What I want to begin with is difficult to express in English. Rather Urdu could have helped me better. In Urdu, the plural of mother (maa’n) is mothers (maaei’n). But the plural of father (baa’p) is not (bapei’n). It does not exist. Father is single and singular, one and unique. Nothing can replace him or be his substitute. He is absolute and indispensable.
Father is to child as seed is to fruit, defining it uniquely in all its inherent characteristics and traits. On the other hand, there can be N number of women in our neighbourhood and in the relationships, bearing the reflection of our mothers, extending us wishes and warmth and comforting us by hugs. Similarly, all those people with whom we are friends and who offer us help and healing, sympathy and support, food and hood, fun and flavour are actually doing serene motherly favours to us.
But what father can grant us, only father can grant us. It is he who trains us for whatever is going to be out there in the life ahead. He is the prophet, he is the priest, he is the mentor, he is the master. He can foresee, he can foretell, he can guide, he can warn. He is right, he is bright. He is the king and the king-maker. He is coherent, he is connected, he is alert, he is agile. There is more than one reason why he can lead us from the front and cannot let us go astray. The third Sunday in the month of June every year is chosen as the international Father’s Day and hence for the current year 2023, we are observing it today on 18th of June. Let us celebrate the fatherhood today, that schemes and secures everything, from a family to a nation.
The glory of motherhood is primarily due to the biological ware and tare that she has to go through to bear a child. A woman is physically destroyed to bring a life in this world. For rest of all the practical purposes in life, it is the father who has to take over or else he is a defaulter. The pet sentence of our mothers in our childhood used to be ‘aane de tere abba ko’, let your father return from work. And this would serve as an ultimatum to stay back from all sorts of mischief and malice. The father would truly return to take us to task.
He would also return with toys and jaggery to keep us joyous and cheerful. But, as a father returns today, all he seeks is a good food, a cosy bed, a cigarette to puff, a coffee to drink, a newspaper and a book of fiction (far from reality) to satiate his pseudo-intellectual desires, extremely individualised, self-ridden, careerist, dry, disgusting and indifferent towards his most valuable assets viz; the children. Even his WhatsApp reads, DND, do not disturb. He is such an ease and comfort lover. Early in the morning, who do we see carrying the kids and their pithu-bags to schools? Mothers, because the fathers are late risers. Who are there in queues waiting for the school vans in the early and late hours of the day? Mothers, because the fathers are damn tired. Whose blood pressure fluctuates with the fluctuating academic result of the child? That of mothers, because the fathers don’t care.
It is after a proper research and whatever authenticity at my command that I say the following. There is a huge stuff of fathers among us who don’t care about what class their kids are reading in or how well or not so well are they doing in their studies and sports. The rest of the damage is done by the school-dropped-out local sermonisers who assign the whole role of good upbringing to mothers. On the other hand, the certified theologians of international repute have a whole-host of sermons for fathers and not for mothers. The soft skinned and soft toned mother is no big deal for a child to get over. What he could fear is father. I have a live example to make. Once a bearded man was unable to comfort his infant in the absence of his wife for a while. Soon a foreigner came around and took the child in his lap to calm him down. Now before the foreigner would praise his skill of child caring, the father said, ‘since you are clean shaven, it gives the toddler the feeling of his mother’.
Comfort is with mother but caution is with father, care is with mother but career is with father, past is with mother but future is with father, proposal is with mother but permission is with father, and it has to be. A father is truly cruel to be kind.
The book titled “Glimpses of World History” is nothing but a collection 196 letters on world history from a father (Jawaharlal Nehru) to a daughter (Indira). It is an incumbent prime minister writing to an incoming prime minister.
So did Iqbal leave his son with an array of advices written in Javed-nama.
Dear fathers, please don’t glorify the role of mothers beyond its due just because you want to shun the responsibilities to choose your comfort and corner in life. The gardens that you have abandoned have turned into deserts. All around we have cacti and no good fruits. Your buddies are buried under drugs, debacle, depression and destruction. Get up, get alive and act. Get the whip, hit the hip. Be the father, be the god-father, rather.
Dr. Qudsia Gani, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Physics, Govt. College for Women, Srinagar
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK.