My dad, the dude

Illustration/Uday Mohite

I woke up and walked a million miles today
I've been looking up and down for you
All this time it still feels just like yesterday
That I walked a million miles with you
Think I'm gettin' over it
There's no gettin' over it
There are times that I need someone
There are times I feel like no one
Sometimes I just don't know what to do
There are days I can't remember
There are days that last forever
- Under You, Foo Fighters

He lay in a teak wood casket, he seemed peaceful, he seemed complete… a life well lived. The people filed by his corpse in the coffin. The mourners, they came and went, paying homage, the end of an era.

The accolades, the outpourings, for the "legend".

He had passed quickly, peacefully, hopefully with minimum pain - we never really know the pain a person may feel, we can only hope that those who "go quickly", go painlessly.

Those eyes, now firmly shut, I sensed, still twinkled; a mind still furiously at work… a life cut short even at 92. He whispered to me - "Rahul, where are all my advertising friends… all I can see are mostly your buddies," he said.

"Not sure pop… some of them, Alyque, Gerson, Subhash, Kersey all gone - they don't make them like you guys anymore."

"Hmmmmm… good point."

"Any last words of wisdom?" I asked.

"You never listened to any of my pearls when I was alive… so why now," he frowned.

"I guess I'm older now, sons have an ego problem listening to dads when we're younger… plus if I don't imbibe now, then when?"

"Okay lemme refresh my head with something useful to tell you - The Amul topicals, keep them funny, relevant, remember you're only as good as your last one. Read Art Buchwald voraciously, he's still the funniest writer ever, don't rest on your laurels… they are temporary. Don't sweat the small stuff, live life in your own terms. Ignore the imitators, the pretenders - success has many authors."

He paused. I looked at him, then at my mother.

Sylvie daCunha, the original Mad Man… Mazagon boy, a 400-metre sprinter, Bombay University champ, Economics major at St Xavier's, Catholic boy falls in love with Gujarati girl in the 1950s - the decision to go his own way, never to follow the herd. Entertainment in his DNA, the inability to fathom how a son can listen to Deep Purple and other noisy metal bands, what are they screaming - Nat King Cole, Sinatra, Ella - those are singers, those are lyrics.

"Was I a good Dad?" he asked suddenly.

"Hmmm. 7/10, I'd say… you were always there when I most needed you - during my ICSE Boards, in 1978 when I was up all night, trying to cram for Physics and Chemistry, you came by at 4 am. I was sleep-deprived, panicked, certain I would ‘plug' the exams, and you said to relax. ‘Just get through your boards, you're pretty certain what you want to do with your life'."

"And there was this other time... I was 17, it was a school athletics final… you remember?"

"Yeah, idiot that you were, you decided to train, the evening before."

"And I fell, I was wearing spikes for the first time, they got entangled in the mud and I toppled over."

"You injured yourself badly…"

"I had the 100s, 200s, the 4 X 100 relay the next day."

"I stayed awake the whole night with you."

"That you did pop, and I won everything!"

We paused. Smiling at this memory.

"Pretty good turn out to see me off, gotta say, now I see many of my friends"

We were now in the hearse, bumping along to the crematorium.

"They're all saying ‘you're in a better place now', are you?" I asked

"Don't know… I'm not there yet!"

"Think I was a good son?"

"Yes thankfully you didn't do drugs!"

I laughed out loud.

"Okay, listen gotta go, you'll look after your mother, she'll need you most, now that I'm not there," he said hurriedly.

"Yeah, your bride of 63 years, the love of your life since she was 15, and you 18. I will, don't worry."

"Oh by the way, one last thing…"

"Tell me Dad."

"Always keep it witty... Always."

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com