Thoughts on Father's Day

My father excelled as a father.

• He allowed me to become what I had the potential to be.
• He gave me all the advices he had, good or bad, but to his best capabilities.
• He supported me materially while I needed his support.

I failed as a son.

• I left them back there in Nagpur 'to make it big in life.'
• 'I am not beside them' when they are ageing and getting afflicted with diseases.
• I have turned into a doting husband, father and a good person 'without staying a doting son.'

I am indeed a doting father, and yesterday on the Father's Day, if I related to that day, it was as a father more than as a son. And here are a few things I can say about how I plan to be a good father:

• I will allow you to become what you have the potential to be.
• I will give you the material support.
• I will always be with you morally.
• The gist of my love for you is that I will always want you to be happy, wise and successful.
• I will show my emotions to you.
• I will not pretend to you to be stronger, wiser, richer, more liberal than I actually am.
• I will not appeal to my authority to make you behave in a particular way.
• I will lead a life of my own to the last day. I will be true to myself as much as to you.
• I will not behave well just because I want you to behave well.
• I will not make my fatherhood appear as a sacrifice for you.
• I will not expect purchased gifts from you.
• I will not expect you to be by my side in my old age.
• I will feel happy when you become a good husband, father and person, because that's what you are here to be.
• I will celebrate the fact that you are an individual who is not the same as me.

All I will every expect from you is to know that I love you from the bottom of my heart. My love for you is not because I have played a role in your being born, but because I have closely observed you grow into a person from a little bundle in my arms on January 24, 2009.

Please just give this much. Please never ever doubt that I love you and want nothing else from you!

The Most Important Thing My Father Taught Me

I was inspired to write this after I saw a blog on the same topic.

When I was in 4th class I once scored poorly in a test. I think it was English. I didn't talk about it to my parents with the fear of being scolded. When I finally revealed, I also blurted out why this delay. On this my father didn't react with anger. He merely said that I shouldn't make such a big deal of the score I get in a subject. It's important to understand the subject. Scores fall in line automatically.

The gratification of not being reprimanded and the joy of getting a new perspective had a permanent effect on me. It appeared intuitive to me to see that trying to understand a subject in the same way as the author himself was necessary aspect of actually understanding anything. I started reading things with the end goal in mind of day-dreaming that I was the originator of the work. It needed deep understanding. I got into the mode of asking repeatedly: 'Is there anything I have not understood? Is there anything I seem to be taken for granted?' This day-dreaming style of learning things opened to me joys of learning which are non-existent to rot-learners.

Learning to understand revealed to me why becoming a scientist is such a cool thing. I could see that it's not about being (or proving oneself to be) intelligent. It's about understanding something clearly, asking the right questions till the point where I and the creator of that knowledge are one in our understanding of the topic.