To celebrate my promotion and a hefty salary hike, I took my father to an expensive pen shop and offered him one of his choice. He tried several pens with enthusiasm, always scribbling something on the sheet of paper provided and finally made his choice. I noticed that he had written the same words with every pen – RYP. Intrigued, I asked him what it meant. He hesitated at first and then told me what it stood for – Remember You're Poor.
Life had been difficult in postpartition Punjab. My father's family members were refugees who had left their home and belongings in Pakistan and fled to India. Daddy was young then, about 17. He got admission into the medical college at Amritsar, and joined eagerly. Money was difficult to come by. My grandfather, already reeling from the tremors of Partition, had to fund the setting up of a new home in a new city, support an ailing wife, educate his two school-going children and also provide for my father's medical college and hostel expenses.
Throughout his medical college days, Daddy was acutely aware of his father's financial situation and of the strain he was undergoing to fund his son's medical education. "Our sacrifices will make our son's life," my grandfather would often say. This sentiment always remained the inspiration behind my father's efforts and kept his feet firmly on the ground.
While studying, when the rest of his roommates were sound asleep, he would write RYP in the corner of his book. Remember You're Poor. This pithy abbreviation would extend in my father's mind to — "Remember you cannot afford to fail. Remember your father cannot pay for another extra semester, in case you have to repeat it." This spurred him on to put in more hours and study with greater zeal. The result was that he breezed through medical college with flying colours.
Bored of the mundane hostel food, when Daddy was tempted to join his friends for a tandoori chicken and matka kulfi at the nearby dhaba, he would remind himself – RYP. "You cannot afford to waste your father's precious money just for a moment of pleasure." It was the same when it came to movies or cigarettes or any such "luxuries". RYP kept Daddy grounded in reality and away from what then seemed like mindless extravagance.
Being a proud Punjabi, he never let his friends have a whiff of his financial state. Friends, who often borrowed his notes, would ask him what RYP stood for, but he would just laugh.
On becoming a doctor, Daddy joined a renowned hospital where he had an illustrious career. The discipline he had cultivated during his college days held him in good stead during his professional life. Even then he did not forget RYP. He still scribbled it every now and then. It made him humble, kind and sensitive to those around him. His colleagues and patients loved him.
Daddy was honoured several times for his upright and principled views and his commitment to the healing profession. He had become used to felicitations. However, when on his 75th birthday, we all got together to honour him with a plaque, he had tears in his eyes while accepting it, for it had nothing but three letters inscribed on it in gold: RYP.
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