So
I don’t regard Father’s Day as anything very special to celebrate, but for once
it felt good to see that from Google to The Telegraph t2, they have all decided
that, to be just about politically correct, they should make a fuss about it,
at least this year.
(I
started the sentence with a meaningless ‘so’ just to see what it looks and
sounds like, since it is currently all the rage among teenagers worldwide – and
yes, it’s completely stupid, not ‘cool’,
just as I thought: if any of my young students are reading this,
beware).
I
watched the movie called Fatherhood
which has just been put up (or ‘dropped’ if you like) on Netflix. It helped me
re-live those glorious years when Pupu was growing up, and it’s mostly silly
mush, and it turned out fine in the end because the director wanted it to, but,
to all who have just become fathers or are going to be soon, one quiet word of
advice from a father with long hindsight: don’t overdo the ‘The world exists to
please you… you are uniquely special … I am dedicated single mindedly to the
task of making you feel right and good all the time’ stuff. It doesn’t do much
to build up their psyches healthily, and eventually hurts them more than if
they had been brought up to know, from a very early age, that the world does not revolve around them. A bit of
hardship and self-reliance (both mental and physical) and taking responsibility
and acquaintance with some of the badness and unfairness in the world and
knowledge of whatever little badness exists within themselves cannot do them
harm. If you really have their long-term interest at heart, I mean to say.
Personally I believe I have done fairly above average as a father, but
remember, I have closely watched thousands growing up, and I can’t say that
most doting fathers I see are doing very well.
By
now, as with every other family, almost everyone in mine has had a brush with
Covid. Both sadly and mercifully, only a cousin my own age has died so far, and
she had advanced cancer anyway. I hope, if anybody else has to be taken, it
will be me, and may the young ones be spared.
We
have been having a very rainy June. These last few days, it’s been overcast all
day, and rather than the air conditioner going full blast, I have actually had
to turn off the overhead fan at night. It’s probably a big depression passing
over us, and once it clears up, I am afraid to think how muggy it’s going to be
in July (but hilsa is going to be a
lot cheaper than usual for some time, I hear!) That’s when I am planning to
reopen classes once more, ready to shut them down for a while again if the
numbers start shooting up a few months down the line. That’s the way we shall
probably be going on for another long year…
One
thing about the marketplaces in my town that has struck me as odd for a long
time is that, while many fish vendors are women, hardly any vegetable seller
is. I think it’s more or less the same everywhere, even in the big cities. Is
it just a coincidence or an accident that has become stereotyped, or does
anyone know any specific reason why?
Observing
and musing upon the way our governments have been (mal-) functioning and
bickering (states and Centre) over the last few years, I think I can say a few
things without prejudice. It is said that the cure for the ills of democracy is
more democracy. From that point of view, I wish that three things would happen
sooner or later: a) that people would vote much more on the basis of what the
government has actually done for them that directly and intimately affects
their lives, rather than going by glorious promises of one or other kind of
utopia; b) that elected representatives of the people at all levels, MPs and
MLAs included, can be recalled by the voters at any time, depending on their
perceived performance or non-performance as public servants (as I hear they can
be in some countries), and c) that India become a much more federal polity,
leaving most of the powers of day to day governance in the hands of state
governments. Given how vast our state populations are (some of them are much
bigger than many countries!) and how diverse the peoples, I think, given the
incessant and increasing tensions and conflicts between the state- and Union
governments, that is the only way to keep many bits and pieces of what we still
know as India from flying apart. I worry very much that that is a distinct
possibility now, and anything but unimaginable; it happened to the Maurya and
Mughal empires when they tried to tighten the screws too hard, and something as
big and powerful as the Soviet Union not only collapsed but vanished from the
map, remember.
Good to see that I have had 750,000+ page views by now. The million views milestone is now almost within sight!
