Aamir Khan-Azad Rao Khan
Superstar Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao had their first baby, Azad Rao Khan, through the In vitro fertilisation surrogacy technique. This is an expensive procedure and not every couple having trouble conceiving can afford it. Some, however, have had the good fortune of experiencing parenthood through IVF surrogacy but are too embarrassed to acknowledge it.
For a public figure like Aamir to make a candid and brave admission set a new precedent of sorts. By attaching his brand value to the procedure, he managed to remove the unpleasantness associated with something that is scientific and healthy. Later, fellow superstar Shah Rukh Khan too followed in his footsteps, using IVF surrogacy for the birth of his third child.
I credit Aamir and his family for making their new-born a torch-bearer for many such deliveries in the future. His brave move has created for Azad, a path of truth, courage and progression.
While these are fathers I look up to, there are umpteen examples of dads who have failed their children. They were either found wanting in fulfilling their responsibilities or were outright indifferent to their child’s upbringing. Ironically, Mahatma Gandhi, who is known as the Father of the Nation, wasn’t the best parent to his son Harilal. An article published in The Guardian in 2007 corroborates this. “Mahatma Gandhi once confessed that the greatest regret of his life was that there were two people he had not been able to convince. One was Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the other was his eldest son, Harilal Gandhi,” said the story.
Gandhi was only 18 when his first son was born. Six months after the birth of Harilal, he left his family in South Africa to train as a barrister in London. Harilal’s early years were marked with complete neglect by his father which reflected in his various complexes and rebellious nature. He spent his life fighting against all that his father stood for and died a pitiable death a few months after his assassination. Did Gandhi get carried away in his exaggerated sense of idealism, making Harilal a victim? Well, the answer to that question will always remain a subject of conjecture.
German leader Adolf Hitler too had a tempestuous relationship with his father Alois through his growing up years. It is widely believed that Hitler was so terrified of his abusive father that it led to a persecution complex. Sadly, Hitler’s flawed personality resulted in consequences and casualties that impacted an entire generation.
So I guess it’s safe to say that a dysfunctional father-son relationship can almost never produce healthy or positive personalities. This is where a spiritual connect between the father and son becomes all the more important. A positive father can help his child explore facets of his personality that he would have never imagined existed in him. An aloof one, on the other hand, can end up fuelling unhealthy complexes that inhibit growth and progress.
Once while travelling in a cab with my son Tanish, I observed that our driver kept peeking at us in the rear view mirror. He then began humming a lullaby in a local dialect of Uttar Pradesh to himself. The pain and emotion in his voice was palpable. He later confided that he was missing his son who he had left behind in Allahabad while he worked here in Mumbai. Every year he would take a month off from work to visit his family in Allahabad. That was all the time he could eke out to be with his son. Every time he went home, he saw his son had grown considerably from the last time they met. It saddened him that he had missed out on some of the most magical moments of his early life.
This 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.
