Father, My Dear Father ( today's alphabet 'F')

I would like to share a funny incident regarding my dear father and my mother.

 Many years ago when my father was posted in Assam, he learnt to ride a scooter, and bought one too. He always loves riding his scooter, and we often tease him that even for his daily walks he uses his scooter……He literally walks in his scooter.

    So having bought the new scooter he offered to take my mother for a ride in it. My mother was all game for it, despite knowing he was a learner only. They set out, my mother  being very careful in tucking her saree very correctly, so that her saree pallu doesn’t get caught while riding, and cause an accident. Everything was going fine for about 10 minutes, when at some point my father had to stop at the signal. Since it was going to be a long wait he switched off the engine, and was waiting for the signal to change.

  In the meantime, my mother being the very naive and concerned wife,  thought she should get down from the scooter and just wait till the signal changes. Her thoughts being very noble in the sense, she felt it would help lighten the weight for my father who was still new to scooter riding.

 So very dutifully like typical Indian wife she got down from the scooter, waiting for the call from her master and lord to ask her to sit when he was ready. My father was not aware that she had got down at all. As soon as the signal changed, he gave one kick to start and amazingly in  one single kick itself the scooter started, and he flew away at high speed leaving  my mother behind looking like a fool.

After covering  quite a distance, my father started talking to my mother asking whether she would like to visit a friend who happened to live close by.  He kept on talking, not realizing that mother was not  there at all. He also noticed people were looking at him strangely, (people obviously were thinking he was some mad man riding a scooter at top speed and talking to himself).

Since he was not getting any response from the back,  he got worried and just took a peak at the back only to see the back seat empty. He was shocked ..... where was his wife, did she roll off somewhere. He made a quick u- turn, and started going back the way he came, looking all along for some rolled off item that looked like my mother.

 In the mean time my mother who had been so ruthlessly left behind in the middle of the road was really embarrassed, some people who had watched the incident couldn’t help giggling at her plight, and some people were really concerned and came to help her out of the moving traffic. She felt really embarrassed and immediately hailed a Cycle-rickshaw  to take her back home. The problem was she did not even carry her purse with her, thinking there was no need as she was with father.

  But never-the less she thought that taking a rickshaw made more sense than standing there attracting more attention to herself, and she can always pay after she reaches home. So with tears barely waiting to pop out from her beautiful eyes, she left in the first available rickshaw.

 My father came searching for her, and was passing by the same signal, when he was stopped by the traffic police. My father stopped worried wondering .....  now where had he goofed up, he had already lost his wife now what??

 The police man started laughing, and told my father that his wife had left in a rickshaw, and advised him to go home quickly and pacify her. My father was relieved to know that nothing had happened to his wife, but her reaction really worried him.

But as usual after the initial anger my mother forgave him, when she realised it was not his mistake. The moral of the story: she remembered to carry her purse with her always when she went out him, and also to never get down from the scooter till she reached the destination.

 Though my mother is no more we keep remembering the many weird adventures she has had with my dad whenever they travelled together in the scooter. Now, my father still rides a moped at the age of 90. It never fails to  amaze us how young and healthy and outgoing my father is even at this age. He has never lost the jest for life.  The positive attitude of my father is very contagious, and I am happy I have caught that disease from him.