I just saw this movie in bits and pieces as I was getting ready for a heavy round of teaching tomorrow. Call it middle age crisis or whatever. I somehow felt sorry for George Banks as he gave his daughter away to Bryan Mackenzie.
I had felt a similar pain when my sister, younger to me by three years, got married more than thirty years ago. The thought that she had left our home to be part of another family caused me a lot of sadness. The thought that I could not hope to see her at will, as I could before, was difficult to accept.
I was a twenty five year old man then. I wept in bouts, shamelessly, for four days!
That was notwithstanding the fact that we had fought like hell every day we were together. And that was not for long and not often. We had gotten separated when I was eleven because my father deposited me in grandparents' custody so that I could study in the same school till I went to college, unaffected by his periodic transfers.
So my sister and I would meet when I had vacations. Fortunately I had more than a fair share of those vacations thanks to frequent student unrest in Kerala. And on every one of those we would fight.
Finally, there came a time when she grew as tall as I am. That was the moment the tide turned in her favour in our frequent fights. She could now reach for my skull at will to settle scores and repay my kindness.
Now as a father of two boys and uncle to two nieces, whenever I see girls being married off I think of my own pain when my sister was married off and the day when I would no longer be able to badger my nieces as I have done all these years. The day when they will become part of another man's life.
As I watched the movie I also thought about the relationship between the father in law and son in law. I am of the view that it is no less fractious than that between the proverbial tussle between the mother in law and daughter in law that has been grist to many a script writer's mill.
I think of the many fathers in law and sons in law that I have known. My maternal grandad and my father rarely spoke for more than ten minutes without entering into an argument. The old man could not see anything right about my poor Dad. As a kid I was caught between my affection and admiration for these two men who have shaped my life most. I wondered why they could not approve of each other.
As I grew older history repeated itself. Whenever my father in law and I are in each other's company Lakshmi's antennae are on hyper alert as she is war-ready, trying to avert the outbreak of WW-III, to use a hackneyed metaphor. Left to ourselves we both are pacifists, except when we are in each other's company.
It does not seem to stop at that. It goes on to even relationships in the offing. My sister's husband, for example, cannot seem to see merit in any of the dozens of proposals that my sister trawls up from the huge ocean of prospects from numerous matrimonial sites. My nasty suspicion is that the man sees a potential villain in any man who might marry my niece.
The problem goes even beyond just possessive Dads all the way to possessive uncles. For reasons I cannot seem to understand I have been unable to see merit in any of the alliances that my sister has run past me for the same aforementioned niece.
And if all of that was not enough listen to this. There is this kid whom I convinced myself that could have been a daughter born to Lakshmi and me. She has so many of Lakshmi's qualities: Bright, strong in maths, quiet to the point of speaking only if she cannot help it, understated, built nearly like her with a slight slouch because she is conscious of her height and also as Mallu as they ever come.
And so over time I declared to Lakshmi that I had decided to "adopt" her. Lakshmi was nonchalant. She realised that there was no real threat to the composition of our family in the offing. She knew that my decision, just as much as my affinity, was totally one-sided.
That kind of nonchalance has helped her - and me too - because there has been a string of similar "adoptions" thereafter, all one-sided, reminding one of the motion producer millionaire in a Wodehousian novel who had to propose to any woman that he spoke with for more than five minutes.
When I got to hear about the first "adopted" daughter's husband I came home and ranted that the kid deserved a better man for her husband. And that he appeared to be utterly unbankable, unviable and unworthy of "my daughter". I even thought of warning the kid off.
Lakshmi was a little perturbed by then. She pulled herself together quickly though and asked me if it was not a case of history repeating itself, of a father in law disapproving a son in law. The important difference she reminded me helpfully was that the kid in question was not even mine biologically or legally and so I had to be mindful of the rights, or more precisely the lack of it.
And then she cautioned me that unless I changed my world view on sons in law I was setting myself up for a string of miseries, given the rate at which I was had started adding nieces to my family and "adopting" daughters by then.
She then signed off in true Mallu irony as she noted that God knows what to give to whom and when. "Imagine the plight of those poor fellows who would have married our daughters if we had had any. They would not have had a day of peace!"
Much as I did not like it, in the name of honesty, I have to admit that the woman is right - as she always seems to be - especially when it comes to me!
Nanni....Namaskaaram....
I had felt a similar pain when my sister, younger to me by three years, got married more than thirty years ago. The thought that she had left our home to be part of another family caused me a lot of sadness. The thought that I could not hope to see her at will, as I could before, was difficult to accept.
I was a twenty five year old man then. I wept in bouts, shamelessly, for four days!
That was notwithstanding the fact that we had fought like hell every day we were together. And that was not for long and not often. We had gotten separated when I was eleven because my father deposited me in grandparents' custody so that I could study in the same school till I went to college, unaffected by his periodic transfers.
So my sister and I would meet when I had vacations. Fortunately I had more than a fair share of those vacations thanks to frequent student unrest in Kerala. And on every one of those we would fight.
Finally, there came a time when she grew as tall as I am. That was the moment the tide turned in her favour in our frequent fights. She could now reach for my skull at will to settle scores and repay my kindness.
Now as a father of two boys and uncle to two nieces, whenever I see girls being married off I think of my own pain when my sister was married off and the day when I would no longer be able to badger my nieces as I have done all these years. The day when they will become part of another man's life.
As I watched the movie I also thought about the relationship between the father in law and son in law. I am of the view that it is no less fractious than that between the proverbial tussle between the mother in law and daughter in law that has been grist to many a script writer's mill.
I think of the many fathers in law and sons in law that I have known. My maternal grandad and my father rarely spoke for more than ten minutes without entering into an argument. The old man could not see anything right about my poor Dad. As a kid I was caught between my affection and admiration for these two men who have shaped my life most. I wondered why they could not approve of each other.
As I grew older history repeated itself. Whenever my father in law and I are in each other's company Lakshmi's antennae are on hyper alert as she is war-ready, trying to avert the outbreak of WW-III, to use a hackneyed metaphor. Left to ourselves we both are pacifists, except when we are in each other's company.
It does not seem to stop at that. It goes on to even relationships in the offing. My sister's husband, for example, cannot seem to see merit in any of the dozens of proposals that my sister trawls up from the huge ocean of prospects from numerous matrimonial sites. My nasty suspicion is that the man sees a potential villain in any man who might marry my niece.
The problem goes even beyond just possessive Dads all the way to possessive uncles. For reasons I cannot seem to understand I have been unable to see merit in any of the alliances that my sister has run past me for the same aforementioned niece.
And if all of that was not enough listen to this. There is this kid whom I convinced myself that could have been a daughter born to Lakshmi and me. She has so many of Lakshmi's qualities: Bright, strong in maths, quiet to the point of speaking only if she cannot help it, understated, built nearly like her with a slight slouch because she is conscious of her height and also as Mallu as they ever come.
And so over time I declared to Lakshmi that I had decided to "adopt" her. Lakshmi was nonchalant. She realised that there was no real threat to the composition of our family in the offing. She knew that my decision, just as much as my affinity, was totally one-sided.
That kind of nonchalance has helped her - and me too - because there has been a string of similar "adoptions" thereafter, all one-sided, reminding one of the motion producer millionaire in a Wodehousian novel who had to propose to any woman that he spoke with for more than five minutes.
When I got to hear about the first "adopted" daughter's husband I came home and ranted that the kid deserved a better man for her husband. And that he appeared to be utterly unbankable, unviable and unworthy of "my daughter". I even thought of warning the kid off.
Lakshmi was a little perturbed by then. She pulled herself together quickly though and asked me if it was not a case of history repeating itself, of a father in law disapproving a son in law. The important difference she reminded me helpfully was that the kid in question was not even mine biologically or legally and so I had to be mindful of the rights, or more precisely the lack of it.
And then she cautioned me that unless I changed my world view on sons in law I was setting myself up for a string of miseries, given the rate at which I was had started adding nieces to my family and "adopting" daughters by then.
She then signed off in true Mallu irony as she noted that God knows what to give to whom and when. "Imagine the plight of those poor fellows who would have married our daughters if we had had any. They would not have had a day of peace!"
Much as I did not like it, in the name of honesty, I have to admit that the woman is right - as she always seems to be - especially when it comes to me!
Nanni....Namaskaaram....
No comments:
Post a Comment