Save me, oh father!

One of the evenings when my wife was away travelling out of town on work, I sat down in front of the TV, dealing with the prospect of feeding dinner to our two boys. I sat on the bed with a plate of food in my hand, as our 7-year old had successfully negotiated for himself the No-TV-No-Dinner clause. Lacking adequate backup support, I gave in rather easily - only to pull rank and insist that we watch Mahabharat (yes, I am a keen follower) instead of Doremon. For those of you who are new to this series of Mahabharat, it is a welcome change from the BR Chopra fare that most of us grew up on. It is refreshing to watch a series that captures the true essence of the multi-faceted characters in all their various shades – good, bad and ugly (my parents’ generation completely disagrees with me though).

So it was with eagerness that I switched to the current episode being aired. The episode showed the birth of Draupadi and her emergence from the yogic fire which her father King Drupad had ordained for the birth of a son. I watched as Drupad, saddled with a girl-child, unleashed his wish for the choicest of hardships that he wanted for this unwanted daughter. I was amazed. It seems like over so many millennia nothing much had changed. Parents still don’t care much for unwanted daughters in this country.  And they still condemn these daughters to a fate of death as an infant or a life full of indignity. Extremely cruel, heartless and inhuman, isn’t it?

The thought of the ill-fated daughters of this country lingered on as I flipped through the pages of my bedtime read. I wondered what kind of lives would the ones who are spared death through infanticide and foeticide, be leading. How would they be treated every day of their existence? What hardships would they be facing from all quarters of their cruel world? In their father’s house and then in their husband’s house. Somewhere in my thoughts and surely at a late hour, exhausted from the weight of these dark thoughts, I dozed off.

Only to wake up the next morning in a somber mood. The day went along taking me from one place to another, one email to another, one conversation to another and one meal to another. And as I performed my duties at my day job something didn't change. It wasn't just what was on my mind the last night - something more had ticked me off. Something else, another thought was on my mind which I had not yet discovered. Selfishly, I reasoned with myself – why should I, a father of two boys, be worried so much about the girl child? I reasoned that it was not my lot, I reasoned that this will never be my reality and I thanked God that at least this aspect of parenthood will never bother me as I would never be entrusted with the responsibility to bring up a girl.

I was safe. As a parent of just boys I didn't really need to answer the media or the educated lot like myself who have obvious discomfort with the way we treat women in this country. It was clear to me that I as a parent was seemingly not in the eye of the storm and the possibility of me being chastised on an Arnab Goswami show was quite bleak. After all I was safe in our sexist society (both the all-macho and all-feminist sects included).

But this feeling of safety didn’t really help and I still fumbled with what it was that was making me dwell so much on parenthood. Wait a second. Was it parenthood, I mean just plain parenthood, I mean just plain parenthood sans sexual bias for my offspring that was on my mind? Was it just the moment of doubt that parents have (most that I know of any way have)? Yes, I guess the question that was niggling me was, am I doing the best I can as a parent? And here is when I asked myself, is this the only way in which parents can be cruel to their offspring? Does cruel sound too strong a word? Ok, let’s rephrase. Is this the only way in which parents, whether or girls or boys, be unmindfully insensitive to their children? Or just be selfish to the point where parents can’t think beyond themselves, while convincing ourselves that we are thinking of our children? And the mind galloped off to a scene from an old 80s Bollywood movie - Kasam piada karne wale ki - where the mother stands in the rain with her infant son, convinced that she needs to make him a man strong enough to avenge his father’s death. Before I felt embarrassed about my choice of movie and said what the hell, the thought struck me bang between my eyes with absolute clarity. The eternal parental trap!

In my view, the three common parental traps that can have a big impact on the personality of children, and can often prove detrimental to how they turn out as individuals when they grow up.

·         I could not accomplish this but I will surely enable my child to accomplish it.

·         I /our clan/our family has accomplished so much and my child must measure up to it.

·         I am a modern liberal parent who believes that whatever (I mean “WHATEVER” literally) my child does is ok.

The funny thing is parents do this to whatever degree with the best interest of their children at heart. Honestly parents do this in all earnestness so that their children can make something out of their lives, climb up the achievement tree, secure more financial assets, get recognition from society, carve out an identity for themselves or just have comfortable lives full of happiness. “Am I doing the best I can as a parent” kind of moment.

But is it really about what the parent wants (as happiness or any other adjective) for the child, or is it really about what the child wants out of life? Who has the right to determine what should be a child’s destiny? The parent? Or the child? And if I can’t decide my child’s destiny, what good am I as a parent? Can I look beyond this trap?

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Saurabh Sharma

Saurabh advises The Potter's Earth team on commercio-legal aspects and brings in the black hat thinking that is so critical to a young startup that sometimes cannot look beyond the stars in their eyes.

A believer in the value of long-term relationships, an avid reader of texts about India, mythology, religion and psychology, and a firm propounder of the fact that following your dreams can take you to newer heights of excellence - that’s Saurabh for you.

He is a management graduate from Symbiosis Institute, Pune. Having worked with  renowned companies that offered wide exposure on diverse technologies and environments, Saurabh possesses applied knowledge and expertise in creating opportunities and expanding businesses. He now works for Think Talent Services, a boutique consulting firm, as a People Development Consultant.