Kingdom Lost: My Unfolding Voyage 002

Dad’s Children!
Since we had no daughters, in the family of four the males dominated. But the only Lady always won the fight with me. She managed to win over the boys to her side with diligent efforts taking advantage of my folly when our sons were about two and three years old. I always rated myself as progressive father. So I took the responsibility that my sons know the truth. One Saturday morning, I sat with my sons and asked them where did they think they came from, Both replied that they came from the hospitals. I asked them, "Fine. But where did the hospitals get them". " Why, the hospitals manufactured us and then sold us to Mom", they replied with confidence.
I told them that what they believed was not true. Actually they grew in the womb of their Mom as flowers and fruits grew on trees and then the new trees grow from the fruits falling on the ground. The hospitals only separated them physically from Mom so that they can grow as big as I was over a period of time. I thought that they would like this new knowledge. Each son said, " No, I have come from you, Dad, your body and not Mom’s ". It seemed as if they had the right to choose and in fact chosen the particular tree on which they grew. I found that this has got complicated. I called my Love and told her what the boys thought. And, she should in my presence correct their belief by confirming that they were in fact for months growing within her body. She admonished me for getting into this teaching of biology to the kids but was threatened that the sons were getting into my side. So she told the sons what the Truth was. But the sons declared that we were not telling the truth and they could not have come from any body other than that of their father. They were adamant on this.
I would not give up so easily. I wondered how to offer a proof acceptable to the children. Did my sons felt that they resemble me more than their mom? Did I myself resemble my mother or my father? I had to find out an immediate solution to the problem that the sons were not prepared to accept my words as the Truth.
Moreover, I had to know why did they want to be like their father? Much later, I did wonder about this aspect. Did I want to be like my father or could I be like him ever. What was my father? A self-made man, who lost his mother soon after birth, grew on his grand mother’s milk and was again unfortunate to lose his stepmother who gifted him with two stepsisters, had the capacity to become the savior of a joint family of his father and his two uncles. One of his uncles never cared to earn livelihood. His father most reluctantly started earning by supervising government construction jobs in the nineteenth century British-ruled country. It was a difficult task for my grand father, the eldest son of his father, to work for a living, as there was no such tradition in the family. Successive generations lived on the landed wealth gifted by a King to one of the ancestors who was practicing medicine with success. That wealth had got depleted due to extravagant living, dowry for the marriage of the girls, donations and increase in the size of the descendant families. Pieces of property had to be sold from time to time and the income from property dwindled to nil. My grand father would soon leave his earning occupation, having suffered the loss of two successive wives within a short period. He would live a life of a Sannyasi at home.
It was left to his youngest brother and his only son (my Dad) to find out how they could earn to maintain the large joint family with many old men and women and a large number of children. The circumstances led my father to a long struggle and he was quite successful in achieving his mission. He could not continue his education for a Bachelors degree. He had to go far away from home in search of job. Our ancestral family lived in a village called Senhati (meaning where many Sen families lived) located in the district adjacent to Dacca, the capital of what is now called Bangladesh and went to Calcutta, which was Capital of British-ruled India when my father was in the school. Calcutta was probably about 8 hours journey by boat and trains those days. Initially, he had to walk long distances in the city of Calcutta to save money, drink lots of water from the street water taps to delay taking food for purchasing which he did not have enough money. And, he had won his successes. Though he had to marry late at the age of 28 (in his time, men used to get married in their teens), he went to have nine children and provided education to them. He built two two-storied houses near Calcutta Airport, purchased a big mansion in the City, renovated the family property in Senhati, funded the family’s 5 day Durga Puja every year, gave donations and helped poor relatives. He started as an assistant in a British firm in Calcutta for a short while (which also earned him a golden pilot pen as parting gift). He became a farmer with a tract of land given on lease by a British –owner in the difficult-to-access islands in Sunderbans through which a number of rivers finally fall into the Bay of Bengal). He taught at a secondary school in the same islands about 8 to 9-hour journey by train and steamer from Calcutta. Later, he went on to become a trader in tea and owner of tea estates (but lost these gardens ultimately). He owned a commercial office in the heart of Calcutta’s main office area in the nineteen thirties- forties. For sometime he had a roaring textile business and was trading in chemicals and perfumes. He also worked in Govt. supplies department after World War II. For a brief period, he owned a car. He made investments in a new bank’s equity and was a non-executive director of the bank on the strength of his smallholding (though the bank would fail later and he would lose his money). It was remarkable as a process to go through from the birth in a wealthy family as the eldest in his generation, to leaving education early as a pauper and finding avenues to earn income. And, then building wealth with honesty and painstaking struggle, raising a large family, helping poor relatives and finally retiring early after losing much of his wealth following the extremely adverse business conditions during and after World War II and due to cheating by some of his business partners. What a rich process it was to go through by the age of 55 or so! He went on to live another 40 years seeing his family grow.
How much of his capabilities and characteristics did I inherit? Could I have struggled as successfully as he could in the face of all odds and unfavourable circumstances? Clearly, this cannot be tested. I had an entirely different set of circumstances. I went through an altogether different process. Even if I had wished I could not have become like my father. I never thought of becoming like father because that meant hard work. I had elder brothers and sisters to help. When I was born, my father was still comfortable balancing his household budget. I had the natural inclination of becoming lazy. I was therefore to go through a different process. And, similarly my sons were again on a different process, different course. They were not and would not be like their father.
Yet, now at age 2 or 3 they would like to believe they had come out of father’s body. Father tends to be the role model for a son. This wish would go away soon as they proceeded further through their own life processes. But presently, I had to convince them that they had indeed come out of mother’s womb and not father’s body as they had wished. I immediately took them to my Mother. Ma was happy to testify before her ninth and tenth grandchildren (ultimately she had thirteen from six of her children who survived to marry). To my sons’ questions separately on each of her children, she replied in the affirmative that they were born out of her womb. And then the sons further confirmed with her that each of their cousins was given birth by their respective mothers. Indeed that is what is true of anyone they knew.
My sons, the elder one in particular, were very sad at the outcome of their investigations. They reluctantly accepted this universal truth. I guess they probably wondered why then their father remained still relevant to them. We went back to our apartment next doors. The sons admitted to their Mom that they have now accepted the Truth. My Love was so intensely happy. I was so happy with the experiment of driving home a truth to my sons that I did not realize that on this day my kingdom of sons was being taken over by my Love.

The First Kiss: My Unfolding Stochastic Voyage 001

The First Kiss
It was autumn evening. My nephew and her wife came to visit us. My Love (Tapu) arranged snacks and drinks. We were in the midst of an interesting chat and as usual I had another natural loss of control over what I spoke. Our visitors were inquiring as to when our two sons would get married. As usual before my wife could speak, I blurted out " We don’t know. They are in US. It will be great if they manage to attract foreign girls to marry them, send us invitation and we will attend marriage ceremony in US at the son’s cost and bless the brides with the hug and kiss. And…". I sensed that the unconstrained use of my freedom of speech is leading me astray.
My Love would not tolerate my longing to bless daughters in-law when they arrive on the track, be revealed in the presence of the niece in-law, some twenty years younger to us. This was totally unbecoming of a father of two sons in the twenties and a CEO of an all-India corporation.
She admonished me with sarcasm, " Look, this old man still longs to kiss foreign ladies. Shame for this reason, he is not taking any initiative to search out Indian brides for my sons". But my natural propensity to repeat mistakes occurred once more. I said, "My Love, it was only from a foreign lady that I had to accept the first loving kiss of my life". These words of mine had an electrifying impact on the two women in the room. The colour of my Love’s face became pale as her wet eyes penetratingly glanced at my face asking how this man kept the secret from her for the past 28 years. The niece’s face was trying to hide a mischievous smile and her eyes with wonder and pity sharply focussed on her Aunt’s face.
I realized what a great pain I have now inflicted on my Love. She was in total distress. I did keep this secret to myself but I wished that she came to know from my mother. I realised that my Mom, who was no more, left this problem behind. She kept this secret away from her daughter in law while I thought it was better that this secret was shared with my Love by my Mom rather than my venturing to tell her. How could Mom do this to me? After all, she was an experienced lady with nine children. She was married at the age of fourteen to my Dad when he was double her age. I am their eighth child, the only one who was delivered in a hospital. This Lady Duffrin Hospital was among the best hospitals in the city of my birth, Calcutta (in English) or Kalikata / Kolkata (in Bengali) or Kalkatta (in Hindi): the city was around the turn of the century stripped off her different names except the name Kolkata by learned official elite of the state of West Bengal. My mother delivered me while under the care of the then renowned hospital’s doctor. My mother told me that I was really an attractive child at birth. And, the same mother whom I had brought the proud privilege of delivering a child for the first time in a modern hospital (the seven children she gave birth to before my birth and the ninth child after my birth were all at home), kept the secret away from my Love till death.
Taking a breadth in the name of my departed Mother, I revealed the secret in true perspective. I told my wife," Look my Mother should have told you about this incident. I could not have resisted the incident from taking place in any manner. It was immediately after my first bath that this doctor, an European lady welcomed me, I guess, with a caring kiss".
Within seconds colour returned to my Love’s face. She looked at me with her eyes radiating the glow of intense love and visualising the wonderful beginning of an Unfolding Voyage for a voyager originating from her in-laws.