As a child I thought my father was stuck permanently in his armchair. Scurrying between school and play, I always saw him there, snug as a bean in its pod, overseeing labourers at work in the coconut grove and banana orchard. On occasions when I stealthily walked across the portico, his voice boomed from behind the newspaper, catching me mid step, like a deer caught in headlight. While he queried, his face still hidden, I mumbled, my eyes fixed on his crisp white mundu resting on his wide toed, jagged feet.

      Long after we got our TV, father’s position didn’t change. Only during the news hour, he adjusted his armchair noisily to update himself on the day’s events. That done, he commented incoherently, dragged himself back to his favourite spot and got back to reading. 
     
      Everything else though, had changed. Surrounding acres of ancestral land had closed in. Our house had winged outwards. The inside gleamed with smart modern machines and showcases bulged from the walls. Along the new compound grew colourful potted plants. In the porch stood a scooter. My scooter. 

      ‘Son,’ father called me one day after a fine dinner of rice and sambar. ‘How was your interview?’ I told him the usual - reservations for lower caste, nepotism and high donations that made my chance dim.
     
      He folded the newspaper and burped. The sambar smelt revolting. ‘You must be more responsible,’ he said, scratching the back of his palm on his grey stubble. ‘You know the expenditures of Raji’s marriage… Revathi’s computer course and payments to…’ He stopped mid sentence and stared at the rainwater falling from the roof. Of late, whenever he called me to talk, he trailed midway. At such times, I glimpsed at the TV. That bike in the ad looked awesome. No wonder Sunil showed it off so much.

      ‘Look at those night moths…’ father told me on another such occasion. While he peered at the bulb above, I glanced at the elaborate gold necklace that covered the whole screen. Revathi was telling mother, ‘Wow! This one’s more beautiful than Shari’s. I want it.’ When mother refused, she began to plead, ‘Amma, please…this’s a new design…’
     
      Suddenly aware of my distraction, I turned to father. His eyes were on me. Like old times, my gaze lowered to his mundu. The limp cloth sagged at his knees. It didn’t look as white as in my memories.

      Father left home two days after that incident. There was nothing unusual about this, as he sometimes stayed overnight in temples. But I, somehow, felt a strange sense of loss.

      I waited for him, like never before. One evening as mother lit the brass lamp chanting shlokas, we got the news that a man had drowned in the swollen Nila River. They had found our photos in layers of tightly wrapped polythene, along with a note.

      Days have limped by since then. I have been thinking of what father tried to say to me. I looked at the night moths on the bulb. They crowded over it, jostling as though their very existence depended on that light. Those that couldn’t fly crawled through the mound of transparent wings gathered below, trying hard nevertheless.
     
      Moths. Insensitive. Uncaring. Moths frenzied in possessing more. Moths: all of us.
     
      We pushed father to the brink.
     
      Or did we? Was it Shari, Sunil and our other neighbours? Or was it the TV that uprooted father from his armchair?
     
      Father tried. But the wave of wants, lashing our land was too strong for him to swim all alone. So, he drowned.
     
      Drowned irrevocably.