A Photoessay on Indian Fathers of All Shapes and Sizes
For all the collective muscle of coded and unwritten rules passed down through generations of fathers, the Indian father is actually a docile individual with a soft heart that often emerges only when he is alone, usually with his family and without a photo of his forefathers staring down from a photo on a wall behind a fresh garland.
His weakness is mostly revealed in the daily soaps on television the women usually watch and he secretly watches. Hidden in the caricatured men of all ages in those gaudy serials are his other side he dare not reveal in front of his friends. They can cry. They can throw tantrums. They also wear light lipstick and have moustaches trimmed by their wives.
Have you noticed that the Indian father can only be a friend to his children until they are about 12? After that, he tucks his friendship away in a deep corner of his heart and turns into his own dad who did not know how to deal with puberty and adolescence.
That’s the time when an Indian father turns into a clone of his own father and goes on to do everything he hated his own father for. At this point, a father can only show his love through non tactile methods like paying extra tuition fees, buying property for future generations, buying gold in preparation for the daughter’s wedding. He begins communicating to his children only through an interpreter known as the ‘mother’.
The children will have to find ingenious methods to extract pocket money from the father around this time. Hugs are out of question and will be only for the camera at the wedding when he stops the child from falling at his feet.
An Indian father is expected to be respected. It is extremely rude to make fun of fathers in public. But you can make funny memes of Alok Nath who unashamedly reveals all the feelings of a father on the big and small screen and successfully for a few generations now, maybe from even before he himself became a father. You can even make fun of the Father of the Nation and his relationship with his sons. You can make fun of bhoomiputra politicians and their putraprem and illegal sons who sue them. But almost all fathers have a soft core and rough exterior. Indian fathers are Amrish Puri outside and Alok Nath inside.
Baap re baap.
Itna bada moonch.
Lagta hain jaise
Ghode ki poonch.
The Indian father is a much misunderstood person because of this disconnect between what he feels and what he does.He carries the weight of generations before him. Alpha male of the khap panchayat when the other men are looking at them but when they catch a cold, they need the tip of a saree to wipe their nose, or a dupatta. Only mothers will know that their husbands secretly cry at night.
An Indian father loves his mother. He loves all mothers. Motherland, Ganga mata, his own mother. He respects his father. The love for the father is hidden deep within and he expects to his children to do the same.
The most important thing that the Indian father passes on to the next generation is his toilet habits, farting styles, the way they treat their wives, sons or daughters, and their own fathers.
An Indian father can be rest assured that one day his sons will turn out to be fathers just like him. It is, however, the daughters who turn out to be like their fathers that are even more interesting. But that is another story.
