The Most Painful Distance… Is Inside a Home

🌿 The Child Who Stopped Calling Him Appa

Sumathi stopped calling him Appa one day.

No fight...No argument....absulotely no reason he could point to...

Just… one day…little Sumathi did not call him...Appa..

Dr.Chari was the first one to notice it.....Because he noticed things others didn’t.

Raghav noticed it too...But he said nothing.

That was his way of response.

Raghav loved his dear daughter, Sumathi very much. Everyone knew this... it just showed...

The way he adjusted the fan before little Sumathi slept. The way he checked if her water bottle was filled.

The way he walked a little slower explaining, when Sumathi walk-danced beside him.

But Raghav never said ...."love you."

Never hugged her suddenly. Never spoke softly for no reason. Never showed it publicly or in private....

Love… to Raghav… was responsibility, not to be displayed but to be felt in hearts.

Charulatha, Raghav's wife, didn’t see it that way...

To her…love had to be visible, loud, audible, reassuring and repetitive...

And when it wasn’t…Charulatha filled the silence.

“You see how he is?” Charulatha would say.

“Always serious.”

“Always controlling.”

“He doesn’t know how to love. A machine...cheee...man with no emotions. He does not even love his daughter....chee...shame.”

Loudly, angrily and… consistently. ...Repeatedly repeating the explosive words every day....

Children don’t question repetition. They absorb it and begin to live it...

Slowly…Sumathi stopped running to the door when Raghav returned. Stopped sitting next to him...Stopped asking him for things, not even toys or books...and stopped calling him "Big lion"

And one day…Sumathi stopped calling him Appa.

“Raghav,” she said instead.

It was soft. ....Innocent. and ...Unaware.

But something inside Raghav…cracked, crashed and melted....

He didn’t react. Didn’t correct Sumathi.

Didn’t ask why...

He just nodded....

Because Raghav was a man who never showed emotion....He could not help it...

And that was exactly the problem.

Days passed. ...The distance became normal.

Charulatha felt justified.

“See?” she told herself.

“They don’t connect. He does not love her. I was always right, yele."

Raghav began working more, spoke less and less. And stayed longer outside.

Not out of anger...out of… not knowing what to do.

Because how do you explain love…when you’ve never learnt how to show it? And when there is brick wall already built ...destroying the innocence and fragility of a young mind...

One evening…Sumathi fell sick....

Just fever and cough and headache...nothing really serious.

But Sumathi was very weak...and quiet...very quiet...

Charulatha sat beside her.

Raghav stood near the door.

Not entering fully. Nor leaving either.

“Go… sit with her,” Charulatha commanded.

Raghav hesitated....Then walked in....Sat at a distance on the stool near her bed.

Sumathi looked at him for a brief second...

Then looked away.

Something broke in Raghav's heart. But he did not show it...

That night…when everyone slept…

Raghav didn’t....

He sat beside Sumathi, not touching, not speaking...

Just… watching. ....her breath rise up as a sigh, her small hand movements...and as she muttered in her sleep.

At one point…Sumathi's blanket slipped.

Raghav adjusted it gently. ...so gently…like the act itself might disturb something sacred.

And then…very slowly, gently…he placed his hand on her little head, curling her wisps of soft hair.

For the first time in years, Raghav's fingers trembled....

And something even rarer happened....

A tear fell...Quiet...unannounced on to the sleeping face of Sumathi and rolling down her neck...

Because some emotions…only come out when no one is watching.... absulotely no one..

Except…someone was....

Sumathi.

Her eyes were half open....weak...sleepy...

But she saw him....

Not the “serious man.”

Not the “controlling father.”

Just…a man who was afraid...of losing her...

And for the first time…she saw something her mother, Charulatha, had never shown her.......hidden........

His love...raw, unfiltered..unspoken..

Sumathi didn’t say anything...

Just slowly…without opening her eyes fully…she moved her small hand…and held Appa's finger, tightly, tenderly and would not let go...

Raghav froze....as if reality had changed in a split second...

Then Sumathi whispered…barely audible, feeble....

“Appa…”

Not “Raghav.”

"Appa."

And in that one word…years of distance collapsed.

Raghav closed his eyes...Not to hide tears.

But to hold the moment for forever....in his heart..

The next morning…nothing changed dramatically. No big conversations...

No emotional apologies....or big talk...

Just small things....

Sumathi sat closer. Raghav spoke a little softer and smiled a little. And he looked at his daughter longer, his eyes twinkling quietly..

Charulatha watched… quietly...not fully realising what transpired in the night...between father and his daughter..

For the first time…Charulatha realised something uncomfortable....

She hadn’t created distance.

She had only… named it.

Repeated it.

Strengthened it.

And the little child had believed it...

But truth…

doesn’t disappear.

It just waits...For a moment…when it can be seen..🌿

Welcome to Ponmanipudi… where nothing is as it seems.