An Ideal Father

Picture 1 – This is my Hero (My papa of course) and this is how he looked in his heydays. It’s one of the pix taken from my parents wedding album.

Picture 2 – 25 years down the line, this is how he looks: Tanned, wrinkled, partially bald, the moustache is lopped a little – the many signs of his descent into senility.

This father’s day (21 June 2009), I was mighty happy to celebrate it with my papa and the rest of the family (mom and bro) on a Sunday. It goes without saying that fathers and daughters share a very special relationship. A relationship that is probably non-defining and certainly unconditional. And this is precisely the relationship that I share with a person who is very dear and important in my life – My Father.

Besides his full time Job, my papa was also a cricketer who played matches for his department (Posts & Telegraphs). Cricket was his first love and he relinquished it after I was born. He was always there whenever I needed him – Be it for my first dance show in school when I was 4 years, the driving license test or when I needed him to drop me to my MA class on time. A disciplinarian who believes in character to comfort and puts values and virtues on a pedestal. Paradoxically he is also a doting father who fulfills my every dream and wish and quite lenient. In my circle of friends, moms were liberal and dads were much stricter; but at my home, it was vice versa.

Today the concept of a ‘hands on dad’ is getting head on but my papa was always one. He would always make it to all events and occasions and whenever he couldn’t due to his work, he would feel guilty. I could never fathom the mystery as to why boys are drawn to their mothers and girls to their dads. I’m aware of the Oedipus complex expounded by Sigmund Freud. But I don’t concur with Freud. It’s something else.

Being the only daughter and just one younger sibling, I lap up all the attention from him. To me, he is the best and an ideal father, who corrects, comforts, instructs and provides for the needs of his children.