Fatherhood

Here are a few touching moments of fatherhood I’ve witnessed over the last few months during my fellowship:

1.

At the small, road-side daaba in my village, night: I am shuffling around, eyes fixated on the floor as I try to avoid stepping on the bugs. A dad pulls up in his motorcycle with his small son and asks the boy what treat he wants. The boy points to a string of Kurkure chips hanging from the ceiling and the father exasperatedly asks “How many times will you eat that?” I chuckle and the father turns to me and grins, saying “Hamesha Kurkure kaave, aur kuch nahin kaave” (He always eats Kurkure, he doesn’t eat anything else). The father asks the shopkeeper for cream-filled cookies, which the boy shyly accepts and they drive away.

2.

In front of my neighbor’s house, night: I stretch my legs out in front of me as my neighbor and my host mother talk sweet nothings in the moonless night. My neighbor’s son, a young father is his early 30s, comes back from his nightly walk around the tiny village, piggybacking his toddler child. He tries to hand the child over to his wife to put to bed but the child starts crying. He takes the child back and sits down next to us. He puts the child on his lap and lulls him to sleep. It is something I’ve only ever seen mothers do. Without the moon to stop it, the night swallows us all whole.

3.

At a local temple of Shiva, night: An exhausted father tries to wrangle his 4-year-old son to go to sleep while his wife finishes up singing bhajans with her friends. The boy runs around the temple, daring his father to catch him. Meanwhile, the even-younger daughter slips on the temple steps and starts crying. The father scoops her up and heads home, telling his wife over his shoulder to bring their son home when she’s done because he’s tired.

4.

On the roof, evening: I’m spending the night at a field worker’s house, in her hamlet that only has a handful of families. I climb to the roof to get enough network to call a friend and spy her cousin on the roof of his house, just opposite the one I’m in. He is carefully holding his giggling baby daughter and points out the surrounding trees and buildings to her. I stop and stare as he caresses her. He is almost shy with the way he holds her, the way you hold something when you’re afraid your mere touch can break it. New fatherhood, I ponder. God bless fathers who know how to hold their children.

5.

In a tiny kitchen, night: We are all huddled around on the floor as Bhabhi cooks khichdi for us. She is sitting cross-legged on the gas tank next to the stove, with one hand folded beside her and the other hand stirring the pot as she looks at us and speaks. It is jungle around us and all we have are stories and a cool breeze.

We are talking about queerness and they speak so tenderly that I am weak in the knees and almost cry. They speak gently of a trans woman who had married a woman before realizing who she was; I ask questions and they are quick and ferocious to defend her.

Ganpath and Geeta tell me of a father nearby who had brought his trans kid back into his home, saying he didn’t care what his child was, the child stays with the family. Bhabhi nods. The mention of this father’s love is brief but it stays with us the rest of the night. We speak of queerness not in hushed whispers but firm tones, determination.

I show them friends of mine who are trans. Oceans apart and never having met, they still fall in love. Worlds collide but instead of fire, there is light.