The Last Leaf

Inquirer: The responses have by and large been very kind and appreciative, and as such it has been a pleasure to read them and to respond to them. It is very interesting to read about your personal account of Nehru`s appreciation of the lines from Frost - it is things like this show the human aspect of historical figures. Here is another one: before partition, my father visited mahatama Gandhi in his ashram. Gandhi would take early morning walks, and my father said he still remembers being surprised at how briskly he walked for a man his age.

mannyd: What can I say in return for your ill wishes except wish you a long and happy life, free from whatever it is that is making you so miserable.

Leaves become one with the sky after summer? So is your father alive or did he become one with the sky? I can figure out that he outlived his friends and probably his enemies too. Does it make you feel morbid? If it does, here is wishing you a rapid departure before your friends. Do not take up poetry writing while between jobs yet.

Ansari/Inquirer/Dost Mittar: Thanks all for writing. While this was no doubt written with reference to my father, the comment is more broadly directed to the passing of the generations. I was thinking of the many relations of the older generations, many friends of my parents, who are all gone now. As Inquirer says, we too are ``leaves in the tree`` - sharing our time on earth together. Another 100 years and virtually every one of us will also be gone. And no problems, dostmitterjee - always a pleasure to see you writing on chowk.

Re: # 32
tahmed32: Now I am able to read the responses also. The types of responses that one gets to one`s submittals are a measure ones projection to the group. The quality of response is totally consistent with your projected personality.
Thanks for recounting the four lines from Frost in Nehru`s Office. I had heard about them as his favourites before he died. He was visiting to inaugurate the Winter School for the foreign students run by father at Allahabad University in 1960. When his liking for Frost`s poem was mentioned, he smiled approvingly.

tahmed:
Until I read some comments, I had missed the personal aspect of your poem. Hence my insensitive comments. Sorry!

tauheed:
Please accept my consolation. Because what else can I offer? You had told me a little about your father`s thoughts. May God give him peace.

Yaade raftagaan to tadpayengii, kyaa kare koi.

Let us also not forget our leafy positions and do what we can do for each other.

PS.
From what has passed between us you are luckier than you. You had him more and probably you did more for him than I did for my father.

You know, Tauheed sahab, no matter how much time you spend with your parents, it`s never enough. They are wonderful people, no matter who they are.

Samankhan #26 Glad you liked it. There are certain universal things that almost everyone experiences, and I think one of them is the realization that comes at some point in our life that our parents wont live for ever. That is the time to start taking time off to call them, or write to them, or (best of all) visit them and spend some quality time with them without being distracted by one`s own friends and preoccupations. Parents in their old age value such attention from their children, who also benefit. Thus, while I have wonderful memories of my late father and of many other fine people from his generation, I also have an inner peace and satisfaction knowing that I did not take his presence for granted and spent time with him. As a result, memories of their lives on earth, of the things they said or did, are now a source of joy and no longer of sadness.

I wish your father many happy, healthy years ahead.

rozaiba #22 Thanks for the comments. I see this passing of the generations to be sad and uplifting at the same time, and as such your comments reflect almost exactly what I felt when reflecting on how people of my father`s generation are now alomost all gone.

dost mittar #24 I think the economist in you also caused you to economise on the seasons and cut out summer from your post - the time between spring and fall when a given generation is in its prime (even Ottawa must have some kind of a summer I would think). :-)

Shehlah #25 Thanks for your appreciation. I had these images stuck in my head for a few months now, ever since I saw this one leaf on a tree and started relating it to my late father who outlived many of his lifelong friends and indeed that entire generation that has almost faded away by now. So, it was nice to be able to put them in writing and share them with my chowk friends.

Very beautiful and poignant indeed,Tauheed sb.
The second stanza is so true...
When my qalu passed away, my father just shook his head and said, `sab sath chor ja rahe hain`.
I fear he would be the next........
He knows it too and says so ruefully `I won`t be there for Mimi`s (my daughter) marriage......` Or, `How long for her marriage?`
Sigh........

Wow! Old school feel and charm, yet so fresh! Very Frost. Very Brilliant!

tahmed32:

Arre yaar, baat ye hai ke aaj bahaar ki shuroo-aat hai. When I look outside my window, I am eagerly awaiting for the first leave to show up on my maple tree. On the other hand (always the economist!), this is Ottawa; if spring is here, can fall be far behind?

Good slightly depressing slightly uplifting poem.

Good slightly depressing slightly uplifting poem.

shahid #15 Thanks.

delhiwala: #16 I havent been to NH in a long time, but visit it once courtesy of a fellow student at the UofM (that we were chatting about on unplugged) who was from NH and invited me over to her farm there over holidays. She also happened to be distantly related to Robert Frost, and according to her, the standard joke among people in that area was that while Frost may have been a great poet, he was a lousy farmer. :-)

btw, you are probably aware that their state landmark (the rock formation known as the Old Man of the Mountain) crumbled and disappeared in 2003 - another testament to how even the mountains themselves that seem timeless to us are here for a brief period only.