How daddy and I grew up together

In our family we don't really have Hallmark'ed, or Archies'd days dedicated to father, mother, valentine, grandparents, pet, sofa, tampon or microwave oven. Yet, I look forward to each Father's Day for using it as an alibi for my love for daddy. My father enjoys getting pampered and he doesn't really mind cloying PDA. And yet it is almost impossible for me to tell daddy without the crutches of this ritualised day that he is way more than his bequest of genes to me.

There is nothing extraordinary in our father-daughter story. No extreme turns of event dot our lives. Or maybe I just want to cocoon my consciousness with only the pleasant things, casting off each harsh syllable, every frown, and all those menacing sounds of gritting teeth. Daddy is a temperamental man, and I am his eldest child. There is nothing enviable about being the first "surviving" child in a family grappling with financial crises because the father refused to toe the traditional "doctor-engineer-civil servant" line of occupation. Daddy - my grandparents' "brightest" child, a gold medallist. A declaration of his distaste for the aforementioned careers was nothing short of bravado. In our Brajbhasa-speaking region of Uttar Pradesh, where agriculture is still most people's prime occupation and "doctor-engineer-civil servant", nothing short of "nirvana", my father valiantly decided to become a businessman. For more than two decades he braved the ebbs and tides that toss around most first generation standalone mid-rung business enterprises in the mofussil. My mother hated him for jeopardising our future and yet kept funding his ventures. Her story, however, is for another time.

Daddy is the first man I ever saw crying. One night he held me, barely six then, close and asked me to memorise the cost of raw material his mustard oil factory required. He sobbed and said that he was going to disappear leaving everything behind. My parents had had an acrimonious exchange that evening. I may not exonerate him ever for his less-than ideal treatment of my mother and his inherited patriarchal mindset, but that night I got my first lessons in gender equity. That men are vulnerable and they too cry, unlike what Sir Tim Hunt now wants us to believe. That daughters, not sons, can be heirs, unlike what the multi-millionaire Mehras of Dil Dhadakne Do believe.

My father and I seem to have grown up together. We have both challenged the familial dogmas and that, inevitably, has often pitted us against each other. The biggest confrontation was when I decided to get married. My alcohol guzzling, meat-eating, agnostic father suddenly decided to become the proverbial parochial Brahmin from the cow belt. Oh how he revelled in that role! The most interesting aspect of this standoff was that we pre-empted each other's thoughts and utterances. I got married, nevertheless. He got another son in my husband. Whenever I reminisce about that "meet the parents" phase I grit my teeth, just like him, at all those regressive arguments he made. But I now know that those were his half-hearted attempts at retaining that patriarchal control over me that engulfed everyone around us. Till that point, he did not know how to effectively negotiate with it.

My father, unlike more learned fathers, did not teach me Marx, Camus, Russell or Schopenhauer. He and I have made our respective intellectual discoveries together. Liberal values did not come to either of us on a platter, with jargon on the side. His friendships with men and women that transcended caste, class and religion boundaries in our small conservative town taught me about shadow lines much before Amitav Ghosh did. Travelling with him in our rickety jeep across this goon-infested region of ours, fearing armed robberies at every corner, has made me adventurous enough to execute 2am plans of driving alone from Delhi to the Chambal ravines. His ability to take enormous risks emboldened me to tread an uncharted path and start my publishing venture at the age of 24. It was conceptualised one night when my infant daughter slept softly on his belly, while his outstretched arm became my pillow. Though short-lived, the venture transformed me in personal and professional capacities.

Till recently I accused daddy of favouring my younger siblings, hated his fierce temper and binge drinking, and have never really forgotten his hurling the "contaminating the bloodline" argument at me seven years back. But what are some angry words against his decision to raise my "mixed-blood" daughter at our hometown so that I can pursue my dreams unfettered by an early motherhood! He has evolved, just as I have, and we are both proud of each other. Daddy never heard my declamations and debates in school or college but rehearsed his speech to be delivered at one of my big days at least a hundred times. As a child I hated daddy during his short phase of alcohol abuse, and later he tried to lecture me on model behaviour. Today we share our tales over tipple. Much affective labour, from both the sides, has gone into that shared bottle of wine.