My Dad Taught Me Everything About Being A Father, If Only I Had Listened

As you read this, your Diwali festivities will be on the wane, but you’re most likely still feeling the warm glow that comes from spending time with family. Yet, it’s also a time that gets some of us nostalgic. We think of the years we spent as a child waiting for that first firecracker to go off, or lining up at an interminable line at some temple or gorging your face with shankarpalli until your mother glared at you with that secretive, sideways look that froze your blood. And for some of us, Diwali is also a chance to think of those whose spirit burns as brightly as our memory of them. As a father of two, I always tend to compare notes with what my father did. Like, how we’d light firecrackers in a bucket as members of the family had their ‘pahili anghol’ (literally, first bath of the new year), and how we’d go fish shopping and he’d make the Koli women blush. I also tend to look at his approach to fatherhood.