So long, Thatha

The Thatha who lives across our apartment has passed away. I think it happened while we were not here but I noticed a small crowd in his modest balcony the other day. While he was alive, we had never noticed visitors..It was just Thatha and his wife. Thatha would sit out on the balcony reading the papers early at dawn and later on the evenings he would be there looking out into the open road and enjoying the breeze from the nearby sea. Ofcourse we don't claim to know him, my daughter and I , but we watched out for him with an abstract affection you feel sometimes for someone you see but don't know..It's a little like watching a movie and growing to like/emphathise with a character. Thatha would've been in his late eighties by the looks of it. He seemed a gentle, amiable soul watching the world passing by. My little girl had her own script for him everyday. "Look at poor Thatha, Paati has given him a restraining order today. She has locked that grill door to the balcony and he is prisoner, look, he 's behind the bars!!! " she would say. "Thatha is out early today and it's not even a working day!" I would have to remind her that for Thatha everyday was a holiday now. Whatever it was, we liked that comfort of Thatha across in the opposite apartment. He kept us company , albeit unknowingly on lazy summer evenings as we watched the stars rise in the skies. We miss him now, our Thatha. My daughter does not want to believe he is actually gone. 'Check the papers, I haven't seen any obits ' she tells me. I don't check, because he must have passed away before we got back.And I don't want to go through back issues for a fact I already know. "Maybe he has gone on a trip , to vist his children perhaps'' she says wistfully. But then what are all those people doing in his house and those homams that's going on?
A week has gone by now , the crowds have disappeared .Yesterday I saw the Paati come out onto the balcony in the morning. She sat there for a while in Thatha's usual place. She didn't read the newspaper ,instead stared vacantly down the road. I could feel a large lump rising in my throat. If Rudraa was awake she would have said to me" Mama, see Paati looking out for Thatha , he has gone out to buy the milk..".I haven't told her yet. Let her believe her Thatha has gone to visit his kids.Where ever you are Thatha, we miss you...god bless....