{"id":2421,"date":"2016-05-22T12:15:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-22T06:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=2421"},"modified":"2016-05-22T12:15:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T06:45:04","slug":"help-me-my-father-is-a-bhakt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2421","title":{"rendered":"Help Me! My Father is a Bhakt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\u00a0\n

T<\/span>here was a point not too long ago when the most serious conversation my father had with me was about how kids these days need to stop listening to Beyonc\u00e9 and appreciate some real music. This would usually happen before I\u2019d be forced to sit through a 25-minute tabla solo. From music, the conversation would move into other things that kids today are bad at \u2013 not <\/p>saving money<\/span><\/a>, not waking up early \u2013 but it never really escalated into an argument, mostly because he referred to Beyonc\u00e9 as \u201cBouncy\u201d and no one can keep a straight face after that. <\/span>\n\nThat was back in 2013, when things were simpler. We weren\u2019t fully aware of Arnab Goswami and <\/span>Times NOW\u2019s existence<\/span><\/a>, and political opinions were simply mini-rants about the government ignoring potholes and trash. There were no sides to take; we were united in our disdain of what we considered bad governance. When the news channels would run stories about scams we\u2019d eat dinner and nod along with the anchors, stating just the facts at each other: \u201cThere is a government. It has done a scam.\u201d <\/span>\n\nBack then, I don\u2019t recall my father ever displaying any obvious political preferences, apart from \u201cmust not be a raging asshole\u201d \u2013 a policy I follow to this day. The turning point came some time during the <\/span>Modi wave<\/span><\/a>, when he laughed at one of the then to-be-prime-minister\u2019s acronym jokes. The PM had referred to the entire Gandhi family as RSVP, to refer to both their first names, and their model of governance \u2013 pretty decent wordplay, but nothing to clink <\/span>gomutra<\/span><\/a> over. This in hindsight was possibly the first time my father displayed political affinity of any sort. He turned to me and said quite seriously: \u201cThis guy is going to save India.\u201d <\/span>\n\nOver the last couple of years, Arnab Goswami shouted enough to convince my father that acche din were on the way and also convinced my mother to invest in a good pair of <\/span>headphones<\/span><\/a>. Through these two-hour-long therapy sessions my father learnt the classic art of \u201cwhataboutery\u201d that rendered all arguments about rioting or religious and class biases invalid. Slowly, his fandom developed to align with the interests of the party \u2013 he gave up the guitar to try his hand at <\/span>yoga<\/span><\/a>, he gave up his pulp fiction for a sudden keenness in Hindu mythology, he spent valuable hours that could have been spent watching TV, mastering the art of <\/span>WhatsApp forwards<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\n\nThe <\/span>JNU incident<\/span><\/a> was the first time my father and I seriously argued over politics. It started out innocently enough, with me casually remarking that there was no way those students could actually be anti-India, and just like that, in his eyes, I was the opposition. I saw <\/span>Kanhaiya Kumar<\/span><\/a> and Co as a group of young college students who had the courage to say things adults wouldn\u2019t; father toed the party line of them being a waste of taxpayers money.<\/span>\n

“These days when my father and I watch the news together, he quickly switches the channel to Republic TV and nods along with the most obnoxious members of the panel while I clench my fists.”<\/blockquote>\nThat day we started off on a litany consisting of three main sentences that would safely cover everything from Kanhaiya Kumar to Beyonc\u00e9: \u201cKids don\u2019t know anything,\u201d followed by \u201cThese guys wouldn\u2019t have survived the \u201970s,\u201d and \u201cThey are spreading Marxist ideology\u201d.<\/span>\n\nMy mother, who didn\u2019t like being disturbed during <\/span>Sadhguru<\/span><\/a> hour, wasn\u2019t a fan of this new development. Her moments of peace were soon shattered by her husband and son arguing over whether we, \u201cas a family\u201d, should link our <\/span>Aadhaars<\/span><\/a> with our bank accounts. During the <\/span>demonetisation<\/span><\/a> days, my father was upbeat, because he thought it was going to save the country, I was upset because I was the one sent to withdraw money for him. Our mini flare-ups soon escalated into full-blown brawls and conversations began to end the way they do on the internet, with me being labelled a naive Congi. <\/span>\n\nThese days when my father and I watch the news together, he quickly switches the channel to Republic TV (he doesn\u2019t watch the other \u201cfake news channels\u201d, in his own words) and nods along with the most obnoxious members of the panel while I clench my fists. Intermittently, he says things like \u201cthose guys\u201d when referring to <\/span>Muslims<\/span><\/a>. Sometimes he\u2019ll throw a jibe about <\/span>Arvind Kejriwal<\/span><\/a>, or Congress spokespeople just to rile me up. I\u2019m not the biggest fan of any of these personalities, but then again I was never really a fan of Beyonc\u00e9 either, and that never really stopped him. <\/span>\n\nLike any <\/span>good Indian boy<\/span><\/a>, I try and respectfully put my point across, being careful not to accidentally insult any of my ancestors. The latest of these attempts came after the <\/span>Kathua rape<\/span><\/a>, which we solemnly learnt about on a late night news broadcast. My father, while horrified by the incident, questioned why news about <\/span>rapes<\/span><\/a> always got a religious angle in this country. When I told him that it had taken place in a temple, that the young girl was Muslim, that it was meant to make a larger statement, he waved his hand in my face. \u201cStuff like this has been happening for years, you think it didn\u2019t happen during the Congress? This is not a religious issue.\u201d <\/span>\n\nWhen you think about it, it makes sense that my father would blindly follow the BJP. As we grow older, our opinions tend to get stronger, they tend to get more conservative, and the number of fucks we give about people around us significantly reduces. My mother went from reading a book about Feng Shui to being that person who puts salt at the entrance of every doorway. Similarly, my father took his discontent with the Indian administration and turned it into blind faith for a political party that promised change. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s not really his fault. A few years ago, we never really had any kind of political slant, but things have changed. It\u2019s now not possible to both read about the news and not have a strong opinion about it. The only difference is where we get our news from. While I adopted the <\/span>liberal<\/span><\/a> internet as my source of news, my father stuck to watching TV. For now, until one of us convinces the other to change our minds, we\u2019ll continue to live in this scene from my future sitcom: A bhakt and a librandu, forced to live under the same roof.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t recall my father ever displaying any obvious political preferences, but the turning point came during the 2014 Modi wave. Our mini flare-ups soon escalated into full-blown brawls, and conversations began to end the way they do on the internet, with me being labelled a naive Congi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":2422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[439],"tags":[929,62,4658,4929,2752,177,2256,2880,18,443,132,19,4930,976,4671,4931,180,4932,228,4673,1208],"class_list":["post-2421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-family","tag-arnab-goswami","tag-arre","tag-articles","tag-arvind","tag-beyonce","tag-bhakt","tag-bjp","tag-congress","tag-family","tag-father","tag-humour","tag-india","tag-jnu","tag-kejriwal","tag-liberal","tag-modern","tag-modi","tag-pov","tag-relationship","tag-republic","tag-son"],"yoast_head":"\nHelp Me! 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