Father’s Day in New York

Will They Still Need Me?

“This holiday was one etched in sadness as well as thankfulness.” A pastor in the town of Monangah in West Virginia, perhaps the poorest state in the US, said these words at a memorial service for 360 men, who were killed in a coal mine disaster in December 1906. His Central United Methodist Church was the site of the first celebration of Father’s Day in 1908. The prayers were in honor of the fathers who died. The day was observed in different places at different times. It became official when President Richard Nixon proclaimed it a national holiday in 1972; the day fixed was the third Sunday in June.

Many years later, when I lived in Chicago, my first daughter was born. To mark the occasion, my mother gave us a plaque, which said “You should give your children roots and wings.” Four years later, my younger one showed up on a snowy, cold December afternoon. With two children competing for attention and resources, I became aware of the role of the father.

Fast forward to Father’s Day 2007: my younger daughter, a resident New “Yawker,” took me to McSorley’s, the oldest pub on the buzzing Lower East Side, where she lives, to quaff a few beers with her friends. She is focused on making a life for herself in “this city that never sleeps;” she works hard and when she has the free time, she and her friends make the most of “New York, New York;” as Frank Sinatra sang. His refrain: “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere…it’s up to you…”

My older one is the take-charge type, who can fix anything from an insurance policy to an airline ticket; from a major PowerPoint presentation to pointed research. The venue for her achievements is Delhi; she enjoys her free time with her friends from all over the world who happen to live in Delhi. She travels the world with an easy sophistication that I never knew. Fathers should be so lucky, as I have been with both my daughters, who are happy to share their lives with me.

My older daughter’s roots and my younger one’s wings are a perfect foil for my mother’s advice. They both make their way in the world. They are off and running: one protecting the roots, the other projecting the wings. Yet there is a disturbing arrhythmia in my mind. My thoughts go back to the vacations we shared together and I hope we can do it again and again as we did for many years in Goa, in Southeast Asia, in Europe and in the United States. The sadness comes from knowing such togetherness will become less frequent in the years to come.

These sentiments are a luxury that today’s fathers enjoy. When I was growing up, fathers were remote persons. Whether liberal or conservative, they just did not get involved in their children’s lives. The authoritarian ones ran their children’s lives according to their worldview; the more liberal ones simply accepted things. If they couldn’t control their children or satisfy them with material or ideological baubles, they pulled back and became even more distant.

Father’s Day is when children honor and indulge their father. I’m a sucker for the syrupy sentimentality that goes with it. For me, it has always been a pause; a chance to remember the wonderful times growing up with my children; to recognize that the relationship with them is always ambiguous. You love them, let them be and hope for nothing in return. Most times, you experience pure joy; other times, there may be sheer aggravation. That’s unconditional love. Underlying it is a bittersweet taste: as fathers we tried to move heaven and earth to smooth things for our children when they were dependent on us. The haunting question is: will they still need me when I’m 64?

On a brighter note, some day I will have grandchildren on my knee.


A version of this article appeared in Bombay's DNA newspaper in June 2007.


Copyright Rajiv Desai 2009

Tessin Journal

Living Gandhi’s Dream

This mountainous county in southeastern Switzerland straddles the border with Italy. On the Swiss side, the picturesque little village of Gordola stretches from the bottom to the top of a hill. We are sitting in the upper reaches under a bower sheltered by a grapevine with clusters of fruit hanging within arm’s reach. Looking across the valley, we can see the Ticcino River as it runs into Lago (Lake) Maggiore, of which we have an expansive view. We are at the home of our niece Lisa Pereira and her husband Beat Ferrario, having dinner that comprises salads, vegetables, meat, fruit and wine…and every item on the menu is local, grown and made in Tissin.

In the course of the evening I learn that the people here pride themselves in their self-reliance: they eat locally-grown produce and meat and drink locally-bottled wine made from local grapes, especially a Merlot, which seems to be the trademark drink of the area. Watching the sun set at around 10 pm, I marveled at the simplicity and sophistication of life in this bounteous place.

The local angle got me thinking: isn’t this what Mohandas Gandhi said when he talked about Indian villages being self sufficient? “Every village will be a republic… (It) has to be self sustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of defending itself against the whole world,” he wrote in the Harijan, some 63 years ago, on July 28, 1946. So while the Swiss people exult in their village republics, they also have a global presence with world beating companies in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, machine tools, textile machinery and also in lifestyle brands like Swatch, Omega, Mont Blanc and even ultimately the Swiss Army.

Sadly, in India, villages are dens of filth and inequity; major stumbling blocks to progress. As far as global brands, India now finally boasts some companies like Infosys, Wipro and Tata. In political terms, self sufficiency in India means cronyism and a seller’s market. But the Swiss version, which I experienced in Tessin, was modern and enlightened. I thought to myself: isn’t this exactly what Gandhi advocated?

In reviewing Amartya Sen’s book, The Argumentative Indian, the historian Ramchandra Guha wrote: “As a multilingual and yet democratic country, India’s only rival is Switzerland.” Guha’s review in the Economic and Political Weekly, October 8, 2005, was a scathing dismissal of Sen’s book, which has become the bible of the soft left in India, especially the partially literate politicians in the Congress Party. But Indian politics need not detain us here. Guha hit the nail on the head. Switzerland appears to have been the model on the basis of which Gandhi proffered his theory about village republics.

However, what Guha overlooked was that India shares the same diversity with the United States. His comparison of India and Switzerland gives me strength because at a dinner in a suburb of Zurich with the Ferrario family, I was asked what I thought about Switzerland and I said, to the horror of my interlocutors, that their country was the America of Europe: cultural diversity as well as technological prowess. My assessment was challenged with zest. I could have also brought India into the comparison except that as Guha wrote, it is “much poorer and much more diverse.”

It is a shame that my experience in Tessin has to be explained in terms of political ideology. On the contrary, the region is best described in poetic excess, with wide-eyed wonderment and innocent verse. It matches the beauty of the Himalayan regions; it is cleaner and its villages more picturesque. Above all, its inhabitants display a zeal for locally produced victuals, bread, wine, produce and meat: the essentials of the good life. They are prosperous and smiling; on the other hand, India’s hill dwellers only have a hard luck story to tell, much like the Swiss some 100 years ago.

Our experience in Tessin was a slice of heaven. The taste of the food and the wine still lingers in my taste buds as much as the tableaux in my eyes. On the way back, we stopped in Zurich, where the blue-green Limmat River flows swiftly through. I am still struck by images of young people swimming in the river, right in the heart of the city. Asked to describe Switzerland in one word, I would unhesitatingly say: “Gandhian.”

During the trip, I explained the comparative analysis to my American-born daughters. They both chorused in unison: “Lighten up, Dad, we’re on vacation.” But the comparison, I guess, is part of the Indian cross I have to bear everywhere I go.

A version of this article appeared in Bombay’s DNA newspaper in July 2006.


Copyright Rajiv Desai 2009