Today looking at my father, I am reminded of a childhood accident when I crashed my newly bought bicycle (that i loved more than anything) into a tree and came home crying silently with a scraped knee. It was not so much the pain as the sight of blood that scared me. Blood was supposed to stay inside body, it was not supposed to come out. And whenever it did, on occasions more than one, I was freaked out more by this violation of boundary than the pain itself. (21 and a student of medicine, I am still put off by the unnatural feeling of it)
. So that day when I lifted the hem of my frock to reveal a long gash of 4 inches below my knee with blood drops glistening on it, I looked away, horrified, and nothing could quieten me until my father, who i know to be extremely sensitive about his children, dismissed my agony with a simple ''Be strong'' . And to this day, while he tries to the best of his capabilities that his children don't have to face discomfort of a pin prick, when any of us is faced with a particularly difficult situation of which we cannot find a solution, he doesn't sympathize, he never lets us seek comfort in pity for ourselves, he sees nothing of breaking down in front of him. His only approach towards a given challenge is to ''be strong''.
Because here is a man who realizes that being strong should be a choice, so that we don't feel lost when being strong is the only option left. I know there have been nights in his life when he has gone to bed with no better idea about what to do than 'going on.' Yet All his life he has been strong with such grace and conviction that there is no alternative view of him in my mind other than he wading through life's troubles with his unfailing strength.
I have never seen him more disappointed than in the times my sisters, or mother go as weak as the society makes them in their roles.
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