Do we know our parents? This may look like a very stupid and nonsensical question on the face of its first occurrence. But if the obvious answer is "Yes", let us ask another nonsensical question to ourselves, "Really?". There were two recent, otherwise-not-to-be-noticed incidents in my life that led me to put this question to myself.
First one was my father's retirement ceremony in Sept 2018. In their farewell speeches for my father, his colleagues of more than 30 years told anecdotes from his past. In one of the anecdotes, they told how, during the initial days of their service at Chandigarh, they all enjoyed the tea times at a very small tea stall near their office building in Sector 17. Sector 17 of Chandigarh has been a very popular spot for the people of Chandigarh, well known as a go-to place to check out and appreciate beautiful girls (this was called in Hindi as "Nayan Sukh Prapti", a college slang), who were mostly from Punjab. I was startled at that anecdote, because for the first time I was coming across a story about my father's non-sacramental, non-patriotic, not-so-principle-oriented side. The moment was very light and passed by fast and unnoticed in the grandeur of the event. But the moment was well registered in my mind, waiting to be given its due attention via this post :). Prior to this event, there were extremely rare and very short references of my father's inter-caste love interest before marrying my mom. But in last 2 years post retirement, at least a little more details have come out in that context. My father's then love interest was from the same caste as my wife, and that caste also happens to be the one which my father and his family despised almost throughout their lives. My father's family's reservations against the caste must have been one of the main reasons for that relationship to have not materialized, I can only assume because like I said even now only a "little" more details have come out in the context. However, the irony, which has been stated multiple times at casual family functions and gatherings, is that what my father despised all through his life, his son (that is me) brought it right to the center of the scheme of things of our family :).
Apart from the light moment from the farewell speeches, the other worth noting piece of information was given by my mother. Dad's retirement was a known but never-experienced-before event in our lives. All of us were feeling emotional as well as anxious about the event. While I was drafting my own speech in my mind, my sister drafted and sent her speech over an email. I also asked my mother to prepare and deliver a speech at the function. I could sense it that she wanted to do that very desperately, but she could not gather the courage to do that. Apart from that day, I guess she had never ever even given a thought to the idea of speaking at a gathering like that, with the spotlight on her. In her own little imagination of how things would be at the event, she prepared and was planning to sing a song for my father, which was very innocent and cute. Being very confused about her own feelings, emotions, and insecurities, she told me to include this second important piece of not unknown but lesser known side of my father. The info was that my father joined RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) somewhere in 1960s (I don't remember the exact year which she told, but that's not important), when he was somewhere less than 12 years of age. All this while until this moment, I knew that my father had a very strong intent to serve the society and the country at large, but I didn't know that he started on that journey that early in his life.
The second incident that led me to the question was in Jan 2020, when I traveled to New Delhi to attend Bauji's (my grandfather's) last rites. A few days before my travel, I got a call from my mother while I was in office. That was quite unusual, as for last many years I spoke to my parents over phone only over the weekends, or in case of emergencies. I was in the habit of avoiding my phone for any non-office socialization related work. Without getting into the real context of my conversation with my mother, let me just mention that it was about a not-so-critical money-matter in which my father and my mother had a difference of opinions. My mother presented her thought process which was right in its own perspective and which I understood. I pretty much knew both the parents' individual thought process on the matter, as the matter did not come up for the first time for a debate. Still, I called up my father and talked to him to reassure that he has the same perspective which I assumed he would be having, and which I believed to be correct in his own world of thinking. I discussed this with my fellow-philosopher colleague, and he concurred with my understanding that both my parents are correct in their own perspectives. This is the same colleague whom I mention in my last post "Shamshanam Bairagam", my tea-time was not as happening as my father's during his youthful service days ;). The open end where we finished our tea-time discussion was that why cant these two people (my parents) understand each other's perspectives and be at peace with themselves and with each other. Like any other unanswered open ended question about human behavior, particularly of our close ones, this open ended question kept lingering in my mind for some time. Because of the sudden demise of Bauji in Jan 2020, I traveled to Delhi. While I was there I was talking to one of my cousins who is very elder to me and who has spent more time living with my parents than our any other relative. When I brought up this open ended question in my conversation with him over a local drive in his car, he asked me a question - "Do you know your maternal grandfather did not live with your maternal grandmother for a considerable time of his life? And that's not because of work or professional commitments..". My answer to the question was "No", and I had and still have mixed feelings on whether I want to go to the depth of that question and search for the answer. But I got a very strong realization in that moment - "How much do I know my mother?".
When I thought over these incidents, the nonsensical question started making a lot of sense to me. Following dialogue with self started:
Q: Do I know my parents?
A: Yes, I know them but only as my parent.
Q: Did I try to know them in their individual perspectives of themselves and their life?
A: No, I know them either in their combined perspective as my parent or in their perspectives about each other and our family.
Q: Can I claim that I understand my parents?
A: No, I might have understood my own life to a great level in terms of metaphysics, I might have an above average understanding of typical Indian middle-class human behavior, but I am a failure when it comes to understanding what my parents actually are in their own individual selves.
Q: Why am I so ignorant about my parents?
A: Because it never occurred to give a serious thought and effort towards understanding them. During and post adolescence, I was too busy exploring and trying to understand my own growing self, finding and then building upon a career path, chasing girlfriend and then love, and finally when some of these pursuits were laid to rest, I got married and within 2.5 years of that had a kid. And then I was "being" a parent myself.
And then the easy to ask but difficult to answer question - "Do I want to know my parents now?". To be honest, the answer is "Not really..". I believe that this understanding can be and should be better established during adolescence and early adulthood. Now, there's too much ground to cover and too many layers of time and human self to peel. I believe that an ideal upbringing is the one in which we are able to introduce our children to at least some if not a major part of our individual selves, other than our family-oriented, responsible, idealistic, parental selves. My upbringing was not based on this open-up-your-self principle. As much as I imbibed and demonstrated the qualities taught to me by my parents' sacramental parenting, I guess I have held back and not presented to them a lot of my individual self which is not aligned with those qualities. I cherish my upbringing by my parents, it has made me into a very stable, self-sustaining man, and a socially acceptable human being. I cherish it as much as I cherish the journey of development of the other features of my self. However, if I ask myself - "Do I cherish my personal connection with my parents?" The answer is "No". Because it is not open. "Has there been an attempt at my parents' side to understand this other side of my self? ". The answer is "No". As a family, we live, exist, survive, feel, care and even thrive practically with each other. But do we understand each other? The answer is No.
This lack of interest in understanding another person is a general human characteristic. How much so ever idealistic we may want to sound by claiming that "I am very open minded, I welcome any perspective and any thought, I am a family man and I understand my family, and so on..", its our basic instinct to keep our perspective above everyone else's, to not give weight or sufficient attention to a counter-perspective, and also to present only the best non challenge-able perspective of our selves to the rest of the world, be it within the family or outside.
Can we make this situation better?
Yes, we can. For that we first need to be completely aware of our own selves, and be comfortable with its both good and the bad parts. "Acceptance" is a buzz word these days, thanks to the exponential growth of the spirituality and enlightenment business in India. We must accept that as humans it is absolutely normal not to be perfect or the best. One common mistake that Indian parents do is that they portray a perfect or best picture of themselves in front of their adolescent or just-turned-adult kids. This is done with mainly two intentions - first that the kid should imbibe only what's good in them, and second that their kid should not resisting imbibing that good if he/she comes to know of the not-so-good in them. This is where generation gap is set for a take off, because only good sides of things has been synced. If we think about it, the talks of generation gap mostly initiate with some bad quality of the younger person which counters the good quality of the elderly. The talks seldom initiate from a discussion on a bad quality of the elderly, because it has always been protected and never discussed.
Another mistake that the parents do is that they don't stop parenting and being "the parent" even when their kid has crossed the teens. A learning, from one of the my recently read books, comes to my mind. The book is about teachings of Chanakya, who is one of India's most revered ancient Indian teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor. In one of the chapters of the book, the author shares Chanakya's following simple and time-tested "Secret of Good Parenting":
For the first five years, love your child unconditionally, for the next ten years, discipline him. From the sixteenth year onward, treat him as a friend.
Towards the end of their teens, we need to befriend our children and stop being a hardcore parent. I know my peers who are 30+ and are still being parented as if they were in their teens or early twenties. I have observed in the corporate world that a senior will never let go of his most sincere and obedient subordinate, no matter what. The same corporate rule applies in parenting. Out of their natural human instincts, parents do not let their sincere and obedient children venture out of the safe cast of idealistic family values that they have set for them over so many years. They direct most of their energies in guiding the kid in who and who not to befriend, trying to find another kid who is inside a similar cast. And they advice to not be with people who defy their set ideals.
Friends is one of the few human communities which demonstrates acceptance at its best. We must agree that we learn a lot of things in life by being around with friends. Not only do we learn from our friends' stories of idealism and heroism, we also learn from the diversity of the dynamic experiences of their lives, which include some not-so-good side's stories of them.
Ever since I moved to Bangalore in 2016, I have been fortunate to have friends in my apartments who became my extended family. The difference between extended and main family is that the extended family of friends is temporary while the main family is permanent. Other than this, there is very less difference in the "knowing" aspect of the members of both the families. We do not know the complete life story of this extended family, but we not both good and bad stories. We know much more details of the life story of the main family, but we know only the good stories.
So, what do I conclude?
I conclude that I do not know my parents completely. If our lifetimes and life commitments allow, I would like to know my parents completely but that's not what I seek on a priority right now. But I will ensure that my son knows both my good and bad sides, and his answer to this nonsensical question is a plain "Yes".
