My fallen hero

My grandfather was a quiet man. He had always found it difficult to express himself, and sometimes we had to find out from his expressions to know exactly what he was thinking, and even that was a vague guess. He was an extremely active person who loved to go on long walks, visit temples and read the Gita. As a kid, I remember how much I used to miss my grandpa when he went away on his long trips. He was an engineer, and used to spend a great deal of time away from us, in construction sites. While he was always kind and gentle to me and my sister, he was a strict disciplinarian to my father and his brothers. So much so, that his children had never been close to their own father. My father and his brothers were banned from playing cricket, cards, watching movies, having too many friends, traveling out of the station, and even staying in another friend or relative’s place. Money was a big issue back then, it was actually a wonder how my grandpa had raised four sons and provided for his wife as well. My grandpa had effectively; put deep fear into his sons’ minds without having to lift a finger. My father used to tell me, how grandpa never used to hit them or even raise his voice, he was always quite, and since he rarely spoke, every single word from his mouth was listened to with keen intent.

However, to me he was a silent and tender man, who used to always feed me the choicest items off his plate, had the largest collection of reader’s digest that I have ever seen, a dozen files of the worlds most amazing bridges, and a huge variety of coins and stamps. To me and my sister, he was a darling. While he never really let us get too close to him, he was always gentle and even tempered with us. Soon it was time for me to move away, as me and my sister were sent off to boarding school. There were no kisses and hugs when we parted, just a dignified goodbye, since my grandpa didn’t like us to make a fuss over him. No matter how much I wanted to kiss him and give him a tight hug, my father warned me against doing so.

An entire year passed, and we got the news that our grandpa had passed away. We came back to our house, and found everyone to be either teary eyed or in a grumpy mood. While we were sitting and mourning our losses, our uncle came and began to separate all his collections, or “junk” as he called the number of books and papers. As I began to sift through them, I came across a file market PRIVATE in bold red, and curiosity getting the better of me, I opened it anyway. I saw quite a few papers there, one was a letter, that spoke of him rescuing a laborer in a construction site and there was another of him taking up almost three jobs simultaneously to support his family. There was a letter from an old lady, who was thanking him for returning a piece of her jewelry that she had missed on a train. Even though it was obvious my grandpa had been poor, he had been a dignified and honorable man. All these small details had shocked my dad, my uncles and even my grandma. They knew him for the strict and grumpy old man he was, but nobody had thought how deep still waters actually run. My grandpa had supported and devoted his life completely to his family. As they all wondered, why they never knew about all this, I knew my grandpa; he loved us and showed it through his actions, and not through words. As I mentioned in the beginning, my grandfather was a silent man…