Daddy. Tuhin Sinha
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incident got me thinking about the sacrifices fathers often have to make for their family. The watchmen in my Mumbai apartment had a similar story to tell. They too meet their family only once every year. The agony of being separated from your child is hard to deal with no matter what your economic or social status. Be it a soldier manning our country’s borders or an IT professional who has to spend months abroad on work, their suffering is the same. Often you read about successful actors and cricketers rueing about their nomadic lifestyle that denies them the simple pleasures of watching their kids grow. When I think of that cab driver or my watchman, I feel extremely fortunate that as a writer I had the chance to closely witness Tanish’s evolution.
Caring for a baby has always been considered the mother’s domain. In fact, all books on child-birth or raising a baby have been written from the mother’s perspective. Hence, they do a great job in defining her duties but often leave out the dad’s role. When I heard I was about to become a father, I found very little literature to guide me through this journey. In today’s era where traditional gender roles stand re-defined, a man is as involved in bringing a baby into the world.
Fatherhood, like almost everything else in today’s world, is complex and layered. For the older generations, the role of a dad primarily involved looking into the financial needs of the family. Dads of that generation often kept themselves detached from their kids, sometimes deliberately. There were occasional indulgences in the form of bedtime stories. But for the most part they believed that their task was to discipline the kids. Mothers, on the other hand, were affectionate and indulgent, making up for the father’s aloofness. Today, we see a role reversal of sorts, which is not unrelated to the larger change in gender equations. Interestingly, I now find that most dads tend to be more indulgent while it’s the mothers who are in the policing mode.
The physical labour of carrying a baby and breastfeeding aside, there is virtually no department that a modern father is not involved in. He witnesses his baby enter the world and at times he cuts the umbilical cord. He also wakes up at night to put his crying baby to sleep and changes diapers. He’s there when the baby needs vaccination shots and keeps a check on medicinal needs. It might surprise you but a dad also feels a lump in his throat when he has to step out to work every day, leaving his baby behind for a good 10-12 hours. A modern dad takes a keen interest in his kid’s education, doing a thorough research on the right school and curriculum. And on weekends, he becomes his kid’s best friend, indulging him with a movie and ice-cream!
The thought of writing this book first came to mind when we were still trying to conceive. Strange as it may sound, I believe I forged a spiritual connect with my son even before we knew of his arrival. As a writer and a creative person, I had a vivid imagination of my life with my to-be child. Two years on, I’ve been lucky to have had the good fortune of enjoying fatherhood as extensively as I hoped to.
Being an ambitious and career-driven man, I was unaware of my propensity to love a baby. Today, I’m certain that no amount of professional success can substitute the simple joys of fatherhood. In fact, I’ve devoted so much of my time to Tanish that at one point I felt like his mother. The flip side was that he’d want my attention all the time. If I stepped out without him, he’d throw a tantrum. At times I’d end up yelling at him, but then at the very next moment I’d realise that his behaviour was a sign of his trust in me. I had become his best friend.
As much as I relished the importance, I also knew that this excessive dependence on me was not good for him. It was limiting his social outreach and behavioural growth. I then took up a consultant’s position with a TV channel that kept me away from home four days in the week, while my wife Ramyani started spending more time with him.
At times I’ve wondered if my deep emotional connect with my son makes me an exception. What goes through the mind of men juggling high pressure corporate jobs? Were they as elated about fatherhood as I was when we found out we were expecting? In the course of writing this book, I chatted with a cross-section of dads across different cities and professions to answer all my questions. I was quite amazed to find that even the relatively taciturn ones were more than forthcoming when they started talking about their child. From an obsessive mid-40s dad who would mail a new picture of his daughter to close friends every day, to one in his late 20s trying hard to squeeze in more time for his son and then to an adoptive father whose eyes light up at the very mention of his daughter, this book chronicles the life of a new-age Indian dad.
But none of this would be possible without the contribution of the new-age mom. So a big shout out to them for allowing us to experience pleasures which our preceding generations did not. This book is as much a tribute to the modern mother as it is to the modern father.
I Want to Become a Dad…But Am I Ready?
Being a father is undoubtedly the toughest job you’ll ever have. It is also a daunting experience. Once you know that your wife is expecting, it is natural for every guy to ask themselves, ‘Am I ready?’ I guess I’m a bit of an exception to this rule because I’ve wanted to be a father for as long as I can remember.
On a cold wintry morning of November 1982, at around 6-6.30 AM, my dad kick-started his Bajaj Super scooter with me standing in front and my heavily-pregnant mom seated behind. We drove straight to Telco Maternity Hospital, some 5 km away from our home in Jamshedpur. Three hours later, my younger brother Tanmay was born.
The image of my baby brother curled up near my mom and our journey home two days later in an auto rickshaw will forever stay with me. I was barely six years old at the time, but Tanmay’s arrival made me feel like a grown-up overnight. I’ve often heard that when the age gap between siblings is more than four years, it’s common to spot an early maternal/paternal instinct in the older child. The theory held true in my case. At his slightest discomfort, I would swoop into action by gently swinging Tanmay in my arms. I taught him how to play cricket quite early and when the other kids in the locality were busy, we’d bat and ball by ourselves for hours together.
When Tanmay got admission in Loyola School, where I was already studying, I took my responsibilities more seriously. Since his classes finished before mine, I would request my teachers to excuse me 10 minutes earlier so that I could escort him to the right school bus. This continued for an entire year. I must have been excessively fond of kids because by the time Tanmay was two, I began pestering my parents for another sibling. Like I said, the idea of fatherhood has excited me for as long as I can remember.
As I look around, I find that every man has his own way of knowing when he’s ready for fatherhood. There are also extreme cases of couples not wanting children at all. I know of at least three such couples and they have all stuck to their decision. But Rajan Gupta, an Indore-based engineer with roots in a small town in north Bihar, was adamant on having a child immediately after marriage. His wife Sonal, who didn’t have any work commitments, was on board with the idea. Their gynaecologist advised Sonal to gain some more weight before getting pregnant. The couple went the extra mile to make that happen and nine months into their marriage, they were expecting. Rajan became a dad at 28. Interestingly, his father is a mere 22 years older than him. So he became a grand-father at just 50.
Asad Lalljee, a CEO of a corporate cultural initiative who has spent 14 years in the United States, has a different story to tell. He doesn’t believe in living by the book. Even major decisions like marriage or having a baby weren’t planned much ahead. By 43, Asad was ready to be a father. By then he realised it had become a