Roopa Farooki: My father went to Harrods and never came back

Roopa Farooki: My father went to Harrods and never came back

Novelist Roopa Farooki speaks to Metro about living with her father's gambling addiction. Her new book, The Flying Man, is a fictionalised account of his life.


My father, Nasir Farooki, met my mother when she worked for him at his publishing company in Bangladesh. He was always a colourful character. He graduated from Stanford University in the US at the age of 19, did a second degree in Switzerland and became a journalist, working in the Middle East. By the time he met my mother, he’d published several novels and was known for being an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s politicians, which was dangerous.


By the time they started a family, they’d moved to London. As a child, I thought all fathers disappeared for several weeks or months at a time, coming back hugely flush with thousands of pounds or completely broke. My mother kept things under control admirably – she always paid the rent and kept food on the table.


As I got older and spoke to my friends about it, I realised my father’s behaviour wasn’t normal. My friends thought the amount of travelling he did – and returning sometimes with so much money – meant he was a drug baron. I wasn’t aware at the time he had a gambling addiction. He’d disappear when he could no longer afford to show his face in the Knightsbridge gambling clubs he frequented. He’d go away until he earned enough money to go back to them. I’d ask what he did for work and he’d tell me to stop asking stupid questions. From what I can tell, he put financing together for building projects around the world – whatever type of business he could earn money from using his connections.

As a family, we dealt with him winning or losing the same way, because even if he came home with thousands of pounds one night, we knew he’d gamble it away again during the rest of the week. My father was more a visitor than a parent. We became so used to our life without him it was quite irritating when he was back – cluttering up the sofa.

When I was 13, he said he was going to Harrods to buy something and he never came back. We were so used to him being away, we didn’t realise he wasn’t coming back for several months. Eventually, it became obvious and we’d get bills from hotels around the world, so we knew where he was. We weren’t worried that something terrible had happened to him

He’d been sent to prison at one point for not paying taxes. He went to a nice, open prison where he made great contacts and improved his golf handicap.

The last time I saw him was in Paris. I was in town for a business meeting. He hadn’t been well and looked terribly frail. We had a chat about the books I was intending to write – I’d just become a novelist and he told me he wanted to write his autobiography. He asked me for money, which he said was going to cover a hospital bill. I offered to pay the hospital and he said that wouldn’t work, so he was still trying it on, even at that stage. He died a couple of weeks later.

Because my dad was a gambler, I don’t gamble. In other ways, I’m like my father – I’m a writer, too, and I’ve changed jobs every few years.

I was self-righteous as a teenager and felt we’d let my father get away with his behaviour. Now I have four children of my own, I’m no longer so resentful. I appreciate that if you’re not cut out for parenting, it must be very tough. It’s not that his love wasn’t sincere – it’s just that it wasn’t sufficient.

The Flying Man is out now, published by Headline.



Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/lifestyle/888077-roopa-farooki-my-father-went-to-harrods-and-never-came-back#ixzz1kHfOt9Yi