What You Have Done For Us?

It’s a fun to watch our kids grow but then it’s a responsibility too & especially in today’s world where generation gap can be between even your two siblings, to have a dialogue with the genre next is always a challenge for my age group! Our genre has grown up in a different mindset where elders were always right & no arguments with parents! Right & wrongs are the words which my parents were supposed to decide for me along with my needs too! But this is different time, here the kids think they have their own views in everything around them & dare to ask what have we done as a parent for them? Well its one such question which made me pen down my thoughts as many of us try to balance the time which we are unable to give our kids by gifts & we think we have done with them! I don’t know whether the kids’ gets satisfied with what we shower on them by shopping in malls but definitely when we look back at their childhood then we have missed the fun while our kids grew up.

It’s always a debate that whether to share our personal feelings on public forum like blog but I usually do because its these sharing which may help someone to avoid the mistake which I did & at the same time its philosophy which I am sharing & not everything is a personal experience. I used to think while reading a romantic novel in my teens that the author has lived all what he has wrote, same way to my blog readers I can say, it’s a mix of personal experience along with philosophy! Here is something, a letter by a father to his grown up son, who has differences with his father & who does asks, “What’s special you have done for me?” I think the answer is very tricky, as why one generation should do something special for another or if it is so then what is the generation next’s responsibility to repay whatever has been done by earlier generation? May be understanding this dilemma is growing up…here it goes!

 “Going in one more round when you don’t think you can; that’s what makes all the difference in your life”.. Rocky Balboa

Dear Dada,

On your 21^st B’day what better quote I could have choose than this as when I was in second year engineering, Rocky 1 got released & in all those engineering years Rocky balboa poster used to hung in my hostel room; though I never joined gym then but happy that you took it in right age. Beta this year has been most important for you as it’s your final year in degree & that does makes it special. Also this year saw some not so good moments at our home front, reasons may be any but first of all I am sorry that I couldn’t be the father you expect me to be! I have written you many times in past mostly all of your birth days & I know you have preserved many of those letters, at least I hope so! In all those letters one theme was similar & so it will be that I haven’t ever said I am a best father but I always tried to be one. In one of our argument you said to me, “What you have done for us?”, well really I haven’t done anything special for you. Today I am writing to a son who will be a degree holder in next month & considers himself grown up & thinks he is able to decide good & bad for him, so I feel I will say what I haven’t done for you as that list is lot bigger!

Beta, I  never have wake you up in mornings & make you ready for school & watch you going to school neither I ever waited to pick you up coming back from your school bus when most of the parents did that. I haven’t told you bed time stories neither played pillow fights with you & never have watched you two going to sleep in your bed; I never helped you in your school projects nor I put covers to your school books. Yes occasionally I did took you to the cartoon movies & have spent time with you two but then as you rightly pointed I took along other kids also in our neighborhood! I haven’t ever attended a single parent’s day in your school nor asked you how your studies are going on. I myself have traveled all over the world but couldn’t take you to even Sinhagad once when you were of age to get thrilled with history! I myself read thousands of books & have my own library but never I took you besides me & read fairy tales together. I didn’t have time to have dinners with you & never listened your stories about fun you had in school on the dining table. I neither remember names of any of your friends nor cared to ask about them! I wrote you letters on your birthdays but didn’t have any dialogue which was more important!

So many things I have missed & when I realized this, till then you both have grown up beyond my reach. But beta I don’t expect you to realize it what you dad was doing all those years when you were kids? In all those years, especially when you were a kid so I wouldn't have asked you but yes now I can ask that, have you thought about it? Beta, let me tell you frankly that when you & chota were small I was busy in making an organization rich & powerful, though that organization never considered me as its own & in that process I forgot many things as a father, as a husband & I thought I was doing my duty with dedication, which is true in a way! Because I did succeed as a Joint MD of that company but got failed at home front that was the price I paid. But mind one thing, during all those years I always tried to teach you to be a good human being & responsible for whatever you do as well I did earn some money, enough to take care of your day to day necessities which includes your school fees to your Nike shoes! May be I was a fool to treat you like part of my team & not my son but then nobody has taught me how to become a good father! I myself have been out of our home at the age of thirteen & then I got married when I was twenty three & I was living alone in all those years & it’s my friends who grew me, so I am more of caring for them than the family!

When I took you to eat out or to movies with other kids all I thought was their parents are not taking them so let them join my kids, never ever I realized what you feel as its encroachment on your share of me; rather I thought you will also grow up knowing the importance of friends & sharing the joy as that’s the best way to be happy! And when I got a bit stabilized of my carrier is what I was thinking then I realized people whom I was making big don’t consider me as their part & it took time to restart the entire carrier, there again I lost you in that process. And when finally life started to flow a bit smooth it was too late then, by you I have failed as a father & I don’t blame you! But if you have retained my letters then do go through all of them again & you will realize one part of me was always with you. You told me what you expected from me & how I couldn’t deliver, but what I want from you, have you ever thought? Then let’s know that, I want nothing from you, as my father never wanted anything from me! All I want is you understand your life & don’t make mistakes which I did; as success isn’t how much crores of rupees I have earned but at the end of the day am I at peace & happy! One more thing, I may be a failure as father but I lived with respect & honor of my own self, today whatever I am, nobody can say I did unjust to anyone except my own sons! And about the things you keep hearing or thinking about my temper, character or behavior, let me tell you something, don’t ever go by what you see or hear, learn to look beyond that as many a times truth isn’t what you see or hear, sometimes you have to feel the truth by yourself! I may not have achieved much but I am a proud son by myself as I think I have done justice to whatever my parents have taught me about life & that’s most important for me is all I can share.

On your birth day my son I thank you for giving me joy of being a father or else how I would have been exposed to such emotions, as remember, to understand what you have lost is also a big gain! Today all I wish is you to grow up as a fine man doing justice to every role you will be playing & making proud to your own self. Sooner or later you will make your own definition of success & that will be the day I can say you have really grown up & yes some day when you will look back in life, you will realize your father may not have been the best father but he wasn’t that bad too! Also when you will refer these words & understand the emotions behind them then you will become a better father than what you have got, that's the best gift I can give you!

Enjoy man…love!

Baba