which father and I had jogged together. I walked past the nautch girl area of Lakshmi Talkies, and past Saifia College to the adjacent graveyard.

I have always been afraid of death, not knowing what the life beyond has in store for us. While the Hindus burn their dead, the Muslims are buried after death. The body is lowered into a grave, which is then covered by huge slabs of stone, on which earth is piled on. The mourners throw three fistfuls of earth on the grave, pray for the dead man's soul, and leave the body for the maggots.

I walked into the graveyard and stopped at my father's grave, knowing fully well that many more bodies had been buried at the same spot after his death.

Father never really know how much I loved him. He was a stern man, Victorian in temperament, and who firmly believed that to spare the rod would be to spoil the child. There were occasions at Id and Bakr-i-Id, when he embraced me, and I wanted to tell him I love you father, but did not as I was unsure of his reaction.

In spite of his stern attitude towards us, I knew father loved me in his own way. And I never did anything that father did not approve.

I sat by my father's grave, and instead of saying a prayer, I gave a silent thank you. I am proud that you were my father, I said. I love you, father.

I could say no more, but a patch of earth on his grave turned wet with my tears that night.

My father, Ahmed Sher Khan, with the Bhopal Schools Team