"You cannot hurt your father."

I held my head in my hands as soon as I put the phone down after talking to Papa. I had lied. Effortlessly.

One of the gifts of raising children is witnessing their developing relationship with one’s parents. “Mamma, Nana is so funny,” my daughters often say about my father. They only know the mellow version of our family patriarch and their response to him always reminds me to update my own impression of my father.

We are on a family holiday as I write this column. My younger brother’s family, my parents and my own family. We are a troupe of twelve, the youngest being nearly 4 and the oldest nearing 80 years of age. Both of them, my niece Aditi and my father, Trilok, are the source of most of the humour and enchantment on our trip.

My father, like every other father I know, likes to stay in control. He gives instructions to everyone, knows the best routes to every place, and lets everyone else know what is best for them. He is an expert on home remedies, herbal teas and yoga. He leads by example.

The only complication in the family ecosystem is that his progeny and their spouses have gained excessive experience as adults by now. We don’t need to be instructed, guided or advised on how to do everyday things.

“Drink haldi with hot milk,” Papa advised me the night before we were to leave for the trip. He had heard me coughing on the phone. “Okay, Papa, I will,” I said to him, even though the idea made me feel nauseous.

As soon as were on the highway, travelling in two cars, he called me from his car to find out how I was doing. “I’m getting a fever, I think,” I said to him.

“Did you apply haldi in your throat today morning,” he asked me.

“Yes, I did,” I said.

“What about last night?” he asked.

I replied in the affirmative and held my head in my hands as soon as I put the phone down.

I had lied. Effortlessly.

The fear of being blamed for my own illness had kicked in and before I realized what I was doing, I was lying to cover up. I was both a little shocked and amused at how quickly old patterns return when my parents, brothers and I get together.

I’m quite sure Papa has the same realizations because it is heartwarming to see the effort he makes to be a gentler, more affable paternalistic presence. His instructions are now less about studying for exams and staying away from television and more about the best way to cut mangoes, brew organic tea and miracle remedies for aching feet.

“What are you studying,” he asks my teenage daughters to keep up with them. They share with him whatever their latest projects are. “This is nice, but what do you want to be when you grow up,” he will ask.

Like most of their peers, the young adults shrug and say they will decide when they decide. This is when they note how funny their Nana is, because he is unable to accept their comfort with not knowing the answer as their final answer for now. He tries to supply them with ideas, most of which they find chucklesome.

More than a decade ago, in my mid-thirties, I had spoken to my therapist, Father Os about my fears and barriers. “What are you afraid of,” he had asked.

“I am afraid of hurting my father,” I had said haltingly in a small voice.

“You cannot hurt your father,” Father Os said calmly. “Only your father can hurt your father.” He wanted to free me of the burden of assuming responsibility for my father’s emotions. I had been deluded about this for too long.

“Talk to your father,” he said to me on another day. “Not the person he is, but the person that you have imagined and built and held on to in your head.”

That clicked for me, slowly. I began to see that I needed to free both Papa and me from my childhood memories of unresolved conflict between us. He had been both my idol as well as the person whose disapproval I feared the most. If I had felt helpless as a child, it was equally true that as a first-generation engineer in the big city, his struggle for agency and a sense of identity was real.

Over the decades, as I had grown up, so had Papa. Both of us wanted to press the refresh button in our relationship as father and daughter.

From listening to my stories about our very strict father when my brothers and I were teenagers, my daughters know that their grandfather is a much kinder, softer version of his former self. Their interactions with each other show me that my daughters’ grandfather has finally uncovered the sweet, nurturing parent within himself. This is a win for the entire family.

(This essay was first published in The Tribune)

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