My daughter and Brigadier Gerard

Storytelling has been a strong tradition over generations in our family, and I have carried it forward both as a teacher and a father. Now I have always been a man of many interests, so naturally my stories have covered a very wide swathe of life, but history has always figured rather largely, not only because it lends itself so well to storytelling (imagine doing it with chemistry!) but because it helps so much to know the ways of mankind, and yes, because I have always loved it dearly.

That perhaps goes some way to explain why my daughter developed an early and abiding interest in history and, unlike most middle-class Indian kids, not encumbered with desperate parental obsession with medical or engineering careers, she chose to read it in college. As she tells me, in her final year, she might not go on to become a professional historian, but she has definitely enjoyed reading her course. I have hugely enjoyed myself discussing her course material with her too: that has been a bonus; not too many parents can relish such a pastime. I have often egged her on to write about things she has read and thought about. Very recently, she wrote a term paper about the connection between formal history and literature, focusing on one particular classic work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She loved writing it, got the highest marks in class for it, and I managed to persuade her to put it up on her blog, if only so that she can look back on it decades later and smile. Here it is.

I am glad indeed that I could not only persuade my own daughter at least that education is meant for enlightenment and enjoyment, not merely a means to a job, but could afford to let her take her time to realize it. She is going on 21, and I know she will not regret it, and neither will I. At the same time, I still do not worry about her finding a good career for herself. From all I have seen of life, with the blessing of Providence, any intelligent person who is willing to work hard for a long stretch can find a reasonably decent career. When most parents worry about how their kids can be ‘established’ in life (a very popular word in Indian English) unless they restrict themselves to chasing just one or two well-worn professions, their real worry is how their kids can ‘afford’ to be different from the herd. It is a sickness by which far too many young lives have been blighted: both as a father and a teacher I hope that my daughter’s generation will not fall prey to it as parents in their turn…