PAA

"We don't see eye to eye on many things.But Dad, I come to believe that I got it in me to be somebody in this world. And it's not because I'm so different from you either. It's 'cause I'm the same. You know, I can be just as hardheaded and just as tough. I only hope I can be as good a man as you are." - October Sky

This line clearly epitomizes the terrains on which a father son relationship travels. It is probably the most intense, complex and subtle relationship in a man's life. The equation can never be expressed properly with the right adjectives because it has an uncanny enigma associated with it. From the time a little boy starts to understand the nuances of life, the first hero he envisages is his father. For a kid, everything that his father does,sets a benchmark that even his favorite actor can't emulate. Be it the style of amble, be it the way he talks, be it his style of reading newspaper or be it his demeanor with his office colleagues. How many of us haven't tried wearing the shoes of our father after he was back from office? How many of us haven't used his shaving brush to shave our then non-existent beards? How many of us haven't tried copying his signature( not necessary for forgery :P ) just to feel that sense of power? I can honestly confess here that for me, even his style of smoking was the best possible way one could smoke. There was a sense of amazing panache in everything a father did that its imitation gave a surreal satisfaction. For us at that age, he is the person we really want to be (immaterial of our minds vacillating to pursue everything from medicine to engineering to flying to cricket to even becoming an astronaut ).

As we grow, the respect and the awe never goes down, but the relationship transmogrifies to a more intense and mellowed level. The father, who has himself sailed in the same boat, understands exactly how the temperament of an adolescent boy works and he also understands the fact that if that is not kept in right check, it can succumb to nefarious influences. Now, here the chasm starts to deepen. There are myriad difference of opinions on the most trivial of issues as the boy is in an age where everything seems impeccable and accomplishable. The feeling complemented by a sudden rise of ego and an indefatigable spirit, when finds a resistive force in the form of his father's experience, doesn't try to cogitate over it but deviates to insurgency. What adds on to this conundrum is the stoic expression of emotions. On one hand, whereas the mothers(sweethearts that they are) have a conspicuous expression style, the fathers weigh their words on every occasion making sure that there isn't a deluge of emotions flowing. So your mother's ecstacy over any of your laurels would certainly be communicated to her friends in morning walks, kitty parties, over phone or office get-togethers. She'll prepare the best of delicacies to celebrate the occasion. Fathers on the other hand, will express their happiness over it but will simultaneously give you a cautionary message of not becoming complacent and to keep working hard as success is ephemeral. His discussion about your laurels with his colleagues would be centered around how can you improve on your current accomplishment and the entire conversation would be sans exaggerated encomium. So moms would be all smiling and ecstatic, hymning the tunes of " Arey mera beta, I'm so proud of you. We should thank God that you've achieved this fete. You worked so hard for this. Tell me what do you want now as a gift?".




Now fathers would watch all this histrionic tsunami of emotions("Khushi ke aansu") and when you look towards him with all the expectations of a song of eulogy, all you get is " Good Job son. Keep it Up". That's it? I mean seriously, that's it? Wasn't it to accomplish this fete that i was lambasted by you time and again for the lack of effort, and now all I get is a " Good Job". Well that's how a father- son relationship is!!!


But what is the reason behind this comport? The reason is pretty simple -He has been there and done that. He knows where can we get lost and hence he is our guiding light to make sure the limelight isn't headed towards the Road to Perdition. A father's sole intention is to be the avenue of reality check for his boy, he just cannot afford to get sentimental about his kid as he clearly understands the fact that a bit of toughness today is the only way the boy can graduate to a man. A classic line used by many fathers when we try to outsmart him and the connivance is caught- " Beta, Aakhirkaar main tera baap hoon". Point duly noted and appreciated boss.

For a guy, there can never be a more educative, informative or a more wise promulgation of ideas than there is discussing with his father. Right from discussion of world politics to how human psyche is, how one can be duped in life or how to make sure that productivity of work can be maximized, dads know it all. They really do. Now, its not a matter of education or literacy, its sheer experience of life that equips them to share these pearls of wisdom. Now I'm not of the opinion that fathers are always right, but they mostly are and their judgment rarely goes wrong, especially when it comes to gauging their son. How many times haven't your father posed a challenge in front of you and you took it as a man to man thing and over a period of time you realized - "Gosh!! He was again right. He knew i wont do it." They just know it, don't they? And if you spring in a surprise by proving them wrong, well his loss is still his victory. Integrity, Honesty, self respect, astute acumen, smartness, diligence, conduct we learn all these traits directly or indirectly from him. No wonder that we find the anecdotes of his college instances to be really fascinating. There is an inexplicable sense of pride when you come to know that your father actually slapped someone. A flurry of questions with a sense of disbelief comes to your mind and you are like - " Really? Why? When? To whom? What then? Oh My God?" and the last question comes in " Why do you ask me then to stay away from all this?". You are beaming with pride thinking -"That's my dad!!!"





A father son's relationship has a lot of depth in it. Now can a son and a father really be friends? I think people misunderstand a father who is friendly to a father becoming a friend. Both the phenomenon are clearly discrete. A father can be friendly to make sure you have a sense of comfort to promulgate your opinion and ideas, but he certainly is not a friend because there is always a sense of respect, awe and and even fear that persists, which is certainly essential.



You need a person whose thought at any juncture of your life, can make you think twice before you choose a wrong path. His Halo shines with you forever. He's not only your ATM to withdraw money from as and when required to fulfill our necessities and even luxuries, the real asset that a guy gets out of his father is his purview over the scheme of things.


There have been so many movies in the past based on a father son relationship that've tried to capture the panorama of this relation's roller coaster ride. Be it the warmth of the relationship in The Pursuit Of Happyness or be it the intensity in The Godafather and its Indian counterpart Sarkar series, father-son relationship has been captured emphatically. Who can forget the scene in Lakshya when Hrithik calls his father(Boman Irani) and apologizes for letting him down, and the way Boman Irani says that he's proud to have a son like him.Low on words and emotions, but high on expression!!! Be it the altercation in Shakti or be it the
any door's story in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, there is high voltage, low resistance action involved in this relationship.



Sometimes it takes a road to perdition for the discovery of how much they care for each other, and sometimes it needs an adventure to find nemo ot discover how much they mean to each other. To put it in a nutshell the relationship doesnt rely too much on words- it is a relation of unsaid words, unexpressed emotions, and temperamental collisions.

Its very important to understand the fact that even though boys are meant to be close to their mothers(which they certainly are) because of the comfort, warmth, patient listening, quick melting of heart that they get. Fathers on the other hand are the source of strength. I bet that the most disturbing scene you can imagine in your life is your father in tears. Just imagine it and you feel a sudden excruciating gloom in your mind. This is just not meant to be, for us he is the source of power and seeing him down can be the most enervating thought.

This is the circle of life where the journey, from the time you start to learn walking holding his hands to the time you become the hands to support him, provides a meaning to your life. Just close your eyes and think of your father, you experience an uncanny power in yourself. Need I say anything more? Understated yet extraordinarily conspicuous is the journey of PAA and his son.

The Last Lap !!!!!

"Come On, You're almost there........
Don't let go of it now........
You've worked so hard for this........
There is no one else who can do it.......
. You are meant for this.......
. Just push a little harder and the victory is yours........"

Welcome to the Last Lap!! After every possible endeavor has been done, after every stone has been turned, after every drop of sweat has been profusely spent and after a roller coaster ride of a big adrenaline rush- comes the last lap. There are so many sports where this last stage differentiates between "WHO IS" and WHO COULD'VE BEEN" .This difference, which is decided in split seconds at times, marks a clear distinction between the champion who takes it all and the runner up whose dead heat loss would haunt as a nightmare in the future. It is the stage that defines a gamut of traits for the road map of success immaterial of the goal one has chosen to pursue. This stage demands gruelling physical balnce and tremendous mental calmness, it demands proactive motivation and the optimism to be a finisher and not a choker. It demands self belief that can bog down the weight of expectations carried on the shoulders and it demands the mental toughness to still focus on the target inspite of all these things running in one's head to accomplish VICTORY. After all, who wont want to end up being the one to open the champagne's cork as a sign of pride and a symbol of supremacy? The winner gets the gold, everyone else simply live with the consolation.

The likes of Michael Schumacher, Lance Armstrong, Usain Bolt, Mohammad Ali, Sachin Tendulkar, Zinedine Zidane have been the legends who've faced the music of this gruelling stage for many years and they not only learnt to live with it, they made it dance to their own tunes. All these consummate legends share the trait of speed, agility, focus, diligence, power, toughness and dogged determination to make it through the last lap of their battle and emerge as victorious Spartans. Their examples reflect that one needs to be equipped with these essential traits to be the last man standing. But what if you don't have any of these traits and you're suffering from many ailments- mentally and physically and are left with no purpose in life. Even the other end of the victory post looks nebulous and you aren't even sure whether the destination is a sign of victory or defeat.

Welcome to the Last Lap!! Forget speed, forget proactive motivation, forget optimism, forget toughness and forget focus. Here you're now in the last lap of the circle of life. The last lap of a person's life is the absolute opposite of what a sport's last lap represents. After embarking a very long journey with myriad ups and downs,content or discontent, fulfillment or regret, laurels or ignominies, comfort or struggle, a person is left with the memories that provide him/her a window of retrospect to look back at the time spent. Its not that anything would be changed on looking back at the road travelled so far, but maybe it is the platform to move away from what might have been the cause of all problems- DENIAL!! Guilt and redemption are positive traits because they make a person move a step away from DENIAL and towards ACCEPTANCE.









Life is a great leveller and the best testimony to this facet comes in the dusk of life. Be it a hedonist who relished the cornucopian luxuries or a mendicant who always lived in a hand to mouth state in life, the last lap is a struggle for both.Just put yourself in the shoes of an 80 year old person who has lived a satisfactory life and has performed all the responsibilities expected by the society and commands the respect of the people who know him. But that was in the past, what next? Is comfort a sufficient substitute for purpose? Is existence good enough to make us forget about life? Imagine the struggle each day presents where one really has little to contribute or convey. What exacerbates the situation is the prevalence of various ailments. The lack of pupose is worsened by the prevalence of various problems such as vision or hearing impairment, dementia and a big list that i really dont want to get into. Picking only the normal vision and hearing impairments, imagine how difficult can life get when communication becomes difficult. Imagine the jolt to a person whose opinion has been sought after all through the life and now the person can't even be part of a normal conversation. Imagine looking around all day but getting nothing more than a hazy picture of what is around. Immobility, dependence and growing altercation with the family(just to fight with one's own frustration) are repercussions whose thought itself is pretty depressing. A person's prowess rises and sets like the sun and the dusk is really a difficult time to deal with even though the twilight may give sporadic reasons to celebrate.



This is the stage of life when a person transforms from a reader of spirituality to its aficionado. Maybe the process is a bit late in the day, but the little drops of tranquility that thinking about God, morals and virtues give them is the perfect way to sprinkle purpose. This is the stage where the grandchildren become their best friends and a small session of talk or a little laugh with them becomes the purpose to spend the remaining days. They look forward to these sessions and it is the time that makes them forget everything else.








This is the time when the mind transcends and there is an uncanny trance in their minds which is inscrutable for others. This last lap is diametrically opposite to the last lap we talked about earlier as here even the definition of victory isn't known. It might be a silent death for some without being any trouble to anyone, it may be trying to fulfill that one last wish that has been impending for long- the bucket list that was long forgotten. What lies beyond the final line is still an enigma for everyone, but maybe unraveling this mystery is what provides the long missing purpose in their lives.

Now I'm not here to question or empathize or educate anyone to work for ameliorating their plight. I'm no pedant. It is a rambling that came to my mind and I decided to put it in words. I don't expect anything out of others and I wont ask anyone to do anything. A sense has been gifted to everyone which works and if listened to properly, it directs in the right path. The last lap is an inevitable process of life and has to be dealt with. Change is a nature of life and one generation has to make way for the next one and if this is the way chosen for it, then let it be. Maybe a smile next time you see an old person might be the trick. After all, even this small gesture can give them a purpose to move on.

But there is one common aspect in both the last laps i mentioned- there is a persistent struggle and at the end of the day everyone does cross the finishing line. There is a similar perseverance and there is a similar patience. The victory doesn't matter in the latter case. A feeling of ACCEPTANCE is the perfect denouement to the scheme of things.


Anyhow is there still a last man standing????