A Fathers Silent Love

Summer nights are long and humid . It is impossible to sleep without the windows open and the fans whirling at full speed . Yesterday night there was a sudden summer storm .Power cuts follow in wake of summer storms , one of the constants of life in India . It was long past twelve , and he knew his daughter would be asleep . She was home for her holidays , and would be gone in a few weeks .
As was his practise he went to her room to check up on her . Silently, he closed the windows . She slept with the lights on . He knew darkness scared her sometimes . He brought a candle , lit it and placed it on her table , in case she woke up .

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I was watching " Monsoon Wedding " yesterday . There was a scene where Naseruddin Shah looks at his children , then turns to his wife , and says " Sometimes i feel a love so strong for them that i almost cant bear it "

I am sure all of us have felt that deep love for some people , thats so pure , that it scares us .

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Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?