ಮನಕ್ಕೆ ನೆನಹಾಗಿ...

This is a near verbatim transliteration of a letter written to me by my father. But why am I posting the contents of a letter? That too a personal letter. Hmmm... probably because this is the first time my father has written to me in this manner. For me, it has also become one of those pieces of writings which have aroused, at once, a multitude of dormant feelings in me. Those feelings have gathered round me and continue to dance in resonance.

Here's the letter -

I am sending you a DD worth Rs. 8200 as you had asked me to. Though Nikshep would be coming there I sent it through courier lest it gets delayed.
You did not seem to be in a tranquil disposition when you had come here and even when I had come to Bangalore. Find out the reason for that and see to it that you are in a serene and cathartic disposition.
No uncertainty can haunt you when you are doing a thing that your conscience approves of. This is because only the conscience can percieve right and wrong.
The reason to write in this manner is that your disturbed state would drag us there too and render us to a state of helplessness in which we worry unnecessarily, from this distance.
This year is a very important one. So far we have never worried, in any way, about your studies and behaviour. We consider ourselves truly lucky in this regard. We also feel proud (about you) when we see the outside world, or for that matter, the other guys in the (extended) family.
Well... then about money.. I have never felt that it is a thing I need to value much about. Ask me whenever you need money.
By the way, Gulbarga University is organising Late Jayateerthachar Rajpurohit Memorial short story competition. I am sending one of your short stories. A copy of that must be lying around somewhere. I'll ask Nikshep to find it out and make a copy, and will send it. I'll be talking to you later. Inform me in well advance about your next semester fees. My blessings to all your friends.

Despite the range of feelings that started wandering, one feeling was powerful and I could easily recognise it. I liked the tone of my father in the letter... specially when he says '...find out the reason for that and see to it....'. Not once did he ask me the reason for my visible bad temper and disturbed disposition, neither in the letter nor when I was with him. That one statement itself has so much of depth and coverage embedded, in terms of his feelings towards me.
During the course of reading this letter, I recollected a line from a novel I read recently, Marquez's 'Love in the Time of Cholera'. It goes like this - "Come with me, my boy," he said. "You and I have to talk for five minutes, man to man". It came to my mind at once although that statement is setup in an entirely different context and has no relevance to what I am talking about.
Well...in any case... I can only describe this letter from my father to me as something that is absolutely man to man ...