THE SAILOR MAN (Part 1)

(Dedicated to my father Captain. Ajoy K. Chatterjee --29th November 1955 to  16th March 2011)

"Papai" a very unusual + unique way of calling my father has a interesting story behind it. My Mom used to say that my elder brother started to call him Papai as the crew of my father's ship used to ask my elder brother where is PapaJi. The little boy missed the "J" in the word and used to call him Papai. Well, this was the origin of this name according to my mother. My version of calling him Papai was a little different (maybe very different). I used to watch this cartoon "Popeye" who was a sailor man and my father was also a merchant navy officer (a sailor man :) Maybe when I was little I used to think that my father also would become extremely strong as soon as he will consume a can full of spinach but I knew that my father was still the strongest even if he didn't had the can of spinach. The appearance of my father was just like a sailor man with a fair face with a rugged beard all over his face with a tinge of greyness in his hair and eyes like a man who is full of love, happiness, mischief and care.

                         He is not with us but the words which he spoke, the teachings he tried to inculcate in me , the stories of his childhood which he used to share with me , the way he played cricket and table tennis with me , and even went out with me to watch those lousy yet hilarious Akshay kumar movies will never be forgotten.

                I still remember him telling me the story just after my birth that the nurse in the hospital of medical college came out and asked “who is with Anuradha ?” ( Anuradha ke saath kaun hain ?” ) to which my father raised his hand and the nurse in a very authoritative voice instructed my father to get some mustard oil to which my father rushed out to get the same but could not find a shop open at that time so he bought some oil from a street vendor of pakodas and jalebis. My father rushed back and gave the oil to the nurse. After a while the nurse came out with a new born baby and handed him over to my father. My father described that I looked him with twinkling eyes.

                                        So finally I was born and had the privilege to be the son of the two most amazing and loving parents and a brother of the cutest boy I have ever seen who gave me the name Poni J .

                                                        I had the best childhood which a boy could ever dream of as being a baby I had visited nearly half of the world which included Venice, Mauritius, Sri lanka, Italy and many more. Ironically, I don’t even remember that I even went to these places. The only place which I do remember was Singapore where our cute little family had the nicest of times. My father was one of the most organised person, he had had nearly everything under his control wherever we went, it looked as if he could adapt in any place on this planet. I never saw him confused or puzzled as he remained calm every time.

                                                         A sailor man needs to be in his ship for nearly 6 months a year. My father also used to do this. There wasn’t a time that we missed those those 6 months because he used to give us so much love and care which was easily equivalent to 2 years of love, affection and care in just 6 months of his presence.

                      My father used to tell me that he can easily get me into the merchant navy but I never used to like the idea of it because I thought  that I won’t be able to give time  to my family as I knew that I wasn’t as great and amazing as my father was.

            My mother is a English teacher and being a teacher she always took the responsibility of teaching me English and also hindi before my exams but she used to get very irritated when she used to find out I never used to complete my class work and she always used to end up not teaching me as teaching me was a pain in the brain as I was or still am very lazy and lose attention very quickly but my father made sure of making me learn everything which included word meanings, opposites and many more things both in English and hindi.

            I miss him. I miss those days when I used to sit behind him on his bike and we used to have a secret burger in McDonalds without telling anyone at home.

    

 I miss those days when we went to Kanpur in a empty train early in the morning to watch a cricket match and returned back with a jam-packed and that too without a proper ticket and my father requesting the ticket collector with his unique style of talking in such a convincing manner as if he was talking to his long lost friend.

I miss the Sailor man. I wish he was there with me always in fact he IS there with me and is always guiding me and inspiring me. I know he is there, I know his soul keeps a check on me. He wants his baby to do well in life.

            ( I WILL SOON BE BACK WITH A NEW PART TO THIS NOSTALGIC MEMOIR BECAUSE THERE IS MORE TO BE  SHARED)