The Old Unsung Ride

The Old Unsung Ride

Crowded street markets and the separated tiny hands,

A daughter was lost midst the straining vendors' chants

Mother, when figured later, dismayed she remained in baffle,

Swarms of buyers had already swayed the four-year old in their hassle.

Lord! But the child was fortunate and quite smart,

Who wailed and ran to her "Traffic Uncle" just a road apart

The generous man in uniform carried the teeny to the nearest station,

Bewildered he was to hear such little one provide her contact details in his interrogation.

He rode her on his siren bike and safely dropped her home back,

Full of tears, when her mom came home with her dad, they were stunned to see their daughter cheerfully eating her snacks

The little girl ran to her dad, hugged him and whispered, "Daddy, could you also take me on a ride like in that uncle's bike?"

He sighed with smile, hugged his little pride and nodded, not knowing what to feel like.

It took him some years but my dad kept his promise,

There wasn't a siren motorbike for his princess but our first scooter was still a bliss

I still dwell upon memories of my rides to school in his white scooter, a scooter that wasn't bought new,

Second-handed  it was, yet, he still had its dues.

He was in a reputed profession, a very good teacher,

But savings? Well, that was just another blank chapter

He knew he wasn't some king,

But he never raised me any less than a princess reigning.

Slowly entering through teenage, there were affluent companions and life started seeming superficial,

I started feeling ashamed riding back on that same old vehicle

One day, daddy's young pride said she would wait for her school bus and he need not drop her to school,

He laughed it off but inside, he must have been tearful.

He felt his teenager must have been trying to fit in with the school's upper crust,

He was very proud of my achievements and didn't want me to just adjust

He came home with a different honk one night,

I came running outside and Alas! it was a new ride.

It was then that I realized,

A lot of his own desires that day had been sacrificed.

The wheels might have turned from two to now four,

But it's not about that, the sacrifices a father bears for his child is so obscure

All those materialistic "wants" we present to him as our "needs",

Even if beyond his footing, he still believes them to be just one of his deeds.

"FATHER", a being so subtly cherished or sometimes even dismissed,

Whose share in our lives the world might have rarely noticed.

Every so often, I wonder with these bestowed privileges,

What must have felt to live a life like one who finds joys in his unsung sacrifices.

- Shraddha Acharya 

  >4f