father Archives - Page 2 of 2

Why Good Indian Boys Never Become Good Indian Men

The metrics for being a good child are different for Indian boys and girls. There is a soft bigotry of low expectations for boys, and a very high degree of expectations from a girl. By 10 years of age, my sister was equipped to survive a season on LOST – but I was the good boy who didn’t need to do anything more than tuck his legs in.

Hardik Rajgor May 19, 2016

POV

How My Father Turned Me Into A Biker Long Before I Could Ride One

Biking is often identified with callousness, but it was in my case, a domestic inheritance. My father trained me to be a biker long before my feet could touch the ground on one.

Kshitij Salve May 18, 2016

Modern Family

Why Don’t Indian Families Say “I Love You”?

Indian families are diverse in every way, especially in how they choose to express affection. There are the boisterous, pappi-jhappi ones – and then there are the quiet, awkward-hug kind of families who pass on a strained emotional inheritance to their confused millennial children.

Shalaka Pradhan May 18, 2016

Culture

Darna Mana Hai: What Lies Beneath Our Ghost Stories

Ghosts don’t exist in a vacuum. They are a culmination of numerous things – actual historical events, social oppressions, and injustice. They surround us; breathing, living entities, that are hoping we might inhale them and keep their legacy alive. Or occasionally, just offer them a piece of fish.

Aditi Sen May 13, 2016

POV

Mama’s Shawl, Papa’s Wallet… Is It Alright to Give Away Your Dead Parents’ Belongings?

Our loved ones live on in us and in our memories, but they also live on in the little and not-so-little things they leave behind. Discarding the things that belonged to my mother and father has been a wrestling match between sentimentality and practicality.

Mugdha Singh May 11, 2016

Modern Family

Mother Superior: Why Fatherhood Will Never Be Equal to Motherhood

Motherhood is starkly different from fatherhood. Fatherhood is like watching a movie on the couch; motherhood is like being in the movie. Only the movie is 300 and you are on the wrong side of the battlefield.

Anamika Tiwari April 30, 2016

Love and Sex

The Secret Life of My Father

I tried to be rational when I found out that my father was having an affair. But I was only drawing more lines for him to toe, for his halo to remain untarnished.

Sucharita April 4, 2016

First Person

My Father Sexually Abused Me as a Child. But I Still Can’t Hate Him

I was 12 when my father first touched me inappropriately. It took me reading about Lolita, more than a decade later, inciting and luring her stepfather into intimacy to realise that my first experience of any form of sexual pleasure came from my own father.

Vaishnavi March 30, 2016

Modern Family

How My Mother and I Became Friends… After My Father Died

Loss exposes how unprepared you really are. When my father died, my mother and I couldn't imagine a life without him or one with each other. But grief makes you look at the bigger picture. My father’s death is the reason my mother and I are no longer strangers.