net send to memory: Achtung Daddy!

I come from a mother worshipping, father fearing culture. Mothers are typically depicted as the omniscient, kind and psychic beings while fathers are typically depicted as variations of Homer Simpson (though this is not very far from the truth). All our movies have always had a good measure of “Amma” sentiment (Political and otherwise) infused in them!

Note: For very many examples of Amma (mother) and Thangachi (sister) sentiments, start with the keywords “T Rajendran”.

Everything is maternal: mother tongue, bharat matha, mother earth … so on and so forth. I’m now forced to assume that it would have taken Mr. M.K. Gandhi a phenomenal amount of persuasion and non-violent protesting to avoid being labelled as the MOTHER of the Nation by his fellow countrymen. God rest his masculine soul. Due to all this bias that I was exposed to during my impressionable childhood and impressionable adulthood, I take it upon myself to glorify my dad and all the daddies of the world in this and many forthcoming posts. (The said list doesn’t include daddies in the same vein as Snoop Dogg)

I used to hate my dad. I understand that it is a bad start to a post dedicated to glorifying him, but that’s beside the point. No wait, let me go all the way back to my childhood. From what I’m told and if the photos in my childhood album weren’t photoshoped, my dad was apparently very affectionate towards me when I was a child. But conveniently, ever since my memory capacity developed to be a little more than that of a goldfish, he decided to bring me up the rough and tough way. And boy did he believe in it! I was his official rag doll. I got thrashed pretty badly at frequent and regular intervals. But looking back at the pint-sized semi-smart missile of mass destruction that I was, I see now that my childhood experiences were equivalent to, “getting away with a mild warning after performing a two footed drop kick on my own team’s goal keeper”.

Back to my dad. After I matured mentally or grew an inch taller than him (actually, the former reason never came to pass), my dad restrained from physically punishing me. But since I had grown up, he could now use verbal abuse to far greater damage! Anyway, now I have reason to believe that all the while he was acting like my nemesis, he was moulding me to grow up as a man! Now I rightfully like my chicken deep-fried, my face with a two-day stubble and my Amway acquaintances very far. But I’m not sure about my dad though; he was watching mega serials last time I checked.

Now, where was I? Ah, yes glorifying my dad. He did teach me very important values,

1. To question anything and everything. The effect: I’m currently questioning the questions.

2. To lead an honest and straightforward life regardless of how twisted the world has become.

3. To treat women with the respect they deserve. The effect: I get a lot of flak from feminists all over the world.

4. To steal sweets from the kitchen before they are offered to God. His theory: God exists in everything including the sweet and me. About time they got introduced.

5. To view life from the wisdom gained by reading a magazine called “MAD”. No further comments on this one.

There are more, but I will post them in a later post. That’s it for now. My father is the foundation for the architecture of my family. The architecture itself resembles a mad house, but that’s what we are and we love it. As usual my thoughts started somewhere and this post ended up being a complete digression. I am beginning to wonder if this whole concept of blogging is good for “focussing” my creative talents?

But hey! All said and done, I love my family! They are as nutty as they come and we are very proud of it! If you think that’s weird, tuff luck, schmuck!