I guess telling you at the very outset that I am a bit of an idealist is kind of like stating the obvious. Adding that I am sentimental, will I suppose amuse you. Everyone I know, knows this about me. But hey I am entitled to think you don’t know, right? As the saying goes, what’s the point of being a fool if you can’t find opportunities to prove it.

Okay, I have a confession to make. While I was growing up into manhood and coming to terms with the fact that I would have to, at some stage, tie the knot with some young girl or the other, I was fantasizing with a difference. Most of my friends and surely most of the ‘boys’ you may know would also fantasize, but then the object of their fantasy was the girl they hoped they would marry. My fantasies however hovered around an image of my father in law. I don’t know why, perhaps some movie influenced me or perhaps it was because both my parents did not have a father in law who I managed to see, I don’t honestly know why…but HE was a definite fantasy. I didn’t dream of how he would look…I wasn’t that bad, but I did dream of how we would be…pally for sure…a man I’d love to have a drink with…a gentleman who could tell a tale and hold his own in any joke darbar…a man who welcomed me into his daughter’s life as a friend…I hope you get the drift. I even used to dream of situations where I’d argue with my wife when she complained that I was spending too much time with my father in law.

Anyway, to cut a long story short…when I finally met my wife to be, her father had already passed on. And in fact I am reminded even today that had he been alive, we would never have been married. Apparently he was too seedha-saadha to have appreciated my peculiar brand of insanity. I was obviously disappointed and if I remember right, I even voiced my disappointment that I was marrying a father-less girl but I don’t think anyone took me seriously…if they heard me at all.

A few days into our marriage however my disappointment found reason to vanish. My wife had a few older gentlemen, friends of their family and her father in particular, who were father figures to her.

The first of these venerable gentlemen that I met was Ramaih Chowdhury Uncle. And what a man he was. He actually spent some time with me and almost made most of my dream come true. But alas, he passed away soon after and I was back where I started. The son-in-law of a fatherless family.

The second of these gentlemen I had the privilege and good fortune to meet was Rama Mohan Rao Uncle. The first time I met him, he addressed me as ‘alludu’ (son-in-law). He was apparently my late father-in-law’s close friend, colleague, confidante and drinking buddy. And he was ever willing to chat me up, sit over a drink and tell me cute stories about my wife’s childhood.

The fact that his wife (who too called me a son-in-law) was my old theatre friend Shankar Melkote’s sister-in-law made the whole setting very pleasant…and when Rama Mohan Uncle and Suguna Aunty became regulars at our Little Theatre readings, I found myself reliving my fantasies…having a drink with this stately old gentleman…cracking a joke or two with him…waiting for him to reassure me that I was doing okay by his ‘girl’…

The years passed…I met Uncle and Aunty often…they worried about my health…they professed their fondness for me…and of course my wife…and while I couldn’t really say that he became my ‘father-in-law’ he did become the closest I could imagine to that label.

A few years back he lost his wife…a wonderful lady, God Bless her Soul…and I could see the man slipping. His health failed him gradually…and today I hear, peacefully and in the morning, he passed away in his sleep.

A chapter has come to an end. One dream has ended. Just a few weeks back I had my last drink with him at Shankar’s house when he had come to celebrate the ‘younger’ Melkote’s 75th Birthday. The last word I spoke to him that night was…cheers!!!

I wish I had thought to say Thank You.