UBC 1 - A Precious Possession

  

As if I have nothing better to do, I joined up on the Ultimate Blog Challenge

But as I have been neglecting my blog a little, I thought a challenge might just get the inspiration going again.

So here is post 1 - A Precious Possession (Sandra's Writing Workshop Hop #3)

One of my late father's interests was collecting quotes, poems and famous prose. I love collecting these too.

Over the years he collected a myriad of these all meticulously noted by hand in simple A4 size ruled notebooks. Each quote was neatly scribed, a line left between each one and the author of the quote added as a suffix to each. Where no author could be found an "Unknown" was added instead.

His writing was neat and even, actually very pleasant to look at and easy to read. He always wrote with a blue ball-point pen. His writing was neither heavy nor very light, the pressure he exerted on the page with pen just seemed right.

We often sat together and looked through his notebooks some we could recite without looking. Some were profound and some were funny. My dad had a great sense of humour and we had a few hearty chuckles together.

Our favourite poem and one we often recited together was written by one of India's greatest poets Rabindranath Tagore on the eve of India's Independence (15 August 1947)

          Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
          Where knowledge is free
          Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
          By narrow domestic walls
          Where words come out from the depths of truth
          Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
          Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
          Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
          Where the mind is led forward by Thee
          Into ever widening thought and action
          Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

I remember the day he wrote this in his book as I recited the poem to him. We were sitting together at the dining table enjoying a mid morning cup of tea together. He had a smile on his face as he recalled personal snippets of the Quit India movement, the excitement on the day of freedom and he marvelled at the poet's ability to write such a deep and meaningful poem. My dad was a sportsman and creative writing was not one of his strengths.

When he passed away on the 29th of March 2010, each family member took an item belonging to him as a cherished reminder of a wonderful husband, father and grandfather.

I took his notebooks. These are my prized and precious possessions, a reminder of all those beautiful moments when I watched him write and when we sat together and shared a quote or two.


Warm Regards