you and i will make this journey together

The prospect of fatherhood is exhilarating; It is also intimidating. I don't think I've felt this strong a sense of possessiveness towards another person before. It fills me with love and strength I didn't believe I was capable of. It also fills me with trepidition that I might make it largely about myself. Is it possible to care for something so deeply without wanting to own it? To use that old formulation of parenting, the carpenter and the gardener, all of us want to be gardeners- we want to let the child's personality drive our behaviour as parents, we want to provide the best conditions we can, maybe prune a bit here, graft a bit there, but go light on top-down engineering, slowly step back as the child becomes more and more independent until, as dusk falls, we are standing in the shadows at the edge of the garden, basking in an internal glow, marveling at how incredible we've been at being the best parents we could've been, cherishing the opportunity to gift this wonderful individual to the world. However, will we ever know if the work is complete? Venkat Rao once wrote that we don't grow up in our 20s but in our 40s when we start experiencing the outcomes of the decisions we took in our 20s. How will we ever know if our child is ready for the world? If we've turned her into the best possible version we could've; If, out of nowhere, there could come a tomorrow so different that everything we've inculcated would become moot. Amma used to say that 18 years is the cut-off. If you screw up before then, its on me. After that its on you. Its not a bad rule of thumb. Unfortunately, seeing her try to understand me, explain things to me, guard me against self-sabotage, I think following it is not so easy. 

Fatherhood, I'm realising now, is, in large part, a social role. I'm sure there's some biological component to it, the fact that its my child stirs something different no matter what attachment I could have with others' kids, but it is my child, my responsibility, my pride, an extension of my persona because the world hints, communicates, reinforces certain expectations and responsibilities that help both my daughter and myself to orient, transform, and build a relationship that works mostly within those norms and rules. I've always loved that line in ఆకాశమంత that goes, "ఒక బిడ్డ పుట్టినప్పుడే ఆ తండ్రి కూడా పుడతాడు." Now I don't think its entirely accurate. ఆ బిడ్డ రాక కోసం ఎదురు చూస్తున్నపుడే ఆ తండ్రి నిర్మితమవ్వడం మొదలెట్టి కొంచెం కొంచెంగా రూపం పొందుతాడు. Since the last few weeks, since the fact of her arrival is becoming more and more real, when I'm putting together her bassinet, setting up the car seat, building a wardrobe for her clothes etc., I've begun noticing how other fathers deal with their children, imagining what kind of an environment I'll try to create for her, how I'll have to become a braver and better person so that I can tell her with a little less hypocrisy what qualities she should aspire to have, of what I should do for her to be articulate, intelligent, curious, socially nimble, and I can see my own being transform to make father its primary identity. Husbandhood came slowly at first and then all at once. This feels more radical, deeper.

Sravani and I are thinking of not giving our daughter a surname. With my personal history not only is it easy but also practically obvious. However, atleast a small aspect of the decision is also driven by higher ideals. That in 2024, for a kid born in Australia, to parents who's lifestyle is like ours', caste doesn't, and shouldn't, apply. And yet, as we were talking about it today, despite our oft-repeated rhetoric and 'dinner table political views', we couldn't help but worry if we were depriving her of a slight advantage that might make things slightly easier for us in one occasion sometime decades from now. That worry, I sense it now, is love. Yet I believe it is also love to take a decision at the beginning of your child's life not by cynical considerations but by well-intentioned, cherishable ideals. My daughter maybe disappointed by her parents' decision 15 years from now, but maybe, just maybe, decisions like these would force us to aspire to those ideals ourselves thereby creating a slightly better world for her to inhabit.

For someone who spent years arguing how immoral it is to have kids under the current, and worsening, climate, cried amidst friends late one night in Suryapet that I didn't know what sort of a man to grow into because I didn't have a father for a role model, profusely ranted to Bujji mama in 2019 about my generations' primary angst being the 'lack of spiritual fathers to rebel against', I seem to have taken to the prospect of fatherhood surprisingly well. Maybe that's because I don't know what I've gotten into yet. Or maybe its that all those people were right and there's no other experience as wonderful as fatherhood that a man can experience. I'm not going to be father; I'm a father already.