The Neglected Father

Omila Thounaojam *

He was also a person with emotions of all kinds, once he also had dreams and desires of singing out loudly old romantic tunes with rhymes. Still he does have it and many more lively passions kept hidden in the dark chambers of his sub-conscious.

Boys should be like boys
Girls should be like girls!

Such common utterances inaugurated our childhood days. Not surprisingly, we kind of imbibed these lines as NATURAL rules to our social existence. Toy guns for the son and the blonde dolls for the daughter and giving it metaphorically re-inscribed the accepted mores of societal expectations.

No wonder Why a small child pretends to be The Invincible Man when he grows up all because he was taught repeatedly of How Much Dependable kind he must become in life. Time passes by and all he is expected to do is act and behave like a kind of Controlled man of action, someone whose emotional sides to him must be blocked from the sides even when someone near and dear to him dies.

The way gender roles are assigned in our society since early days of the socialization stage conditions a small innocent child to behave properly under the boundaries of the expected role allocations throughout his or her entire life.

In fact it helps a child, on the one hand to understand the web like workings of the socio-cultural systems of a place but on the other side of the wall, it also negates the basic rights of a child. Particularly when one brings in here the limitations inherent in the way society seems to label a MAN to be somebody representative of minus intense emotion factor.

It's like seeing a guy or a male frankly cries his heart out over a big disappointment like the way girls most of the times do, would be like a scene that would befit The Talk of the Town phenomena.

Like the figure of a Father in most of the households is assigned a respectable position, yet ironically he is also a person practically neglected of all.

My Father is a Hero- yes, it's a general celebratory note where one tends to elevate this man into a grandiose position, sadly transforming him into a kind of Dictionary like entity.

Just tell him all the problems and causes of anxiety and then like the way a dictionary tells you meanings and clears your confusion, a father is expected in a family to be like a willing mathematician capable of solving given problems in and out. No wonder many gets older before the right time and many more become too cranky or too verbose disproportionate to time and situation.

He was also a person with emotions of all kinds, once he also had dreams and desires of singing out loudly old romantic tunes with rhymes. Still he does have it and many more lively passions kept hidden in the dark chambers of his sub-conscious.

Then why not seize the moment and go to Him, our dear yet The most Neglected person in our lives, and knock at the door of His life which has been successfully kept locked up all these while.

Let us go and try finding his hidden other neglected Self and tribute him the best gift of love; let us make Him communicate with his practical and emotional sides and encourage Him gain happiness in the fuller sense of living a happy life.