Sentinaro Longkumer
Civil Lines, New Delhi
The first picture that comes to our mind when someone says, “Father” is the picture of a hero or a shelter.It is an undeniable fact that the attribute of strength always runs parallel with a father. But, are they strong all throughout their life? Do they never falter? Do they always win? We know the answer pretty well. Still, we keep them in the frame of a hero forever because culture has stereotyped fathers to be heroes against all odds. They are being pushed to walk extra mile, sometimes beyond their capacity, because culture has implanted that in them. But let us not forget that ours is a world where weaknesses are part of human life and fathers are vulnerable too. Sometimes they may not have all the solutions, sometimes they may not meet the expense of all the needs and sometimes they may not win despite trying their best. They too feel as much low as we feel when we are at our lowest moment. So, when we expect them to always win and protect us, perhaps we are putting too much pressure on them. And by doing so, we may be naively agreeing to the wrong notion that being helpless is disgraceful for fathers. So it’s high time to accepttheir vulnerability alongside their strengths; we cannot criminate their flaws when we too have our own flaws.
When the world is celebrating Father’s Day with all glory, it is also virtuous to ask if we are putting too much weight by expecting only laurels from them. We cannot expect fathers to be like the gods in Greek mythology with extra ordinary powers. After all they are humans like anyone of us.So let us respect them for who they are and not for the things they do for us. Let us try to understand their unfinished projects and blunders,let us give them room to cry and laugh, let us allow their bottled-up emotions to burst out, let us admire them equally when they win and lose, let us tell them that we can shoulder the responsibilities together, let us make them realise that their love surpass their toughness, let them be reminded that it is okay to be fragile sometimes, let us not belittle them when the goal is not reached and let us embrace their weakness as much as we embrace their strengths.
The strengths of fathers and their contribution can never be denied and they will always be a mark in life. But on the other side, their vulnerability as humans cannot be denied either. So if we are still looking at fathers from the lens of the “always infallible man”, perhaps we need to it dust off. This Father’s Day, let us not burden our fathers byembracing only prize-winning stories of them, but let us make them special by embracing their weakness alongside their strengths.
