"Am not Crying"....This was one of my favourite dialogues with dad. I do not know why but to me to be seen weeping by another is a matter of terrible shame. They say I didn't weep when I was born, noiseless I guess to compensate for all the noise that would follow. Still, I hated people sense I am crying or had cried. And the only one who has seen me cry really well is my dad. But he also knew I wanted him to pretend that I never cry. People at home too were used to this quaint need in me. I would not weep before them, I would walk away and then after some time with dad beside me I would handle my grief in my complex style. I would not face him and he too would speak of anything under the sun but never of the tears that fell. When he felt my grief mount into stifled sobs he would stretch a finger and I would grasp it tight and hold it till my grief breathed away. 
I remember that was the finger on which he wore his wedding ring, I would concentrate on the smoothness of the metal, and with every sensory smoothening I would displace my grief. It was a firm hand of character and just holding it would make any grief feel smaller than my fat little toes. The times when he was not around anymore I still heard me reply "am not crying".
I remember that was the finger on which he wore his wedding ring, I would concentrate on the smoothness of the metal, and with every sensory smoothening I would displace my grief. It was a firm hand of character and just holding it would make any grief feel smaller than my fat little toes. The times when he was not around anymore I still heard me reply "am not crying".