On this day in Mumbai my father died. He was eighty-one, his last birthday being on May 17th 2011. The only birthday of his he ever had at which I was present.
When I was ten years old he stopped paying all alimony to my mother and after a year long battle agreed to pay for my schooling but refused to give my mother any money. Within three years we were homeless and because the heartache and stress of putting a roof over our heads and the inability to find work that paid anything my mother’s health broke when I was twenty. At no time in my life did my father ever visit me, ever send me a birthday card or a birthday present. The first time I visited him in Mumbai when I was fourteen was at the instigation of my teachers.
He disinherited me by letter in argument we had over his appalling fatherhood when I was nineteen.
When he held my hand at the age of eighty one unable to speak because of a brain disease but still aware I was there he kissed my fingers, repeatedly. My only feeling was one of unutterable sadness. Sadness that I felt no love for him sadness that he was incapable of showing any love for me until it was too late.
His remains were cremated. We shall never see each other again.