Fathers and generations
My great grandfather on the paternal side died in 1816. His eldest son was ordained as a CMI priest on 15/08/1916 on the day after. The ordination was said to be in Mangalore. The son true to his ascetic type did not want to postpone his ordination. Instead he dedicated his first mass to his father dead and cold back home. Great grandfather had a limp in one leg which one I do not know. What little I know of him comes from an uncle of mine who died in 2005 at the age of 99+ who had only to talk about great grandfather after 15 minutes of peasantries otherwise. Great grand father died apprently of dtowning in a pond very close to the Vazhakkulam town although the reasons are not known.
I know for sure that the land that belongs to our family that in my estimate together is around 40 acres in Vazhakkulam with my dad's cousins was all the great garandfather's hard work. Besides there were more near the CMI church in Vazhakkulam and some in Avoly which were disposed by my earlier generations.
I have commented elsewhere that my grandfather did not make much only sold some that his father, my great grand father gave him.I do attribute it to the fact that great grandfather lived before the world wars but grandfather lived before during and after the world wars. This reason is my own conjecture and has no validation except my own thesis.
So did my great great grandfather on the maternal side who built six houses one each for his six sons.
What does a father do?
I mean biologically the greater role is that of the mother. The father has to trust the mother's faithfulness even to father. And then he toils to bring up a family. In this process he may develop some rudeness, rough edges, callus and it is said by earlier generations that the presence of the father was that of the tiger in quality. The father usually thinks that he can enjoy after he has provided for his wife and children in general for the family in an impersonal way. But just as he thinks he has provided, the next deficiency comes in, in some form or the other and then he postpones the enjoyment. His enjoyment, rather the imagined enjoyment is a happy contented wife and kids bubbling with mirth although he smiles only internally. He even holds his expressed happiness in abeyance in an inner commitment as the provider.
The mother's enjoyment is more direct and spontaneous and immediate. There is the contentment about the breast feeding that reportedly is indescribable. The mirth and the joy are very much like the tigress and the cubs in frolic.But the father's joy? Even the sorrows of the mother may be expressed and spontaneous. But the father's sorrow? He has the burden of the family even if it is broken by the neighbour or even the mother.
My great grandfather may not have had any idea of owning or enjoying what he made. His instincts were only about a family down the generations which he has had no idea of seeing or even imagining except in abstraction. Siring the child or children is part of the story but the real story is that of the unexpressed fears and anxieties of the father no story ever fully captures. And that too not just for the children or grandchildren but down the years into generations.
It may well be for the women to gossip and jealosies and the worries of wrinkles but the grace of the man is the real one that perpetuates this race. To have great grand children who remembers great grand fathers is great although in one's life time there can never be a surety that one day one of them will remember. Yet the present day father also instinctively toils and toils and bears one day at a time again and again.....
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