Sharman Joshi tells Shubarna Muker Shu just what it takes to handle kids and fatherhood!
There are those 9 months to prepare for parenthood but frankly it takes a while for it to seep in. For me, it was when Khyana started responding to me… that smile, the gurgling and the babble. Today, I am a father of three and just the other night my wife Prerna and I were seated while all of them were jumping on the sofa and creating their usual ruckus and we just said to ourselves, ‘When did all this happen?’
Prerna and I have been college sweethearts and frankly, we do not know where the time has gone. Children do that, I guess. With the three of them in our lives, days go faster and changes happen sooner too, I don’t know when it kicked in that if it’s a work call, I should probably take it down in the garden rather than at home because I am bound to get interrupted, I don’t know when I started getting immune to loud screaming and jumping, I don’t know when it was that I really started thinking like a dad!
When my first child was born, Prerna had been reading up a lot about parenting and the usual ‘How to…’ and basically trying her best to get me involved but somehow I just couldn’t get myself to pay attention. I never wanted a book to tell me how to deal with my children.
From the very beginning I had decided that love would be enough. My funda is pretty simple, I might sometimes yell at them too harshly, sometimes I might not correct them in time, at other times I might simply overlook something vital, this is a process we have to take each day at it comes. No one can perfect parenting. All I know is that I am here to do it my way. My rewards and my blunders,
both mine.
My earliest memory is of course the first few days after Khyana was born. I had told Prerna that she should have her night’s sleep and I will stay up and check for my daughter’s needs for the first 40 days. Believe me by the end of it, I was hardly human. Prerna took pity on me and sent me off with my friends to Pune. With few drinks and a good night’s sleep I was human again. That’s when I realised that I just cannot function without sleeping nights. Much to my wife’s chagrin, when the twins were born I told her I would see them when they had grown up! Maybe it is the father-daughter thing, but I felt like I really needed to care for my daughter, my boys will grow up by themselves.
But now that my boys are growing up, I realise it is only a little while more and soon I will have two young friends.
Just now actually, during this Whole World cup hoopla, I was watching the match and these two boys came and sat next to me talking about Messi and all. Now the thing is, I don’t know who Messi plays for because I hardly follow football; since it was the World Cup, I was watching it. I had to fire up my google and get all the gyan so that I knew the answers to the many questions they were asking about the match. I realised, two World Cups down the line these little ones will be my boys’ team every evening, and it did bring a smile to my face…
I am pretty hands-on, when Prerna has to go out or something I take over without breaking into a cold sweat. I don’t panic easy if they fall or fall ill. Initially, Prerna used to spring up the second she heard the *thud* but I told her it’s not a catastrophe. I guess I get that from my dad. When I was little with both my parents working, I mostly grew up with my grandparents. Believe me, when I would fall or get hurt somehow my granny and mother would fuss and scream so much that I used to be scared to tell them.
They were concerned about me but I could not take all the yelling and crying. My dad, on the other hand, was totally cool. He would just tell me to get up and go on. I do the same, just the other day one of the kids hurt himself falling off the sofa, it happens, one just has to get up and walk again. A little blood, scrapes and cuts are all a part of growing up.
In our generation we all grew up with skinned knees, didn’t we? A lot has changed with time. I do think fathers today have become a lot more involved in raising children than it was before. I am not sure my father even knew which grade I studied in. I cannot really point out what is the one thing that is responsible for this change, I guess it is just the changing equations in marriage too that is responsible for it. Today, I don’t think any woman would allow a father being uninterested in his own child, more so I believe fathers today take pride in babysitting, which is certainly a welcome change! But at the same time, there are some who are too involved – I am not in favour of that either.
Like I said before, I believe in love… if I give my children a lot of that, my absence during work, my little nagging, my loss of patience won’t matter – they will grow up just fine.
