As I inch towards thirty-one, I realise I am all biology. My health, anger, laughter and crooked index finger are all thanks to my mother. I am sure I am my father too. But I just don’t know him enough to say how.

For most of my childhood, my dad ran a Udupi (restaurant) in Mumbai. My dad’s day looked different from most people. He went to the restaurant early in the morning and then returned at 3 pm for a late lunch and a nap. After a second shower and a second round of prayers, he went back to the restaurant at 6 pm, returning after closing the restaurant at midnight. My dad had this schedule for most days, including weekends and holidays. When everyone else was on a break, my dad had to work. We never went on holiday as a family. My dad was always working.

My dad was present when he was around. Every morning, when my mother and I fought about why I had not ironed my school uniform the previous night, he would offer to do it while I had breakfast. When my mom was feeling too tired to cook, we would call our dad on the hotel landline and place our orders for dinner. On such days, he would come home early and we would eat together. He would call home on the days of my results, console me or congratulate me depending on how I had fared. He was always kind. But we were not friends.

My relationship with my dad was polite at its best and fraught at its worst. When I turned 16, I also turned mean and had biting criticism for everything my parents could do. For the things they said, for the things they didn’t do, for not having enough money, for having too many rules. I knew my mother's stories. Every day after school, my mother and I would chat over lunch, over tea, over arguments. So I could empathise with her. But never with my father. We barely spoke. He was always trying to fix everything. Never asking for help, never explaining anything, convinced that he could do it alone. I grew up never understanding him or his reasons.

Once I emerged from the righteousness of my early twenties and had worked for a few years, I felt guilty. I now knew how hard making a living was, especially for someone like him. My dad left home as a 10-year-old to earn a living for his family. Starting out as a child cleaning tables to eventually owning a restaurant of his own. By the time my father stopped working in 2018 on our request, he had been working for 57 years.