Dear papa,

The year is coming to an end. In a few days it will be a year since you are gone. It has been that long already. You are gone and life around me has picked itself up and moved on. It would seem I have done the same. Have I? Moved on? From you? I hope not. I have this pain that still connects me with you and its mine for you. I have not reached a place where I can think of you without pain of this loss. I am not sure if such a place exists. I am not sure if it does I can get there, or if I want to.

I wish there was more time for me with you. I don't know who I was being strong for? Last few months together that we spent we ended up being so argumentative. I was on some quest to help you lead a more meaningful life. Because that is what we expected of you. I don't know if you knew this. Or if you felt this was how it was going to be. I wish I had the courage to tell you how much I loved you, how much I still do and how much I will always love you. You will always be my hero and I will always be proud of you. For all the times when I wanted you to be better and told you so, there have been many other numerous times when you have filled my heart with joy and pride just by being you. Life is too short to get people to conform into our expectations of them. Life is too short to not love each other for who we are. Life proved to be too short for me to love you and for you to know that I love you. I hope and wish that Mehr gets to know you. I don't know how but I wish she does. I wish she gets one person in her life that you have been for me. If it is me then I will be thankful to god for giving me this opportunity to pass it on.

Merry Christmas papa. Do you have Christmas parties there too? and does Santa come on a fire engine or a Jonga or any other fauji piece of originality? We have finally put up a tree thanks to Mehr. Would you come along and pay us a visit? Is it too painful and a logistical nightmare for you and the bureaucracy up there to arrange it? Is that why death is so final? Because people have not yet figured out how to work around the red tape that saparates life from death?

Love
Shruti

Dear papa,

I was watching tanishq adds one after the other and it made me think of you somehow. Not that we have shopped from there a lot or anything like it. Its possibly because those adverts are made to make one feel cherished and that's how I felt with you- cherished. You were not a king but I was definitely your princess. I miss that and I miss you. I hope you are well and you can see things that we do. I hope you are watching over us, all of us. I wish you were here. I hope you know how much I love you. I need your strength tomorrow and I will be drawing from it.

Love
me

Dear Papa,

I am beginning to find new things about what I can do with my life. It is almost like an adventure. I choose to look at it like that. Everything will get better and I will be better equipped to create myself the way I wish to be. The way you taught us to want to be.

With love and more
Shruti

Dear papa,

I sometimes wonder, did you know that Bhumi and Mehr were coming to see you too. Mehr could not come because she did not have a VISA and Bhumi had to stay back with her. Would you have waited had you known? Would you have waited if I had not come when I did? Would you have waited for me? Were you waiting for me? I miss you papa. Everytime when I want your hand on my head. Everytime the world crushes me or tries to. Everytime there is a joy and bubble, everytime there is knotted yarn to untangle. everytime my hands are too cold, everytime my feet are too cold. Everytime I look at anything that we have talked about. Everytime I see something new that I want to share with you.

I will always love you papa. Always. I hope and wish that you are happy where you are. I promise I will take care of mummy and didya and didi and all that is ours.
Don't miss me too much. but do miss me a little. Everytime I get hiccups I would know that you are thinking of me.

Dear papa,

There is so much in my life that I could have used your advice on. I wish I could talk it over with you. Its not like you would have known what to do but at least you would have been here. Sometimes that is all the strength I have needed. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. I am seeking your blessings. Please help me become a better worker, a better leader, a better follower, a better professional, a better mother, life-partner, a better human.
I hope you are fine. I hope you do look up on me sometimes. I look up to you all the time in my head, in my memories, in my heart. You are always a part of me. You probably have no idea how much I have loved you and still do. May be you do. Help me be strong and do the right thing. I need your love, your faith and your blessings. I need to feel your hand on my head, to smooth away all my worry lines that are etched inside not out.

Love, love and more love
Chuti-muti

Dear papa,

Today was a low in many ways. I am so sorry for the way we have been living in a bubble. How could we think that we do not need to face this reality called life. Why is it that nobody cares and nobody mentors me? Do we seem this self sufficient? Do we seem this crazy?
Do we want something better? how can we get something better? Papa please give me the strength and the wisdom to choose the right path and do the right thing. Help me get better in life as a person and as a professional. I miss you.
Love
me

Dear papa,

Today I wrote to Kullu Uncle. He has always been part of my life but through you. It was bitter sweet to write to him directly. I think the only reason I wrote to him is that I can no longer connect with him through you. Why did you go away papa?
I never got a chance to do anything for you, or for anyone else. Now I can not do anything either now that you are so far away. You no longer need the electric blanket. I wanted to be able to arrange a vacation for you and mummy. A big and relaxing vacation.Now you have gone on one all on your own. I hope you are doing well and enjoying yourself. Free from any pain any worry. We all miss you a lot. I have your pictures and your letters till we meet next.
I will always love you papa. Always.

Your Chuti-muti

6-7-13

I miss you papa. It will be six months since I saw you last. Even then it was hardly any talk, I was talking trying valiantly to be strong, and it was not goodbye. It is not good bye. I and here and still love you. Mummy and me were talking about that time, we have seemed to have lost such a lot of time to not have found out what you may have been thinking. What can I do for you? Can I do anything for you? Would you let me know even now if I could?

Please do.

:)

Dear papa,

Guess what it did not have to come to blows at all. Must be your magic. Thank you for being with me always. I love you and will always love you.

You know something, Mehr has fingers just like you and she likes to walk just like you with both hands folded in the back. She is also just the right kind of naughty, I wish you could have seen her now, I think you would have loved her even more. A lot of things that we spoke about I slowly understand in hindsight, Its a good thing I had stored those for later in life in the corners of my brain. They tend t o resurface like old hankies from old forgotten yester-winter coats :)

More later, I am still at work. Lots of love from who else??

Hold my hand

Dear  papa,

I am going to go in for a very important negotiation about my project, probably the most important one. Please give me your blessings. Please do not let me, let myself down. Please help me keep my cool and emotions under my control. This is not going to be easy, it will be tough and difficult all the way through but one thing at a time. I hope you are going to be there holding my hand every step of the way and giving me strength just as you have all these years.

Love you papa and miss you too.
Chuti-muti

Dear papa,

I want to see you one more time. Talk to you one more time. Hug you one more time. Just one more time.
I miss you papa.

Chuti-muti

You know papa, things that I most hate about growing up is the scarcity of people that you can look upto. Coming from me and my perspective as you know how high that is; is extremely disheartening to say the least. I wish there was something that I could do to make things different for myself. Its not that I do not want to respect and trust but both these things need to be earned and most around me are not interested in doing that sort of a thing anymore. You remember how I once said that you did not bring us up to be of this world?? These are one of those times when I would reinstate that.

Anyway I got to be in this world for now and I am still thinking how to go about this whole thing. Should I succumb to the darker basal feelings about getting even with peole? Should I delegate it to god to get even with the perpetrators or what? I would have loved to run these thoughts by you, pata hai? Now you are so far away and I still haven't figured out how to get through to you. But hopefully I will figure something out.

I love you and miss you still.
Love
Chuti-muti

Dear papa,

Why do people always run you down. No matter how congenial you want to be, they run you down. Why do people feel good only when they run other people down. Without acknowledging your effort? your work? It is not what you feel, It is what they make you feel. Why should you let anyone make you feel bad? I am sure I will come back to this thing as means of just looking and rehatching my choices as an individual that I have made. That I continue to make but there is no such thing as Karma. There is no reward for being goo d in this world. It is just your choice. And more often than not you have to pay for it. Heavily.

Baaki I will save up for later. Love you and MIss you too.

There are times when you are looking for a release. There are times when I want to just cry, look at old photos and read old letters. Cry my heart out. Cry my eyes out. Loosen the knot in my chest that physically hurts. Sometimes it just so happens that I have suppressed this for so long, the tears don't come.
But lately the tears come, I cry and think that there may not be any more left. But there is still no release the knot stays, and it still hurts. A lot.

Its like love, the pain is never ending too.

I will love you always.

Dear Papa,

You told me that let your work speak for yourself. Work with your conviction and give it your best. Dedication and sincerity are important and so is commitment. Team work, support people in your team. All that is really not turning out to be true in and around me.

Sincerity and  dedication do not matter. Brilliance even at the cost of your team is important. Bottom line is important. Fair play is over rated. Throw people under the bus if it lets you get on it.

This is a different world papa, than the one you brought me up to live in. I am feeling a bit lost. Will you be around to help me? I really need you papa. I miss you so much. I will keep a look out, in my dreams may be?

Love you a lot. Miss you.

The people that bring out my weirdness are the ones I hug the hardest.
I read it somewhere recently. It made me think of you.
Here is one hug going out especially for you. Hope you are out there and you get it.
I miss you a lot papa and I will always love you.

When does the pain begin to be bearable? When is the missing less acute and painful? When do you stop beating yourself mentally for all the fights you picked up or smart retorts you gave to your dad? When do you learn to talk about him in the past tense?

I know it takes time, I have been told so. But how much time is time enough?

Dear papa,

Its been a long time since I heard from you. No calls, no emails absolutely no communication from your side. There used to be a time when almost telepathically you would call when I felt out of sorts. You knew why I was upset even when I could not explain it to myself.

I have been more than out of sorts a lot lately. Could you not feel it? Dont they let you call or write? Well anyway, I hope you are happy and doing well. I miss you a lot. Your voice, your laughter, which had become a bit rare these last few months.

Do take care of yourself. Come and see me when you get a chance, I have been sleeping a lot lately. We could catch up in my dreams. Some say it may be because I am sad, that I am sleeping so much, but mostly I am trying to catch you. Hope to see you soon.

Lots of love
Chuti-muti