“I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father,"
she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are
the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?” … Jodi
Picoult.
Jodi Lynn Picoult is an American writer. She was awarded the New
England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003. Currently approximately 14
million copies of her books are in print worldwide, translated into 34
languages. Agreed people don’t read fiction work for philosophy yet best
of the philosophy I have encountered in fictions or even in animation &
Jodi’s above quote do make my belief strong. Every year when it April &
May, I wonder shall I stop writing to my sons, a ritual which I am doing since
long! I even don’t know whether they read it as they rarely revert back but
then neither I used to revert back to my father except replying in bare “Yes”
or “No”, nay be that’s what Jodi meant as a father always wants his son (read
daughter as well) to become something or always it’s an advise! This is not
something any son likes, especially a growing one as here I remember a classic
scene from “Indiana Jones & Last Crusade’, where the hero (super hero
actually) Harrison Ford who has strained relation with his father Sean Connery,
is trying to get hold of Holy Grail which has shown laying on a rock
leading to deep valley. Connery was holding his hand but Ford was keen on
grabbing the grail, which was going to make him fall down in the valley; in the
whole movie the father is shown teasingly calling his son “Junior’, means
trying to show him that the son is not par with his father by achievements. In
the last scene also Connery calls Ford, “Junior let it go”! The son didn’t look
back & kept trying to reach for Grail, inching towards death, realizing
this finally Connery calls him by his favorite nick name, “Indiana, let it go”!
And hearing that Ford let the Grail go & Connery (the father) pulls him
back from falling in the valley! I never realized the importance of this scene
as I watched the movie for action yet somewhere the scene lingered in my mind
& today I understand why it was lingered in my mind for years (more than
thirty years) as in that one scene Spielberg (director) has shown the entire
father son relationship, which I had lived now from both dimensions! As when the father realizes its his ego of being a better archaeologist than his son he has to let go & call him by his name (not as Junior) then only the son will let go his desire for that Grail & his life will be saved, that moment the father calls the son by his name & the son responds! This one scene tells entire story of father-son relation!
What a father wants
from his son is the glory, the honor which he has wanted to achieve or has
achieved by himself & what a son wants is, being free of comparison with
his father or by his father as well just few words of appreciation by the
father for whatever has been achieved by the son! Agreed no father
(barring a few) will love to show his son down rather wants to see him doing
better than the father itself, but most of the time the way to achieve or say
to communicate this is a wrong way! Outcome is maximum sons ends up hating
their father while they are growing up, though the graph of hatred eventually
turn down when the son turns up a father himself but by that time the fathers
life graph itself has headed towards the end in other words it’s too
late! A son-father is such a wonderful relation, a relation which is may
not be full of love & affection or caring like the son-mother relation yet
it has its own warmth of hidden emotions. One more wonderful
movie rather all time classic is Disney’s animation “Lion King”, where a very
strong father makes a brave king out of his slightly weaker sibling by sharing
right things at right time & in right way which finely helps the son to
understand his own capacities! I think what matters is the third aspect i.e. in
right way as that’s where most fathers miss the train of bonding with their son,
even I too have missed many of mine, I must admit! In recent times one
more such animation movie “Good Dinosaur” revolves around father-son relationship.
In our Bollywood, all father-son relations usually revolves around father
disapproving son’s choice of life partner yet two wonderful movies, none other
than that of Dilip Kumar & Amitabh Bachhan, yes “Shakti”! Where perfectly
this relation has been captured & an end, memories of which still makes my
eyes wet with dying Bachhan in arms of Dilipkumar has shown expressing his
emotions about his father! And then very recent biopic movie of Amirkhan is
Dangal, where a father tries to accomplish his incomplete mission of getting
Gold Medal in world championship wrestling through his daughter!
Why I specifically mentioned above movies is a father’s
emotional side is something never talked about & that is major cause as
father’s especially Indian fathers are never known to open up & share their
feelings with their siblings! That’s not done as having a dialogue with son has
been always considered to be job of the mother (though a myth). I too was not
exception & only after watching above movies I have realized my role as
father is not just to pay for school/ college fees of my sons or scowl them for
their studies but to make them understand what they are within & make them
able to survive their own fight. And this realization is something most fathers
miss as half of the life of an Indian father goes in establishing himself &
just when he thinks he can spare some time for his own fun then the son has
crossed teen age & it’s at this time the dialogue between father-son is
most important which gets lapsed. As silently somewhere the younger genre,
(which is lot smarter & mature than us than what we consider them) is
observing us & building his own scale of respect in his mind for his
father. I think for being a good father all
one requires is, self understanding that it’s not what my son has achieved to
make me proud but what as a father I have achieved to make him proud! As what
better heritage you can leave behind for your son than respect in his mind for
you for being a wonderful father!
I have always tried to write with my sons as today they may
think it’s just one more lecture but some day when grown up they might go
through these words again & think, their father was that bad after all;
well, what more as a father I would want! Here is something I wrote to my
younger son recently, sharing as some of the fathers’ reading this also can
take up writing to their son….
Happy Birth Day
"Rohan"
4th April 18
"I wonder what
criteria do you use to divide people into good & evil"... Makishima
Shogo.
Well Chota, I don't
know this character but I know the character who keeps
Shogo's dp! What a wonderful question as even after watching all my life
Disney's, DreamWorks’s, Marvel's & DC's movies which
are always based on fight between good & evil yet I couldn't
find answer to this question!! But yes one thing I have realized
these definitions one has to derive oneself as that's what
in end defines what you are within, a good or devil. Chota, leave
apart the question about Shogo has in his mind, I am more curious about questions
in your mind & sometime do try keeping your own questions as your dp
,as then I can know you better because it’s the questions you ask tells us
about your thinking rather it makes us know that our thinking process is
on.
It’s your 21st
birthday today & sometimes I wonder will I end up repeating the words which
I wrote for dada on his that birthday two years back, every time
I write to you on your birthday. But then you both are
different, you are a dreamer & he is part dreamer & part practical!!
You know what's your biggest strength, you are good at heart ( I
still remember you buying ice-cream to the cleaner boy at Mayur
paw bhaji on your last year birthday) but then life is understanding what we
are bad at & then only we can improve! And your biggest drawback, that's
your over goodness towards everybody but neglecting your own self! You are
studying management & let me tell you a good manager is the one who can
manage his or her own life first as then only you can manage others! And for
that required commitment & dedication to bend our self in
good habits & it can be right from arranging your clothes
to following timing of any meeting, anything! One more thing,
nothing wrong in being a dreamer but if the dreams are not backed with a fire
within to make them reality, the very same dreams can makes us a useless
depressed man, which society calls a loser & you are not one! Chota, good
& evil is what you think about yours & others & in what way!
If a person is thinking all the time selfishly then its evil but that
doesn't mean neglect yourself as that's being evil to our own self!
Nothing wrong in trying to become a better person than what you are but
for that you have to think what you are first!
I am sure today
every time when you will be reading my letters on your birthdays, you must be
thinking what "Ghisa Pita" advise every year but then some
things never change as the way you are thinking about my words, I
used to think in same way about my father's words (rather in more bad way) when
I was of your age. But at this age I wish I should have listened
my parents more seriously & like any father I don't want you
repeating my mistakes but then it’s the mistakes we do makes us a better
person, only if we accept them as mistakes in first place! So go on son, keep
doing mistakes but get the best out of them as you are fortunate to afford
mistakes, which many are not! As you know being lucky is not in anybody's
control but what you do with the luck you have, is solely in your own
control!
Though I am writing
all these words but the feelings are jointly shared by all your
family, which includes even neeta aatya, nikhil & ketki & kedar kaka
too & many more! Be grateful to them always & to
every that person which wants to see you doing good, as that's one sure sign
of goodness!
baba,aai,
dada, aaji, aabbu.
--
Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..
Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..
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