On Being a Father

I'm wondering, on this note of miracles, what is it like being a father and a grandfather? It's a great mystery. My daughter's name is Manju. In our family, we used to say, it's always a B.M. that is before Manju and A.M. after Manju. Life changes.

So we refer to our whole dating system as B.M. and A.M. It is really always a great mystery. The fact is, certainly for me, it is true. I suspect it is really true for all parents. We don't really know how we should be dealing with our kids because it is a great mystery.

They are, in a way, part of us, but each character is completely unique. So how to, to some extent, parents are obliged to socialize their kids of necessity because they have to live in the society, they have to succeed, all that is required. But I realize, especially after I became a grandparent, grandparents have more freedom. If a kid even dirties the diapers, you ask the parents to take care. So they can even indulge the kids.

Parents can't quite, they have to socialize them. It's a requirement, actually. So it's a slightly different function. Grandparents can have, in fact, more freedom, both in terms of indulgence and also speaking about things which are not getting them better marks in school or whatever, but can be a great sense of wonder. For me, it was really a whole mystery, and this might surprise you.

In fact, I even mentioned this in a conference, and then let me tell you what the story is. Manju was about, I think, a little less than two years old. And it was winter, snow outside, and in Canada, of course, snow is hardly unusual. And so we were all nicely dressed, and we are lying in snow outside, well there. And stars are shining, completely suddenly.

This was among her very first few remarks. She had just started to speak. She says, Dad, do you know what I was before I was born? This is completely out of the blue. And so I was just listening.

I was a star in the sky. Now, this is my daughter, telling me this is hardly two years old. I mentioned this in a conference, three different people, this was in England, three different people brought to me remarks from Shakespeare, from his writings, where people actually had said exactly that. So now, what is the truth of it? I don't know.

But where is it coming from? I have no idea. We're just lying there in the snow, looking at the stars, and this is where she comes out of it. So that kind of completely mysterious remarks, they bring a whole different kind of delight. And on one occasion, there was a full moon.

We were just coming into the room, coming back to the house after having gone for a walk. So she stops at the entrance, says to the moon, Moon, come in with us. This is my daughter. So I mean, her idea of the moon, as if the moon is just walking with us. This is hardly my end.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, the kids have a very different sense of reality. So anyhow, I have had great delight. I could tell you many other stories. Also when she was a teenager on one day, getting so mad at me, saying, I didn't ask to be born of you.

So there is the other side. I didn't ask to be born of you. So I reminded her that according to all of Indian philosophy, you actually do choose your parents, whether you like it or not. She was not convinced. Now she's willing to be.

Now she agrees. Not only. How do we as grownups, as adults, tap into that? Well, I think a sense of wonder relief, you begin to really realize that we don't know everything, which in a way is so obvious. We often keep making comment on everything we hear, everything that happens.

Actually in that context, I should tell you this very much related again with my daughter. She was about two or so. I was just carrying her, taking her. This was fall. So she was even probably less than two because she was born in January, so I think.

And lovely colors in the woods, as you know, especially in Canada or in the U.S., in some places there are lovely colors. And I found myself saying to her, looking at these colors, oh, look how beautiful. Suddenly something in me was very clear that I don't need to prejudice her mind that this is beautiful, this isn't beautiful, let her just look at it. Something was so clear in me. After that I didn't give any labeling to this, I just let her be there in the woods.

And she's been so much delighted. She's really very much involved in environmentalism and I have occasionally gone for a walk with her at night. She used to take little tours to look at nature, but it's mostly not like. She sees things which I don't see, so she has a great kind of feeling for nature. It could have been, I don't know that, but it could have been slightly spoiled if I just labeled things for her.

So not to get too labeling, too commenting on everything, pigeon-holing things, classifying things. I think that's, but for ourselves also, that is what enhances our sense of wonder. Not everything that we look at. You look at any of the poets. When they describe something, they're not pigeon-holing things.

Everything is a kind of a sense of wonder to this. Thank you, Raviji. It's been wonderful. Thank you. Well, as you can see, my life is really just, I didn't create myself, you know, I keep to remember this.

It's such a simple statement, nobody could disagree with this.