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I look at the man lying crumbled on the floor. He was surrounded by his family, yet he gestured to me. He had chosen the same death he had gifted my father. In his last moments, he lifted his hands just like my father had.
I never thought I'd do this for KK Reddy . I would be the last person to hold on to the hand he extended...but life moves you in ways you can never imagine. There I was, beside him...taking his hand...an act that was left incomplete with my father...hearing words that had died with him.
Now I know. There is great power in forgiveness. Had I not moved, I would have missed this moment. I had changed in the months after my father left. This would be him. Also Anushka, who was the legacy my father left in the form of his values and ideals. I had changed so much...for my own good.
My father had raised his hand too, with words choking in his throat. Today , another hand was extended to me. It was never an apology I wanted from KK. No amount of apology in any form would compensate for the crime he had done. This was not so. Nor was it a plea. It was a statement...that was like a blessing...that sounded like my father was speaking to me.
Yes, he was speaking to me. Not as a ghost or a dream. He was right there in the words he had spoken to his best friend. And who could reconcile me to the differences I had with my father than his best friend himself?!
Had I disappointed my father all through his life? I had tried to justify myself until I learned the man was with no blemish. I had misjudged, misunderstood my father so many times...How much I had disappointed him as a son!
He was plucked away, just like that. Before I could understand him...or make him understand me...make him be proud of me. That would always remain a void in my life.
When KK Reddy breathed his last, it is this void that he filled. He drew me one step closer to my father...gave me those last words I had surrendered long back. He poured out my father's love, his confidence in me. The words that would heal me... My father's judgement of the person I was...long before I had even proved myself.
That was the moment I accepted a friendship - so tragic, yet so unique. This man's dying thoughts were of my father. His last deed was to pass on a message from the best friend he had wronged. There was true repentance there, though it was not expressed in so many words.
So I got up...walked towards the souvenir of a friendship that had gone awfully wrong. This was a part of my father. No matter what, KK Reddy was an integral part of my father's life and vice versa when he hung on to his memories in his dying moments...
This wouldn't be painful anymore. Our fathers' friendship would still be something for me and Anushka to celebrate silently in our hearts...
It was also the tale of my father's victory. This is how a dead man won a bet.
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