Wind beneath my wings

 

Parenting cannot be taught or learnt in advance, even though there are many hundreds of “How To” books on the topic. It’s learning on the job.

My father was at the tail end of the brood that his parents looked after, and one would expect that he benefitted from the cumulative learning thus acquired. And that this learning would be deployed for the wellbeing of his own trio (I have a feeling I was the accident of the family but that’s neither here nor there.)

As a child – and even after reaching man’s estate for that matter - I did not have any yardstick for comparing the way my father exercised his fatherhood over me and how others exercised theirs. I did have expectations honed by an intensive study of global cultures and practices (mainly Archie comics and Wodehouse books) but I soon realised that these were good only in theory.

I grew up as part of a large family of which a substantial number was elder to me. So, while respect was accorded to divers uncles and older brothers, who were treated like “father figures”, the relationship duality (that of give and take) functioned only with my father. He spoke, I listened. He commanded, I executed. He roared, I slipped under the covers.

I suppose that today my father would be considered a “hands off” parent, content with leaving the minutiae of daily upbringing to his wife and mate (the same person, I hasten to clarify.) He had a sense of responsibility towards not just his immediate family but to our extended family. He played the role of father figure to a whole raft of children in the family both onshore and offshore and bobbing somewhere in the merry throng was his direct heir (the genes ensured that I stood tall in the crowd.) Being a man of huge intellect and with a silent, brooding and somewhat forbidding demeanour, to approach him for anything was an act of courage akin to putting a hand on a sleeping tiger.

He was not one to lavish words or gestures of affection. He preferred to show that he cared through concrete action. Action for which he expected no recognition or thanks. He was the quintessential man in the shadows, content doing his duty as he knew best for his Quartet (mom and us siblings) and others. And when he felt he had done what he could by everyone around him, he slipped out quietly through the door. Three years ago, today.

So, while Mom provides the ailerons to give direction to my life, Dad continues to be the wind beneath my wings. And since a father expects no thanks, I will not thank him. I will only keep walking on the path he showed me. And hope that when I meet him again he will complete that story of the former secretary to the Jamsaheb of Nawanagar and the Morris Minor car.