64. MY DAD'S LAST DAYS AND FINANCIAL DEPRESSION.

My dad retired from his service and resorted to his intellectual pursuit.

I was hardly fifteen then and had not completed my school and likewise all my sisters and brother were younger than I was. My mom was hardly thirty then. The pension offered to my dad was nowhere near adequate. The rent from the shops plus his private practice as medical practitioner somewhat helped us get through.

 Financial depression started as and when we all grew. Time went on and my dad grew old. He led a hermit’s life now, not seeing anyone even within our family. He would be mostly in his room isolated from the outside world praying and meditating what he called the blissful tranquility. Most of the time, he was on bed, mostly.

There was not enough of money coming in now from his medical practice. His pension was scanty and there was much more to spend for.

There was no one from either of our family worth leaning on for support. My father would rather die a lonely death than would come within reach of some for support of any kind. His friends’ visits were rare now. The total burden of running the family rested on my mother’s shoulder now. We resorted to raising loans from the shops given on rent, and the tenants had their own version of accounts, neither dad nor I had access to them.

I remember to have observed my dad raising loans from moneylenders for our daily livelihood in those times of penury-ridden spell. We have heard of Kabuliwalah a character in Rabindranath Tagore’s stories. Jumeirath khan was such a Kabuli walah from whom my dad used to raise loans very often, say for the expanses of Ramadan and Bakrid. The khan was unkind and hard headed man. He was just money minded. My dad could not return the money in time as promised, and this made him horribly angry against my dad. He spoke very harshly to my dad when he was returning from the masjid, one evening.