Film educator and daughter Rabiya Nazki pens emotional note on her father Farooq Nazki

Rabiya Nazki

Srinagar, February 9: Ours was not a typically doting father daughter relationship, it was more of a male and female chandler Bing from the “Friends” kind of an equation! Abundant sarcasm, piercing taunts, beautiful comic timing and roaring laughter.

I used to hurt him at times and he would be equally unforgiving in dishing out enough to set me right.
Before being my father, I generally saw him as an encyclopaedia of knowledge, wisdom literature and poetry. The poet part of him was my absolute favourite. Within all these layers there was deep love and appreciation for who he was. I owed him to bits! but probably didn’t express it enough in words. I think the angst in my younger days majorly came from the fact that I was not able to spend time with him as a toddler and cherish the moments with a great father like him. But eventually things changed when I had my own child, and as everyone else I could be more understanding of the parental perspective. And then his nurturing and nourishing my son Qismat like an exotic plant, made me see the beauty of my father more clearly. Today like me, Farooq Nazki runs in every cell of my son’s body, reflects in his thought process and the compassion he shares for others. And that gives me pure joy and a sense of pride. They have their own stories, their own secrets and a relationship like nobody’s business. When ever daddy used to start his telephonic conversation with my son Qismat, he would say ‘ Hum par Qismat ki Maharbani hai, Jane Farooq aap kaise hain’ and then it was their world that was so exclusive.
In the last week of his life when I was in the hospital with daddy, he had this baby-like look on his face. It was so adorable and massively huggable. Without wasting any time I generously kept hugging him, kissing him and holding on tight to him. The kind of happiness and relief that it gave me is unexplainable, but right now I would give anything to hold his hand again and give him a hug.
Today sitting in his bed, trying to hide from the fact that he is not going to be around anymore, I experience a sadness that I have never felt before, a vacuum so overwhelming and a strange sense of not belonging anywhere. I feel like a child who cannot find his way back home. Losing a parent at any stage in life is hard, how hard? I know it now