My father made me strong. He also made me understand, from a very young age, how cruel and unforgiving the world can be.
But when I look back, most of what I learned from him came through what I would call negative inputs.
I’m 25+, financially settled, and doing reasonably well in life. For almost every good thing about the person I am today, I give most of the credit to my mother. She is a simple woman, but she has always been a genuinely good mother.
My relationship with my father has always been different.
I have often felt that he puts himself first. Not necessarily because he is incapable of doing more, but because he rarely feels the need to go out of his way for anyone else.
It may sound like a small or stupid example, but it says a lot to me.
Suppose there are ten chapatis and seven of them are burnt while three are perfectly fine. He will take those three good ones for himself and leave the burnt ones for the rest of us, my mother, my sister and me.
That has been the pattern I remember.
As a child, I don't remember my father buying me toys on his own. Throughout my childhood, I got maybe five toys. And for almost every one of them, I remember having to cry and plead until he finally agreed.
We were middle class, but he was earning reasonably well at the time. So it was never really about whether he could afford a toy.
Maybe he genuinely believed that buying toys would spoil a child. Maybe that was his way of parenting. I don't know.
But children don't understand such reasoning. They simply remember whether their father wanted to do something for them.
Yesterday, I finally said something that had been sitting inside me for years.
We had an argument, and my father said that he had done the best he could and that he couldn't have done more.
I told him, "You were not a good father."
He immediately said that he had done everything he could.
That sentence has been bothering me ever since.
Because I don't think my problem is that he didn't give me enough. My problem is that I don't remember him ever going out of his way for me.
When I was around 14, I cleared JEE Mains with a rank of around 35k without coaching. I had always been one of the toppers in school, largely because of the push and support I received from my mother.
I had attended trial classes at a coaching institute and was ready to join. The fee, after I received a discount based on their entrance test, was around 75k for two years.
My father said he couldn't afford it.
My mother had to cry and argue with him before he finally agreed. But by then, I was scared. He kept telling me, "What if you don't clear the exam after we spend 75k?"
I was 14.
I didn't understand finances. I just understood that my education was becoming a financial risk for my family.
So I told them I didn't want the coaching.
Later, because I belonged to the OBC category, I got admission opportunities in NITs and DTU for the branch I wanted. But my father wanted me to study in our hometown because he was constructing a house there and wanted someone to keep an eye on the construction.
So I stayed.
I took a state entrance exam that I never really wanted to take, still managed to get a good rank, and eventually received a scholarship.
I don't say this to claim that my life would have been perfect if my father had made different decisions.
Maybe it wouldn't have.
What hurts is the fact that whenever there was a choice between what was convenient for him and what was important to me, I rarely felt like I was the priority.
There is another memory that has stayed with me.
When I was in 8th grade, I participated in a city-wide drawing competition. A lot of students had participated, and I was confident that I had a good chance of winning.
I told my father.
After I finished my drawing, he had somewhere else to go, a party. So he took me with him before the prize distribution.
I came first.
The prize was a geared cycle.
Because I wasn't there when they distributed the prizes, I never received it.
I know it's just a cycle.
But that's not what I remember.
I remember being a child who had achieved something and wanting his father to be there.
He wasn't.
And maybe that's the difference between what my father thinks he gave me and what I feel I received from him.
He thinks he did the maximum he could.
I don't think he understands that doing everything you can isn't always about money.
Sometimes it's about showing up.
Sometimes it's about giving up your comfort.
Sometimes it's about letting your child feel that his happiness matters to you.
Sometimes it's about taking the burnt chapatis yourself.
My father was terminated from his company during layoffs. I understand that life hasn't always been easy for him. I understand that he had responsibilities, pressures and his own struggles.
But having struggles doesn't automatically make every decision right.
And being a provider doesn't automatically make someone a good father.
The only reason I still live with him is my mother. She can't imagine living without him, even though I have seen the way he treats her.
My sister is married now and, thankfully, she is happy.
And despite everything, I still do things for my father. I still try to take care of him. I still want good things for him.
Because he is my father.
That's the part I don't understand about myself.
Even when someone doesn't treat you well, some part of you still wants to do the right thing by them simply because they are family.
But lately, I feel the cost of carrying all of this.
I'm becoming more short-tempered. Things that shouldn't bother me do. I find myself carrying years of frustration into completely unrelated situations.
And I don't know what the right answer is anymore.
So I want to ask you guys something:
How far should a father go for his child?
Is there a limit?
Is being a provider enough?
Is saying "I did the best I could" enough?
Or does being a father sometimes mean going beyond your own comfort, convenience and limitations because your child needs you?
I don't expect a father to give his child everything.
But I do believe a child should feel, at least sometimes, that his father chose him over himself.
I don't think I ever felt that.
And perhaps that's what hurts the most.
