My father, my son
Life would be meaningless without relationships. Right from birth we are ensconced in a tree of relationships, and it is no ordinary tree. It is like the banyan – huge, strong and supportive – and like the banyan’s aerial prop roots that mature into trunks, relationships spread and grow but are always connected directly or indirectly to the main trunk.
The main trunk in all relationships, of course, are our parents. When we ourselves become parents, we are like the prop roots that spread the relationships farther. In time, we become the primary trunk for our children and their children.
What’s so special about relationships? You can always find warmth, love, understanding and support in relationships, whether it involves parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, children, other relatives, friends or lovers.
One of the most special relationships is that between a father and child.
For me, as a father, it is the most beautiful of relationships. If you were to ask me what gives me immense pleasure, I’d say it is hugging my son and spending time with him.
Whenever my son steps out of the house or steps into the house, we hug each other; even if he is just going to meet his friends in, say, Putrajaya or Bangsar. It has become almost a ritual. We both know the intensity of feeling behind that simple hug.
Most of my cherished moments involve him – from the time I first held him after delivery to seeing him graduating. Memories of our hikes up Bukit Mertajam hill when he was still a child, and our trips to Kedarnath in India and New York, for instance, continue to delight me. Even today, every moment with him is special.
But then, to a father, just as to a mother, the most important person is the child.
As I relish the joy my son evokes in me, my thoughts alight on my late father. Did I bring him joy? Did he feel good about being with me? I’d like to think so, but only he knows.
My father, SN Avidaiappan, came to the then Malaya from India when he was about 20 to join his elder brother who was doing business here. He became a naturalised citizen of the state of Perak and later a citizen of the country.
In talking about my father’s relationship with me, I must point out that those were different times, and the relationships between fathers and children were a far cry from that of today.
Actually, long before Covid-19 made “physical distancing” a household term, children of my generation, and earlier generations, were already practising it with our fathers. You always stood a distance away when interacting with your father, especially if you were old enough to go to school. And definitely so if you were a teenager or young adult.
Relationships played out differently then. There was plenty of deference for the father, oftentimes even fear. Children obeyed, that was the rule. If your father scolded you, your eyes would dig into the floor and you’d not dare look up at him.
People of my generation, and those older, have tales to tell about the parenting style of their fathers. For instance, if your teacher beat you in class for not doing your homework or making noise or whatever, you did not report it to your father. Why? He’d give you another beating for misbehaving in school – and it would often be worse than what the teacher gave.
Let me give an example: My King Edward VII Secondary School classmate Jamil Ahmad did poorly in his Form Five trial exam in 1970. His station master father Ahmad Pandak Wahab marched him to see principal Long Heng Hua and announced: “I don’t care how you deal with my boy, even if you break his bones, make sure he passes.”
To cut a long story short, Long’s famous cane had a conversation with Jamil’s buttocks as Ahmad watched. Pleased, the father thanked Long and walked away with Jamil. As Jamil tells me, it worked like a charm. For he started studying harder and ended up going to Universiti Malaya and doing well for himself thereafter. He’s grateful that he had a strict but caring father.
Fortunately for me, my father never marched me to see the principal. It could be because he was working outstation for most of my secondary school life.
But he was always concerned about my studies and that of my siblings and would scold us or give us a whack on the back – during primary and lower secondary days – with his bare hands if we did poorly.
Like most of my classmates, I never reported any scolding or beating by teachers to my father.
This would be the general gist of our conversation:
Father: How was school today? Did you study well?
Me: Yes, Appa.
Father: Were you able to understand what was taught?
Me: Yes, Appa.
Father: Did you do anything naughty in school?
Me: No, Appa.
Father: You sure? Did any teacher beat you?
Me: No, Appa.
Father: OK, go and read your books.
When I started schooling, my father would place me on the bar of his “gentleman’s bicycle” and pedal about 4km to King Edward VII Primary School in Taiping. After school, he’d be waiting to take me home. All my siblings were taken to school on his bicycle at least for the first two years of their schooling. After that, we walked to school.
My father was tall and good looking. Even today, my mother, R Valliamai, 94, describes him as “a handsome man”.
My father had a beautiful smile and whenever he smiled at me, I felt good. I knew that he cared even though he never said “I love you son” or some such words. In those days, you hardly ever heard your father or mother say “I love you”.
Today, the words “I love you” have become so trite, so commercialised. Today, many expect love to be vocalised. Not so in earlier days. For parents then, love needed no words, just action, especially in doing their duty towards their children.
I knew my father loved me from the way he looked at me. I knew he cared from the tone of his voice whenever I was going out of the house: “Paathu poh” (take care). Two words. But they had immense meaning.
My father, who stayed with me until his death, never asked me for anything. He was not only a quiet man but also a man with few needs. Like my mother, who largely kept our family together, he felt that asking me for this or that would only burden me.
He liked his coffee, which he would make himself. He was a good cook. In my younger days, he’d, now and then, cook some lovely Chettinad dishes. He also knew how to make halwa and other sweetmeats. His halwa was mouth watering delicious – with the right softness and the right sweetness.
Faults? Yes, he had his faults. Who hasn’t?
As I think back about him on Father’s Day, I feel I could have spent more time with him in his later days. If there is any regret, this is it. One incident invades my mind whenever I think of him. Once, after a long and tiring day at work, on the way home, I took a short detour to buy some halwa – one of his favourite food items – for him.
However, when I gave it to him, he did not eat it. I became upset, although I did not show it to him. After all the trouble I had gone to, he did not even appreciate it, I thought.
The following day too, I saw that he hadn’t eaten it. Foolishly, I didn’t talk to him properly for a few days because I was upset. Less than two weeks later, he died of a heart attack. And I couldn’t talk to my father anymore.
My Father’s Day message to those of you who have fathers or mothers who are still alive is this: talk to them. Particularly so if they are staying separately; particularly so if they are old.
And don’t get upset if they don’t eat the food you buy for them or wear the clothes you give them. That’s not important. Don’t think that giving them a gift is enough to show them your love. No. Visit them, talk to them, be with them, hug them – that’s what they’d want. Give them the feeling that they are wanted; that they are loved.
You know what would make a father happy? Let me quote the words of Tiruvalluvar, the Tamil sage who lived around the first century BCE: Magan thandhaikku aatrum udhavi, ivan thandhai ennotraankol enum sol.
It means: The best gift a son can give his father is to so live that the world will say: “What austerities did his father perform to merit such a son?”
I hope I have, in a very small way at least, given my father that gift.
Father and son: SN Avidaiappan with A Kathirasen in the 1970s. - FMT
The writer can be contacted at kathirasen@yahoo.com
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
✍ Credit given to the original owner of this post : ☕ Malaysians Must Know the TRUTH
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