{"id":3418,"date":"2016-04-18T16:54:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T11:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3418"},"modified":"2016-04-18T16:54:57","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T11:24:57","slug":"inter-caste-marriage-woke-dad-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3418","title":{"rendered":"By Sheltering an Inter-Caste Couple, My Conservative Father Discovered His \u201cWokeness\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p>t was not a festival, it wasn\u2019t anyone\u2019s birthday in the <\/span>family<\/span><\/a>, as far as I could remember. It wasn\u2019t even the weekend. So I was taken by surprise when my house was abuzz with energy in the middle of a workweek. There was a serious amount of pav bhaji and grilled cheese sandwiches that had been ordered. For a <\/span>Gujarati<\/span><\/a> family living in Kandivali, it felt like <\/span>Navratri<\/span><\/a> had arrived early. <\/span>\n\nBefore I could figure out what was happening, mum told me we had guests \u2013 my dad\u2019s colleagues. Really? When did dad start making friends at work? \u00a0<\/span>\n\nPratik* from my father\u2019s office had come home to visit us, all the way from <\/span>Kalyan<\/span><\/a>. Seated next to him was a woman, who I guessed was his girlfriend, but I couldn\u2019t be sure. It was 10 pm on a <\/span>Tuesday<\/span><\/a>, way past my father\u2019s bedtime. And yet everyone seemed quite content chatting away. \u201cWhy aren\u2019t they leaving?\u201d \u201cThey can\u2019t be staying over!\u201d \u201cDo I have to sleep in the living room today?\u201d My mind was overflowing with questions. <\/span>\n\nI smiled at Pratik and before I could start a conversation, mom gestured at me with her eyes, asking me to go inside. Then she followed me. Zero points for subtlety.<\/span>\n\nShe came into the bedroom and started whispering, which is her code for \u201ckuch gadbad hai\u201d. Cutting right to the chase, she told me, \u201cPratik and Nisha got married but their <\/span>families<\/span><\/a> won\u2019t accept it. So they will be staying with us for a few days.\u201d Hello? Had I suddenly been transplanted into a \u201990s <\/span>Bollywood<\/span><\/a> film? While it might have taken me a few minutes to process the information, all my claims to social media wokeness were forgotten when I blurted, \u201cBut why here? Don\u2019t they have any relatives or friends?\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nMy mother then gave me a quick backstory of how both families had opposed the marriage because they belonged to different <\/span>sub-castes<\/span><\/a>, but dad had helped the couple register the wedding. This indeed was a parallel universe. My father? Playing cupid? My dad, the same man who thinks <\/span>Muslims<\/span><\/a> are planning to take over the world? The same man who declares anyone who criticises <\/span>Modi ji<\/span><\/a> as a traitor and anti-national? Nothing made any sense. <\/span>\n

Little do we realise that liberalism also includes the ability to open up to an opposing view, being unbiased and non-judgemental.<\/blockquote>\nWith an instruction to move to the living room couch for a few days, my mother dashed out of the room. I heard her sneakily calling one of our <\/span>relatives<\/span><\/a> who owns a garment shop and requested them to open it for a bit. The newly-weds had no extra pair of clothes. A meeting was fixed for 11.30 pm, as if they were scoring some sort of contraband.<\/span>\n\nIn all this excitement, I was getting acquainted with a new side to my father\u2019s personality.<\/span>\n\nThe couple looked worried, but dad kept trying to cheer them up. \u201cTension mat lo, ek do din mein sab theek ho jaayega.\u201d <\/span>Dinner<\/span><\/a> was followed by some ice cream and small talk about cricket and what Nisha likes to do. Dad was cracking jokes, at least attempting to, and mom was being mom \u2013 extremely warm. I could see my <\/span>introvert<\/span><\/a> parents making the extra effort to make the two feel at home. <\/span>\n\nThat day my respect for my father shot up faster than Chris Gayle\u2019s strike rate in a <\/span>T20<\/span><\/a> game. My dad was way cooler than I thought he was. This is a man who doesn\u2019t know how to use a gas stove and still believed that women should do the <\/span>cooking<\/span><\/a>, but he had risen over and above the call of duty in helping out a young couple. <\/span>\n\nPratik and Nisha stayed at our house for about a week. They\u2019d head out to work in the morning and return at night. This is when the four of them would huddle up and have discussions about how to convince the couple\u2019s <\/span>family<\/span><\/a> to accept them. Over a period of a few days, my father spoke to their family members and tried to reason it out with them that castes only divide us further. \u201cThe differences are all in our head,\u201d I once overheard him saying. After days of convincing, Pratik\u2019s family agreed and the couple moved back to their house. <\/span>\n\nI was a silent observer of all that was unfolding at home, watching my dad play peacemaker. The same father, who, like any typical middle-class <\/span>uncle<\/span><\/a>, still makes politically incorrect statements. He has been sexist and racist on several occasions in the past without even realising it. Often with relatives, I\u2019ve heard him comment on politics and his thoughts have made me cringe. On days that I\u2019ve confronted him or tried to engage with him, we\u2019ve had endless <\/span>debates<\/span><\/a>, which end up with me storming out of the room. <\/span>\n\nTo my mind, my <\/span>dad<\/span><\/a> was the conservative, the one with backward views. That\u2019s the reason I\u2019ve never added him as a <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a> friend \u2013 afraid that he\u2019ll leave a comment on something I\u2019ve posted and embarrass me. But in the days that Pratik and Nisha were with us, I saw a different side. When the time came to act, he had allowed his liberal side to emerge. He had done the right thing. <\/span>\n\nWe waste no time in passing judgement about our parents, imposing our \u201c<\/span>liberal<\/span><\/a>\u201d ideas on them. Little do we realise that liberalism also includes the ability to open up to an opposing view, being unbiased and non-judgemental. <\/span>\n\nUnlike me and most people from our generation, who use social media to signal our virtues, my father had become the IRL definition of <\/span>woke<\/span><\/a>, without knowing or even caring what it meant. Not through his assertions but by his actions. What\u2019s more, he did not bother tom-toming about it on Facebook. Maybe it is time to add him. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\n* Names changed<\/span><\/i>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My old-fashioned father, who still believes women should do the bulk of cooking and tolerates no criticism of Narendra Modi, suddenly turned liberal when a young couple needed his help. Unlike most people from our generation, who use social media to signal our virtues, my father had become the IRL definition of woke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":3419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[439],"tags":[441,4325,18,1381,6548,5538,21,1382,729,22,3410,4629],"class_list":["post-3418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-family","tag-dad","tag-desi","tag-family","tag-hindu","tag-indian-household","tag-inter-caste","tag-marriage","tag-muslim","tag-narendra-modi","tag-relationships","tag-wedding","tag-woke"],"yoast_head":"\nBy Sheltering an Inter-Caste Couple, My Conservative Father Discovered His \u201cWokeness\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My old-fashioned father, who still believes women should do the bulk of cooking and tolerates no criticism of Narendra Modi, suddenly turned liberal when a young couple needed his help. 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