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Kamalika's Notebook

thinking nothing...............!!

Happy Father’s Day – father figures/mentors and father

June 20, 2021 By Kamalika Leave a Comment

Father's day 2021

I always tell my team that I’m the blended effect of everyone I have ever met. Today, while scrolling through hundreds of father’s day wishes on Facebook, I was trying to think how many ways my father may have influenced me and I realised it’s not only my father – there are father figures who have helped me become what I’m today. As a child, “Baba” was my go-to person for every question/doubt I had, be it literature, mathematics, science, sports, movies, politics, general knowledge or whatever. In a way, he was the mentor of an overtly curious kid who probably wanted to understand and analyse everything around them.

Mr Sibaprasanna Saraswati with his wife Late Mrs Shanti Mr Saraswati.
My uncle/teacher Mr Sibaprasanna Saraswati with his wife Late Mrs Shanti Mr Saraswati.

Then he introduced me to my uncle Mr Sibaprasanna Saraswati (husband of my father’s distant cousin), and I found my second father figure/mentor. He was the first person to make me believe in myself, who said it was OK if my literature paper marks are not that great because literature is more about the experience than analysis. It doesn’t matter if my school teachers were not impressed by my creative expressions, but I must carry on and evolve. Many students didn’t understand his teaching methods (including my fellow schoolmates), where he would mix pupils from different grades in a single batch and conduct classes. I loved it primarily for two reasons – it flourished my leadership side and I got a few followers from junior grades, which I immensely enjoyed back then as a teenager. It boosted my confidence because I could compete with my seniors and many a time emerged as a winner in his eyes. He taught me every piece of printed stationery is worth reading – even dictionaries are books and we must read them. He made me fall in love with English literature as he took the fear away that we vernacular medium students are not enough to learn the queen’s language. Quite humorously, he’ll do a percentage census and prove that the English speaking population in India was significantly higher than Britain’s total population! He emphasised learning mother tongue (Bengali/Bangla) because he believed if we know our mother tongue properly, then we can master and enjoy any language in the world. We never paid him any fees, but I sometimes got my father to buy him imported cigarettes! The lessons I learnt from him are invaluable, and they are the building blocks of my childhood and teenage.

Mr Bhaskar Sen, founder of Sika Qualcrete
My mentor Mr Bhaskar Sen, founder of Sika Qualcrete

I met my second father figure/mentor some fifteen years ago, Mr Bhaskar Sen, my best mate’s father. Because it is father’s day, I shall restrain myself from mentioning her mother, Mrs Jayasreen Sen, with whom I share an extraordinary bond whose impact on my life is beyond expressions. I was an ordinary IT employee when I met Uncle, and he was already retired from work, but a person like him never really retires. If not anything else, they keep mentoring and inspiring others, mostly people like me, searching for their ultimate calling. It was probably him and his life that gave me the courage to leave my hometown behind, build a life in Mumbai, and eventually becoming an entrepreneur in that unforgiving and challenging city (though successful or not is a different question!). I happen to spend both waves of the Covid-19 pandemic with him, and the way he has led all of us to through it is unbelievable. He taught me that a leader must lead from all fronts without dividing personal or professional, and just like a soldier, an entrepreneur is never off duty. He says entrepreneurship is not only running the business – it includes running everything around you with utmost dedication as much perfection as you can manage. He taught me life must be enjoyed even if the situation is worrisome and tense. He’ll appreciate my anger, and simultaneously he’ll teach me to hold my temperament through all adversities. If I ever have a future as an entrepreneur, it’ll be because he came into my life and changed the way I looked at the world.

Now that I have spoken a bit about the father figures in my life, it is time that I discuss a little about my father. A simpleton, a little bit chauvinistic when it came to his wife (my mother!) but entirely liberated in matters concerning his daughters (especially me!), a sincere worker with no career ambition, abstemious, food connoisseur, traveller (read tourist!), avid reader, sports lover and most importantly a communist. All in all, a total homely guy, great in theories of the world but hardly outgoing. He was quite the opposite of what I’m, but his values lie at the core of my value system. He taught me the basics of everything (except singing and drawing/painting and computer science), quite unconventionally though, as we never sat for typical teaching sessions. Let’s say if he didn’t teach me alphabets then I wouldn’t be able to spell “floccinaucinihilipilification”!

Last year I wrote a father’s day article on him while going through a complex state of mind – it became so emotional that I never read it a second time.

Filed Under: Family, General, Stories, Thoughts Tagged With: Father’s day memories, father's day, father's day wishes, father's day wishes for dad, fathers day 2021, fathers day love, Fathers Day Special, Fathers Day wishes from daughter, happy father's day

Happy Father’s Day – Why Should You Know Your Parent

June 22, 2020 By Kamalika Leave a Comment

It is a personal note which I thought of sharing, in memory of my deceased father, I hope it makes some sense for all of us.

My father, Late Buddhadeb Guha Roy

The Monologue

My father and I were never close, at least that’s what I thought. Now, what does closeness/friendliness to your parent mean? Probably it means that you can share/discuss anything and respect one’s value addition to the other’s life decisions. I remember always fighting/debating with him over matters like which field of study should I chose, what political party should vote for, which politicians are worth our trust, how should I behave with a particular person even if I dislike him/her, when should I express my opinion and when not. While he was never a typical chauvinist, but his attitude towards my mother often seemed like one, but his female friends/colleague were gung-ho about the helpful and open-minded person he was. One of our most significant issues was his indulgence towards my younger sibling, I was always of the opinion that he should be stricter towards her for her good, but he would be biased and overlook every mistake she did. He was a simple, peaceful person who would generally not prefer to be part of any disagreement, but he was a person of opinion, especially about things that concerned him, or people close him.  Was he a loving and doting father? No, his expressions would never say so, he was an idealist busy in his world of thoughts. He was someone who would smile only when his friends/colleagues were around. He was not an ideal father we read in books or see in movies. Did all of these make him a bad father? Now, what is the definition of a good parent? I believe there is no definition or pattern. I wouldn’t have the capability or courage of doing what I did with my life or the decisions I took if he was. He was a person who never made us feel that every Indian family needs a son. His daughters were more than enough. He wanted his children to be girls because he believed women have better compassion than men and that they were emotionally more powerful.  He taught me to read books and watch movies without inhibitions and encouraged that I have my opinion about everything I see or learn, but I need not be getting into an argument to prove my point, I must choose my battles carefully. He never tried to become my teacher; he would talk about things randomly like a friend and encourage me to pay attention and remember/learn them for life. He was the most honest person I have ever seen in life; he would never ask for favours, won’t take gifts from clients and help them in every possible problem they had, and most of the times going beyond his way. He was a food enthusiast who hated spending money in restaurants but wanted my mother to cook all things possible at home, and he would read and talk about food/recipes from across the globe. He became so sickly before his demise that everyone thought it would be only fair to him to rest in peace, but I fiercely wanted him to stay, and he knew that. I never thought I would be, so grief-stricken after he was gone because we never had an apparent loving relation. Most of the time, I would be angry with him for not being fair to me or not listening to me for innumerable reasons. I wanted the grief to go away, but my every such attempt would push me to a fresh episode of depression. After almost a year of internal fighting, reasoning I realised, it is not possible to get rid of the grief of losing a parent because whether I want to admit it or not, I loved him, and he loved me too but in his unconventional ways. In many ways, I became the person he taught me to be, I inherited his emotions, his integrity, his intellectuality.  We don’t get to choose our parents but whether we like it or not we become the product of our parent’s behaviour/nature and education. Like every child is not the same, and they need the upbringing suiting their specific needs, in the same extent, every parent isn’t the same. Like our parents give the effort to make us better, worthier similarly we also must invest in understanding our parents. I wish there shouldn’t anyone out there who understood the feelings for her father after he was gone. In my defence, while most of my life, I kept fighting/debating/arguing with my father over various matters I did protect him like my son. I lost my emotional intelligence after he was gone and still struggling to get my composure back, but one of my life’s most important lesson that it is crucial to emotionally invest in knowing your parents better otherwise we may have to lament for a lifetime. It took me almost two years (after his death) to pen down a memoir like this but, belatedly I did it defeating my ego to accept the biggest fallacy of my life. I thought it was essential to share because many from our generation would have similar differences with their parents without even being cognisant about the same.

Filed Under: Family, General, Stories, Thoughts Tagged With: Father’s day memories, father's day, father's day wishes, father's day wishes for dad, fathers day 2020, fathers day love, Fathers Day Special, Fathers Day wishes from daughter

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I'm Kamalika, a techpreneur & startup mentor, blogger, hobbyist photographer, Netflix & Kindle indulgent, food connoisseur, Starbucks aficionado and former Disney employee ...next

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