IDHAR UDHAR KI BAAT 134- ALL HAVE GONE. Brig PS Gothra (Retd)

“Saare hi chale gaye…” (“All of them are gone now”), my father-in-law, well into his ninties, would say almost every time we sat together for a drink. And every time he said it, I would wonder—How does a man feel when he outlives almost everyone he once loved? Like the winner of life’s race? Or like a forgotten straggler left behind after the crowd has disappeared?

One evening, perhaps sensing my thoughts, he smiled faintly and said, “You know… at this age, I feel like that one cup, saucer, or glass tumbler left behind after the rest of the crockery set has broken.”

He paused and took a sip. “People cannot throw it away… but among the new crockery, it becomes an eye sore.”
I laughed softly. But the truth inside that metaphor stayed with me.

I was never his ideal drinking companion. He liked lively company. Loud laughter. Long evenings. Stories flowing with whisky. Perhaps too much of it in his younger days. In fact, I suspect he had spent so many evenings outside the home during his prime that his children never truly developed a deep emotional bond with him. But he belonged to that old-school generation of men who believed- “A father’s duty is to provide. If he has done that, he has done enough.”

Emotion was not their language. Responsibility was. Still, over time, he began liking me. Initially only because I ensured that his next drink was poured on time. He appreciated discipline.

But he hated one thing about me. I never took more than one peg. And every evening he would begin the same rhetoric: “Ek peg te dushman naal pinde ne!” (You take single peg with the enemy!)

When I still refused, he would shake his head dramatically. “Ajj kal de bande jananiyan de thalle lage ne… (Men these days live under their wives’ thumbs.)”

There was, however, one habit of his that embarrassed me slightly. His habit of introducing me to his acquaintances primarily to tell them that his son-in-law is a Brigadier. And I could see the surprise on the faces of those people to convey- “Lagda te nahin hai. (He doesn’t look like a Brigadier.)”

But he loved the way I cooked snacks for his drink. Pakoras were his all time favourite and no snack platter was complete without mirchi pakoras. He would bite into them carefully despite trembling hands, his eyes watering from the spice… yet refusing to stop eating.

And then there was the soup I made. Hot, peppery, slightly over-buttered—exactly the way old faujis like it.

But his real happiness lay elsewhere. The Officers’ Mess bar. Whenever he visited me, he always carried a lounge suit and tie. No matter how weak he became, he insisted on dressing properly for the bar. And once there— he would insist on sitting on the high bar stool. It terrified me. At that age, even a small fall could become fatal. But the child inside him refused to surrender. So while he enjoyed his drink and observed the room like an old officer surveying a battlefield… I remained constantly alert—ready to catch him if he slipped.

Being an old Army officer, his breakfast choices never changed. A runny fried egg and a single toast which I prepared exactly the way he liked. And with shaky hands he would struggle to eat it with fork and knife—still clinging to old-world dignity.

One morning he said, “I exercise for an hour every day. I don’t want to become a burden on anyone.”

I said nothing. Because both of us knew— if he ever became bedridden, the responsibility would fall upon me. His son—my brother-in-law—had died during COVID. And I could never walk away from that responsibility. Not after my wife had spent more than two years looking after my own bedridden mother. Some debts are never spoken about. They are simply repaid quietly.

By the third peg, his stories would begin drifting into the past. First came memories of my mother-in-law. Then stories of childhood opulence—how his grandmother had somehow created dignity and abundance from the modest salary of his Army grandfather. And eventually… Partition. That wound never fully leaves Punjabis of that generation.

One evening he confessed something quietly. While fleeing from Gujranwala during Partition, his family had nothing left. Hungry. Exhausted. Uprooted. At the age of thirteen, he had looted a goat and a currency note from Muslim kaafila moving towards Pakistan. He fell silent after saying it. Not proudly. Not apologetically. Just… heavily. As if history itself had briefly sat down beside us for a drink.

And then, this February, his wish came true. He died before becoming dependent. He had walked into the hospital on his own feet. And never walked out again.

I cannot honestly say that I loved him. But I miss him. His stories. His complaints. His old-world pride. His musings after the third peg.

And perhaps, in the end, he taught me two painful truths about life. A parent should never outlive his child. And a man should not live too long after losing his wife. Because beyond a point…survival itself becomes a quiet form of loneliness.

Jai Hind.