Whatever the veracity and authenticity of these episodes and words might be, the thought that a woman could consider the father of her child a vapid, frivolous, and irresponsible speck of humanity in one instance and a supreme human being on another, depending on circumstances, is a scary and ominous one.
by Ruwantissa Abeyratne in Montreal
“Father”, Johnny thought, My God, what a word; what a responsibility…It’s always what a man wants…to have his son better than what he is. Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog.
Father’s Day, which is on the third Sunday of June, falls on the 19th of June this year.
I am intrigued by a statement in Shyam Selvadurai’s wonderful fictional work Mansions of the Moon (which I am reading at present) where Princess Yasodhara describes to her son Rahula his father Siddhartha: “ He was never good at the manly pursuits. So he pretended disdain for them, pretended they did not matter…So we have to accept that he was a selfish man. He deserted us without even saying goodbye”. Whether Yasodhara actually said this 2600 years ago is anyone’s guess but in his usual evocative way, Selvadurai makes me wonder.
On the other hand, when I listen to Naraseeha Gatha - verses reflecting words uttered by Princess Yasodhara to her son Rahula, on the occasion of the Buddha's first visit to Kapilavatthu after his enlightenment - I hear the Princess extolling the virtues of Rahula’s father - the Buddha: “His red sacred feet are marked with a red wheel; His long heels are decked with characteristic marks; His feet are adorned with a chowri and parasol; That’s indeed your father, who’s a supreme human being; He’s a noble Shakya prince; With a delicate and beautiful human body; He renounced the worldly life for the well being of all living beings; That indeed is your father, who’s a supreme human being”.
Whatever the veracity and authenticity of these episodes and words might be, the thought that a woman could consider the father of her child a vapid, frivolous, and irresponsible speck of humanity in one instance and a supreme human being on another, depending on circumstances, is a scary and ominous one.
From the time I was a little boy, through my adolescence and adulthood until the day my first child arrived, I did not realize that I had been doing everything - from passing exams, attaining positions in life, amassing wealth - to prepare for fatherhood, a privilege in life that would rid me of inferiority and give me a sense of purpose, a sense of direction, and a sense of dignity that no other human except my child would bless me with. I now realize that if I recovered from the depths of frivolity of Siddhartha to achieve the heights of Naraseeha (the man lion) it would not have mattered to him one bit.
A mother’s love and a father’s responsibility are what any child expects. Perhaps it is this responsibility which keeps the father going until the end, as Robert Frost aptly put it: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep; but I have miles to go and promises to keep, before I sleep”.
In a way, Father’s Day is a “deal” between father and child which epitomises caring for one another in times of vulnerability and infirmity. It is also about keeping promises; of an inarticulate reciprocity that also gives the child a sense of purpose and gratitude. Once I read a beautiful story: “A son took his old father to a restaurant for an evening dinner. Father being very old and weak, while eating, dropped food on his shirt and trousers. Other diners watched him in disgust while his son was calm.
After he finished eating, his son who was not at all embarrassed, quietly took him to the washroom, wiped the food particles, removed the stains, combed his hair, and fitted his spectacles firmly.
When they came out, the entire restaurant was watching them in dead silence, not able to grasp how someone could embarrass themselves publicly like that.
The son settled the bill and started walking out with his father.
At that time, an old man amongst the diners called out to the son and asked him, “Don’t you think you have left something behind?”
The son replied, “No sir, I haven’t.”
The old man retorted, “Yes, you have! You left a lesson for every son and hope for every father.”
A father’s gratitude is for elevation to a status of self realization – an exalted sense of being the protector. However ugly a father may seem to society, to the child this matters not. And to the father, the protection of his innocent child from an insidious and opportunistic force, whatever it may be, is the priority, irrespective of the danger the father may face. I remember becoming immediately aware of my own vulnerability and the deep and overwhelming sense of responsibility I felt towards my new born child. It brings to memory a poem I wrote as I came home that day titled “The Devil Bird”.
Deep in the hinterland
lived the devil bird
shunned by humans
because it is ugly
and a vision of the bird would portend
tragedy and death
Its clumsy body weakened by vicious myth
it saw a naked boy child, an infant
At once its hunger vanished
its weak body straightened
its wings spread to cover
the child's frigid nakedness
its own sounds of joy
raucous and ugly
resonating its pathetic braying
They hit with sticks and stones
The bird stood relentless, lifeless, and dead
Only then did the people
see that the stones they had used
to kill the bird, had killed their own kind
At this stage of my life, I begin to value the shelter I gave my children them from the harsh reality they faced. Although my protection is no longer of use to them, I pray that, at the end of the day, when darkness falls with the promise of a fresh dawn for me, my sons would remember how together we once we shook the roots of the tree of life to its barest twigs. I hope they will retain life's continued bond and will not allow it to pale into a pathetic mime as we look at each other just one last time.
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