A Father?

The story of a father is in a way like the story of many immigrants who come to America seeking a better future. This story was much more tragic than most other stories because of what occurs at the end, but all in all the story is very common. In order to adapt to a new country and all of its surroundings sacrifices have to be made. One must abandon certain cultural commodities and beliefs. At this point there arises a clash between old and new world; between what should be left behind and what should be kept. This is the type of crossroads Mr. Bhowmick finds himself at. He is a traditional man, who came to America with his wife and young daughter to pursue "the dream" yet he values certain aspects of his culture and is dominated by certain values. Their family has certainly done well in America they seem to be middle class to perhaps even upper middle class. They have good jobs, even their daughter Babli who went to Georgia Tech and wears business suits to work and his wife works for an insurance company. They have acclimated to their new homeland quite fairly. If anything it was Mr. Bhowmick who was still stuck in past customs while the women in his household conceived and employed progressive ideas. Mr. Bhowmick felt in some way detached with the women in his life who took no concern to his goddess Kali-Mata like he did. He who so elaborately designed her at a wood shop. Every morning it was his routine to pray to his goddess Kali, goddess of vengeance, while his wife yelled from downstairs in an attempt to rush him.

On one particular morning Mr Bhowmick fell ill to his personal taboos and decided to preserve his life by staying home. This decision led him to discover that his daughter Babli was pregnant. He regretted Babli he regretted not being able to love her because she was not the woman he expected her to be, she was not tender or loving like the women of his past. This inability to love ones child makes him seem cold and selfish. A child is a gift any parent loves and protects, but he felt no real connection. She was a stranger to his ideals, like his wife. Discovering that Babli is pregnant delights him and he immediately expects a grandson. For weeks he looks closer at his daughters behavior, while guessing at who the father may be. Babli not only does not have a man in her life, but she hides her pregnancy. Finally the truth is revealed that Babli is not only pregnant, but there is no man, she was inseminated and this very notion devastates Mr. Bhowmick who beats his daughter after finding out the truth. Mr. Bhowmick, who is for all purposes, the traditional Indian man was more ashamed at the reality of how his grandchild was conceived than by the overall pregnancy. He preferred a pre-marital pregnancy than one who had a faceless nameless father. This progressive idea that a woman can control whether she wants to have a baby or not on her own is absurd to him. In his rage and loss of control over the woman in his life he commits a horrible crime.

The story is loaded with irony. Mr Bhowmick prays to a female goddess, who controls him, but abhors the control the women in his life have on their own lives. It terrifies him. Progressive woman have no place in his conscious. The title of the story "A Father" is also very ironic because in this story there is no father. Mr. Bhowmick  isn't a father to Babli and Babli's child bears no "actual" father. There is a displacement in the sense of what a father is and who or what makes a father. There is also irony around the mother who was ashamed and angry at her daughter's pregnancy even though she claims to be a progressive woman with modern ideologies.The clash between old and new is an ordeal as well as what is traditional and non-traditional. It drove Mr. Bhowmick insane to know that his daughter disrupted something so fragile, by taking maternity into her own hands. It devastated him. These are things immigrants sacrifice, their very worlds become distorted and these changes are not well assimilated. There are certain boundaries that should not be crossed and Mr Bhowmick was seeing all these walls coming down on him. Kali has made a fool of him, she has mocked his world even with all his reverence. Betrayed by his own ideals.