How Having A Feminist Father Saved My Life

*Warning – A Long Read*

Before I begin this one, allow me to throw these words at you — Haryana, joint families, a single girl-child. This should pretty much give some idea towards how this story will pan out. I feel our stories as women are not really that different, after all.

Part 1 – The Beginning

I was born to two ordinary people in love who were in their early twenties, still finding their way through life, belonged to large joint families, both carrying immense privilege with their social and political standings and married inter-state. But soon, my Haryanvi father & my Maharashtrian mother were not to remain that ordinary, when, after their firstborn, they decided to keep me as their only child. The disapproval around this choice from so many people around them and its ripples are still felt by us today.

I suffered health setbacks growing up including the Big C and so the pressure on my parents to plan a second child was mind-blowing. This should tell you enough just how problematic people can be in the name of ‘wishing well’; not discounting the steel support of a few close ones. The purpose to mention this is nothing else but to tell you that we often cannot see the halo and the noise behind the choices that our parents have made and how it changes the course of their life. A choice like this meant putting everything you have – physically, emotionally & financially towards one single purpose for as long as it took. And to not being able to live like one’s own person until it could be fulfilled. But in doing so, they established a norm that had undoubtedly left them as the odd fish in a larger circle of family.

Growing up, I was labelled a tomboy. I spoke loudly, played roughly and would often come back home in a horrible state with muddy and crumpled clothes. And I’d always be happily greeted by my father who I am sure was amused by the kind of ‘lady’ he was raising. I spoke my mind openly and would talk to him about what I thought about an issue or situation. I would tag along with him everywhere and generally moved around without a care. I never felt that I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. That sort of conversation never really occurred between me and my parents.

But these conversations did occur in a larger circle. I didn’t quite realise that people closely observed you even as a child and based on how you speak, walk and dress, made assumptions. Assumptions about the kind of upbringing it signified that you were getting. The kind of a person you were or would grow up to become. To put it more out there – not an ideal daughter, not an ideal parent or not an ideal partner. My father was receiving these too often but he always found his way to go on. Not that they didn’t ever trouble him. Even as a kid, I saw how it affected him. He was always open about these experiences with me. Sometimes, we would question or worry and other times, we couldn’t be bothered.

Part 2 – The Middle

It will also be the right moment to admit that my father wasn’t always a conscious feminist. I guess, he had his own learning curve with time and experience and like in the case of most well-intending men – wanting the best for their growing daughter. With this, also begins another journey of men like him looking back at the lives of their wife, mother or women around and picture how it could be different for them too. But even before my father wasn’t an active member of the girl-power club, he had all the important qualities of becoming what it takes. To truly believe in equality. He was intuitive. He took an effort to check how I felt, what I was good at and what I struggled with. He was fair. He looked at people for what they were and gender wasn’t one of the lenses. He respected people and he listened to them. He valued conversations. He understood boundaries. He knew when he had to back off. He understood if I needed space. And he knew how to switch between a father and a friend without patronising.

I was somewhere between a nitwit and a slingshot when it came to making life decisions. I decided that I wanted to be a reporter when I was 10 or 11, a leader (in no particular field) at 14 and finally at 17, told my father that I’ll pick up something where I get to help people (but again, had no idea how). Each time, he smiled and listened. Never once did he say I couldn’t do be what I wanted. And that is where I found my earthly root of wisdom.

He was always open to checking himself. Even when a young me called him out to say that I deserve the space to pursue what I love, he understood. After my tenth grade, I told my father that I wanted to study a combination of subjects and was looking to continue my further studies in Bombay. He was happy. People around weren’t. One evening, he came to me and told me how somebody close to us said “You’re sending your daughter away. Don’t be surprised if she gets out of your hand. It’s a blunder what you’re doing.” As usual, we shook our heads and laughed together. He ensured I was not denied any opportunities I deserved or desired even if it meant disapprovals and shaming from people around us.

He took break from work and travelled me with to Bombay in 2008 and we visited colleges, explored the city and he stayed on for a couple of weeks until my orientation. He shared my enthusiasm and tried his best to understand how Bombay college-life would be different from a small town school-life and with time, he accepted that curve. I had started travelling on my own in my teens and later solo-travelled intensively for both work and leisure. He would be concerned no doubt (don’t they all worry that everything out there is to kill us?) but he also enjoyed listening to me as I would describe my day to him over our daily phone calls. He would end our call with a simple “have fun and stay safe”.

I don’t remember him telling me to not opt for something or like most other parents I saw growing up, demand my minute-by-minute whereabouts. He neither asked to me to be more ambitious nor to slow down. He showed trust in the choices I made and took efforts to understand the intent behind them. Having that space and trust was truly empowering. Grounding too. Not that we both did not disagree on things or did not fight. We did back then and we continue to do with our very different temperaments and strong-headed opinions on everything. And I assure you, these disagreements can be brilliantly entertaining.

Part 3 – The Close

Recently, I was talking to him about the process of stabilising my start-up, coping up with the long hours and shared the way people often treated me on field because of my gender. My area of work, social sector, is heavily centred around human interaction and behaviour. And the reactions and conversations one experiences can often be extremely draining – physically & emotionally. Moreover, continuous travelling for work was leading to unsolicited advises and opinions from people around pointing on “my home-making” and “my duties”.

He patiently heard me out and said “I never looked at you as a girl when you used to perform well or when you failed. I looked at you as an individual with immense potential. I take your opinions very seriously and I trust your sense and judgement. You have earned your place with your efforts. I can’t understand why you need others to validate that for you. I didn’t raise you like that.” And once again, I remembered. And if I come close to forgetting, I have his beautiful random texts of support, appreciation and wisdom to remind me.

During several instances while I was young, I heard relatives say to my parents that they will realise the importance of a son when I would grow up and go away. Years later, when I and my husband decided to be closer to my parents to support them and I started looking after them and our home actively, the same set of people switched to saying how ridiculous it was for a married girl to continue paying attention to her parents where she should be focussing on having children and looking after her own home. And just like that, I realised how people can not only lack boundaries, they can lack a whole lot of sense and understanding. And it is not really my problem or job to wait for them to come around and get it.

For those who say “NOT ME”.

So many of us, with all the fancy education and world wanderings, are unfortunately still part of a system where a woman is defined by particular patriarchal formations. I have been there myself and continue to see that around me. Women my age are told to restrict themselves and learn to be satisfied with whatever they have. Girls are told to cut short their aspirations, be home-makers and care-givers before they could be anything else. How they need to foremost become ideal support-systems to their family or partner or parents before or above finding their own strong.

So many of us are not yet comfortable with a woman having her own selfhood outside these assigned roles and even within them. Even when we don’t realise it. If a girl or a woman asserts her point, we label them disrespectful. Even temperamental. Ladki ho tum, itna kya krantikari banna hai? Duniya aise hi chalti hai. Only if I could count the times I have heard these words myself. The man, on the other hand, doing the same is praised to be mature, experienced and tough. If you, a woman, work hard or overtime, you are unmindful. The man? Oh, but he has to, he deserves to succeed after all.

And so, I say this.

The fact that I had a father, and now a partner to whom such reactions do not occur naturally and more importantly, they do not try to become my “saviours” is what real support looks like. There remains a space where I am able to be myself and I feel understood and at peace. Yes, I still struggle and I am sure I’ll continue to. But I’ll have opportunities too. And when I meet them, I’ll have my own ground to thrive through it all. That, I think, is what anybody needs to just be.

To parents, partners, children, siblings – have conversations. Have more and more of them. Listen to each other. Even when you don’t agree. ESPECIALLY, when you don’t agree. You will discover a different side about one another on the other side of these conversations. Try to know each other beyond your one assigned relationship. This is a small, but a very promising start.

PS — This one was for my father. Don’t worry about my mother’s un-mentioning. She deserves a bigger and a better tribute story of her own.

Fin.

-A