The generational gap?

Mehta Boys (Hindi, 2015)

Directed, Written and Produced by Boman Irani

https://www.indiaforums.com/movie/the-mehta-boys_7313

This problem is frequently observed these days. As baby boomers live longer lives and share their experiences, clashes often arise between them and younger generations. The boomers are eager to impart the knowledge that benefited them. In their view, they do not want to be like their fathers, who sat aloof, refusing to engage in conversation with the children. The boomers believed they were doing the younger generation a favour by offering free advice. The problem is they assume that this is the only effective approach. The younger ones see things through a different lens and adopt a more relaxed attitude.

The boomers live with a siege mentality, assuming that the world is hostile and could turn upside down at any moment. They act as if they are facing impending doom. Their sole purpose in life is to save for a rainy day at the expense of enjoying themselves.

Consider, for example, preparing for a flight. The older generation would have packed, weighed, and locked the luggage well in advance—perhaps even a day or two before departure. Meanwhile, the younger ones tend to leave it until the last minute, scrambling to find their passport and visa. The same applies to meeting deadlines. The youngsters believe they perform best under pressure. Do they really?

This likely reflects the generational divide often discussed. The older generation insists that things should be done in a single way, while the younger ones understand that there are numerous approaches to tackling a problem. This dilemma is exacerbated in a patriarchal family.

This is the story of a recent widower with two adult children: a daughter in the US and a young architect struggling with confidence issues, working in the bustling city of Mumbai. The father, the widower, is compelled to relocate to the US by his daughter. Both children reunite at the family home to bid farewell to their father. The father and daughter were supposed to fly together, but due to a mix-up with the tickets, the father was assigned a later travel date. Thus, he must stay with his son for a few days before his departure to the US. The relationship between father and son has never been particularly close. The son's formative years were difficult, as the father was always hovering over him. Nothing the son did ever seemed good enough.

The following days marked a turning point in their relationship. The father met the boy's girlfriend, who got on well with him. Amidst some difficulties, such as the father losing his US visa and passport, they found a compromise.

A heartfelt tale of paternal love, ego, frustration, and reconciliation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The ever complex Rubik's cube of life?

Recently, I caught an obituary announcement on social media. An old working senior had passed on. Even though my interaction with that person was short, it left an unpleasant aftertaste. From his demeanour, I learnt how not to disrespect my subordinates. This person was so vile in his comments during high-level meetings that my boss would ask me or one of my colleagues to accompany him for moral support. His scoldings were so personal that they bordered on testing my department's competence and even intelligence.

Everyone let out an air of relief when he was transferred for a promotion. Why a person of such arrogance should be rewarded was the million-dollar question. But then, we were glad that our problem was somebody else's. That was the last I heard of him until the fateful announcement.

There it was, the photograph of him with a toothful smile on his face, innocence oozing down his face, and religious symbols below it. It was his obituary announcement. Under that, a long list of his friends and relatives left touching comments. The impression that I got was that he must have left such an indelible mark in their lives. Then there were comments about how good a father, an uncle and a resource person he had been.

We tend to forget that doctors, engineers, shopkeepers, labourers, and security guards are not defined by the uniform or outfit they don. Outside their regular working hours, they are expected to assume other roles—a parent, a comedian, a musician, or a marathon runner. They may suck at their daytime job, but that does not render them beyond reprieve. There is an alternate universe for them.

That incident reminded me of the life and times of Babur, the brutal founder of the Mughal dynasty. A great conqueror he was, he never liked India. He thought that Indians were uncultured and their land was unimpressive compared to Afghanistan. He wanted their wealth, though.

In 1530, his Humayun fell hopelessly sick. The royal physicians gave up. Babur summoned the Sufi priests. They suggested that Babur should sacrifice something very dear to him. Somebody suggested that the Kohinoor (or some other precious stones, unclear) be given away. The trouble is the diamond belonged to Humayun, not Babur. So it was not his to give away. Instead, Babur circumambulated Humayun's bed three times, recited a prayer to Allah to take his life in exchange for his son's, cried out and fell sick to die three months later.*

There are these multifaceted views of an individual. What we see are representations of part of the picture.

*https://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/me-8

Sri Chinmoy, The Moghul Emperors, Agni Press, 2001

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On paternal love...

Aelay (ஏலே! Hey You! Tamil; 2021)

We always complain that our fathers are not expressive enough, that they are not touchy enough. We allege that they are relatively economical with their display of affection. We despise their approach to solving problems. We say they are too laid back, sometimes also detached.  In our minds, our fathers exhibit all the traits of how a father should not be. We resolve to be just the opposite of what they were.

We spend a great deal of our adulthood not seeing eye-to-eye with our fathers. We tell ourselves we will not be like him when we grow older. Slowly, with the lessons learnt from the School of Hard Knock and Life, we soon realise that he managed, with and despite his knowledge and experience, to hold the fort for others to prosper. In the traditional sense, he looked at himself as a material provider. As for their deeds and misdeeds that he has under his belt, they cannot be held against as he did with his family's best interest at heart. As for vices, he is, after all, human. It is for him to err and for us to forgive.

We should not forget that our parents have to fulfil a particular personal obligation to merit their existence. They also may have likes, desires and sometimes guilty pleasures. Their sole purpose of being is not just to procreate and nurture their progeny. 

Parthi returns home to fulfil his filial duties at his father's funeral. He never a good relationship with his father. His father, a widower, brought him and his sister up working as an ice cream vendor. He was quite a character in his younger days, dodging moneylender and conning people of their monies to earn some extra cash. Parthi grew up hating covering up his father's antic, and he thought his father was quite an embarrassment.

At the funeral, Parthi realised that he had no tears for his father's demise. Unbeknownst to everyone, the father is just up to one of his tricks again - faking his own death to claim insurance! Amidst all this mayhem, Parthi's hears that his childhood is getting married. Parthi's father, meanwhile, is puzzled why his son feels no sorrow. 

Their backstory is told in flashbacks, and the ongoing story describes how Parthi tries to appreciate his father's struggles. The father's foolhardy comes to light, but only to die for real—an entertaining movie without much of the mainstream cinema's glitz performed by new actors. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Mis-stepped his father's footstep!

It is difficult for a son to live in the shadows of his father. Invariably, they do not live up to their fathers' achievements. Living examples of these are too numerous to be enumerated - Gandhi's son, Harilal, a disappointed young man who died as a vagabond in a corridor bed of a general hospital; Michael Douglas and his drug-plagued son; Charlie Sheen (son of Martin Sheen) and his troubles with booze and women; Eric Clapton's son and suicide from a skyscraper after a drug overdose; John Lennon's offspring  Julian stayed at best as a one-hit wonder.

This fact was reinforced from this small book written in Malay by Malaysia's legendary actor, musician, director extraordinaire P. Ramlee's only biological son, Nasir. It was published in 2007, a year before he succumbed to heart ailment and complications of diabetes at 54 years of age. This book was different from other P. Ramlee featured books as it most talked about happenings within the Ramlee household and Nasir in particular, though not into much of depth.

Nasir must have grown confused as in his early childhood, there was a constant tussle between Ramlee and his biological mother, Junaidah. Ramlee and Junaidah divorced after 4 years of marriage due to her suspicious nature and his association with many young starlets of the old Malay movie silver screen golden era! The custodial scramble became so bad that Nasir was once kidnapped to his grandparents' place in Penang!

Later, our young hero had to adjust to living with the palace trained regimental styled ex-consort of the Perak Sultanate, Noorizan who lived by rules and regulations around the house. Nasir was already a tween when Saloma came to the picture. Again, after much reluctance, he relented to accept another stepmother.
Some of P Ramlee's movie stories were based on their everyday lives. Living under the second wife was like in 'Tiga Abdul' with the culture of elegant dining and behaviour. Lyrics of the song 'Hujan di Tengah Hari' seem to mirror Ramlee's attempt to save his first marriage.

Nasir described his father as a kind man who had no qualms talking and sharing his food with the little men.

Nasir did not grow up as an abandoned and lonely son. P. Ramlee readily accepted many adopted children under his care. Some of them did not even have proper adoption papers. A few of them were also of Chinese parentage. Sazali was adopted soon after 'Anak Ku Sazali'. He was also P. Ramlee's favourite. Sabaruddin came in after 'Sabaruddin Tukang Kasut' (a movie). There were others named Zazaloma, Normah and Betty. Dian was a Saloma's adopted Chinese girl, and Armali was her son from her previous marriage to another Malay movie legend, A. R. Tompel. [Trivia: P Ramlee, Saloma and Tompel acted together in 'Keluarga 69']

The whole family were in good spirits in the good old days when the main Malay movie studio was Jalan Ampas, Singapore. Ramlee employed personalised tuition teachers for his kids.
One of his passions (besides making movies) was cooking, not a good one though, according to Nasir's description. P. Ramlee also had some healing powers. He used to prescribe holy water (Quranic verses recited) to his children and acquaintances with favourable results. After the studio wind down due to workers' demands and strike, their migration to Kuala Lumpur marked their downfall. Ramlee's movies were not selling as well as it used to. It affected his family on the whole, money wise.

Nasir's education began to decline. He started playing truant and was expelled from school. He started working in his father's studio, working with the props and doing minor roles in movies. He played music at a small scale in bands around KL - never reaching his father's stature.
We can see from the book that P Ramlee was indeed a sad man in the 70s. He was in dire straits. Saloma had to sing in nightclubs to make ends meet.

Two of P Ramlee's adopted daughters (Normah and Betty) eloped with their boyfriends, and their whereabouts were not known to Nasir at the time of writing. Nasir, like his father, had 3 marriages. P Ramlee and his son, like most Singaporeans at that time, used to converse in English admixed with Malay. A touching worth mentioning conversation allegedly took place between father and son...

' "Nasir: Kenapa Lu suka buat lagu bertemekan cinta, nama perempuan, nama-nama bunga? Gua tak minatlah!
Tiba-tiba dia naik radang dan meninggikan suaranya.
Ramlee: Kalau Lu nak tahu, ada 3 sebab. Pertama, Gua punya suka. Kedua, Lulah anak
yang tak guna, yang tak menghargai ciptaan bapa sendiri. Yang ketiga, kalau Gua
mati nanti, barulah Lu tahu betapa klasiknya ciptaan P Ramlee. Apa punya anak,
berjuta suka lagu saya, anak sendiri mencerca kita' "

Nasir's daytime job was selling nasi lemak and fruits for which he was persecuted regularly by the local council (DBKL) for failing to own a legitimate trading license until he mentioned his predicament to the Prime Minister (Dr M) when Nasir represented his father to receive a posthumous award. Nasir succumbed to heart ailments and complications of diabetes at the age of 54 in 2008.

The take-home message from the book is that we should spend quality time with our loved one as it is evident that Nasir has regrets not spending enough time and appreciating the greatness of his father.

NB. Gandhi, my father: Not your typical Bollywood flick. It is a bilingual effort (English and Hindi) period movie depicting Gandhi as a not-so-perfect father. In the opening scene of the film, an unkempt drunken vagabond is dumped in a general hospital. The attending attendant asks him rudely, (in Hindi), for his name. He replies, "Harilal". "What's your father's name?" the attendant asked repeatedly. In a stupor, the patient replies, "Karamchand Mohandas Gandhi!' - A good watch!