Author: Harpreet Chhachhia

Just me and nothing else but.

What You Taught Me Not To Be

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Dad,

Through the years, I have always wondered how important a father’s role is in his children’s lives. To his son, he becomes a model to emulate, an example of the man he might become. To his daughter, he becomes the first example of the opposite sex. In you, we had neither. We had no recourse but to look to our mother for hope and faith in our ability to become worthy citizens of the world: the kind of people who would be valued as a part of society. Hope is a very strange thing. I am sorry to say you provided us with none. I don’t even think you made any attempt whatsoever to provide us with it.

I have always wondered how you chose to become a father, twice, and yet could afford no vestige of parental affection towards your children. You lived your life on your own terms, and you lived in a kingdom of your own making, protecting your own privileges and affording none to the wife and children you chose to bring into your domain. I write this to you wondering what prompted you to behave this way. Why does a father choose alcohol over the family he himself once wanted to have?

Last year was filled with chaos. The pandemic swept across lives, uprooting many and devastating many. People who could afford to live in their homes did; people who were left to fend for themselves had to move. The poor had left their villages and come to the city looking for work, wages and food. With no work, there were no wages and no food. Their employers could not afford to pay them. They did not want to live on alms. So many made their way back to their villages, defying orders. Some were stopped. Some were punished. But they kept going without transport, without food and without water.

I saw their plight, and within their plight I realised I was given hope. Within their plight, I noticed their determination. They certainly had hope. There were migrants who travelled hundreds of kilometres on foot, and yet they carried with them animals that they loved. Through their migration, we learned their stories, filled with grit and stoicism. And I thought of you, Dad. You, who had abandoned your own family. Yet your family survived. After all, we had a mother who provided us with what we needed to become worthy individuals. The migrants survived because they had hope! Humanity survives because we know that today might be cruel, but tomorrow may yet be kind.

I suddenly remembered the boy, Shunahshepa, whose story is found in Indian myth. Once, the ruler of the local kingdom promised to sacrifice his son, the prince, to a god. But then he changed his mind, for he loved his son too much. He decided to adopt a son and sacrifice the adopted child instead. He offered a hundred cows to any man who gifted him a son. One man, Ajigarta, father of three, forced by hunger, offered his middle son to the king. The eldest was dear to him and the youngest dear to his mother. So, the unwanted second son could be spared. Shunahshepa, unloved by his father and the king, started to weep. When those who are supposed to protect and provide for you turn against you to provide and protect themselves, what does one do? Whom could he turn to? In his moment of helplessness and hopelessness, Shunahshepa composed hymns that are part of the Rig Veda. His is the voice of those devoid of hope. It is meant to evoke the spirit of generosity and empathy in all humans.

I always wonder how some people who haven’t been blessed with the love of at least one parent feel. I have a mother who loves me. People tell me to look at the brighter side of things, to see what I have been given instead of what I lack. I did not know whether to think of this optimistically or pessimistically. But then I realised that what they are asking me to seek out is some kind of hope: the thing that poets and writers over centuries have written about. They all speak about humans being humane.

Our world is filled with conflict. With trauma, fear, pain and loss. Where there is conflict, there is raṇa-bhoomi, a battleground, filled with fear, chaos and blood. When you would come into the house, Dad, you would bring in chaos. There would be fights and fear. And there were other times at home when you were not around or were in a stupor, and Mom or Daadi would spend time with us as kids. Then our small world would transform into a rang-bhoomi. Love, ideas and help would be intermixed in our lives.

Daadi would shield us from your abuse when Mom wasn’t around. She would make food for us that I shall never forget the taste of. She sat and watched movies with us that she couldn’t understand because they were in English. She would take us to all the places we wanted to visit. I learned from my Daadi, your Mom, that a generous heart can fill a life with joyful memories. She thought of us besides thinking of herself. I guess that is how she created hope.

There was a story I read in a comic book once, about Gajendra, the king of elephants, who once entered a pond filled with lotus flowers. There, a crocodile grabbed him by his foot and tried to drown him. Gajendra struggled to escape, but the crocodile’s jaws were too strong. No one came to his rescue. Alone, he raised his trunk and begged for help. Gajendra then picked up a lotus flower and offered it to whoever was listening. Suddenly, the clouds parted, the sun shone bright, and gliding on the wind came Vishnu on his eagle, Garuda. Vishnu hurled his discus and struck the crocodile. The crocodile was forced to release the elephant-king from his terrible grip.

The story of Gajendra is a metaphor. In nature, the crocodile is not a villain and the elephant is not a victim. In nature, animals do not ask for help, and no god will come between a predator and its prey. This story is important because we can equate ourselves to it. Your neglect and abuse, Dad, could correspond to the crocodile. My sister and I struggled through the years of fearing you, wanting you to be a better parent. We tried to escape the desire for a father figure. In essence, then, we were the trapped elephant. We waited to be rescued. And in exchange, as the lotus, all we could offer to my Mom or Daadi were our own existences. They derived pleasure from us and, because they were related to us, they extended their love and help. They would be our Vishnu, emerging from the dark clouds to save the day, protect us and shield us from you. In exchange, then, they were given our admiration, support and love.

However, seen as a larger metaphor, this story represents humans dragged down by an uncaring system that impersonally consumes people to sustain itself. Animals are not designed to help, except as members of their herd or pack. But humans can help everyone, even strangers, even enemies. That is why we all have expectations of being helped. I certainly have. I am sure you must have them, too, in some form or another.

We are all children, essentially, standing before a larger-than-life system that acts as a controlling parent. I used to wish that the system would change. I wished that you would change. And there were many chances for you to change, Dad. You did not, but I realised one thing: that I could be what you weren’t. I could be more like Mom or Daadi. I could help those who were seeking help, in some form or another.

Somewhere, caught in my own feelings of inadequacy and victimhood, I realised that thinking about these things only fed my own insecurities about never having had a loving father. The world is a larger place. There are so many elephants who are still trapped in the jaws of other crocodiles. They have no jobs, no business, no income, no savings, no support; they are trapped by debt, insecurity, loneliness and hopelessness. They are crying out for help. I was so focused on my own hunger that I didn’t notice theirs. Much in the same way, you didn’t care about your family’s hunger and need.

You know who else you remind me of? Remember the time when Chacha borrowed money from the family property, and you had a row with Daadi? You behaved like the king of the gods, Indra, who focused only on his hunger and no one else’s. Like in the story when an asura defeated Indra and took all that he had. Indra sought Krishna’s help. Krishna fought the asura and restored Indra’s wealth, and Indra was grateful. However, Krishna did not just want Indra’s gratitude. He wanted Indra to be generous, to share his wealth. He asked Indra to give the Parijata tree from his garden to Krishna’s queen, Satyabhama. But Indra refused to part with this beloved tree. He feared that if he lost the tree, he would lose everything. Giving up even one tree seemed momentous. He was not willing to part with even one possession.

A fight followed between Krishna and Indra. Krishna then overpowered Indra and forcibly took the Parijata tree from Indra’s kingdom and planted it in Dwarka, his home.

You know this is exactly what happened when Daadi asked you to share. When you didn’t want to, she took matters into her own hands and gave Chacha what she wanted to give him from her own property. I guess this is why there are many temples in India to Krishna, but none for Indra. Indra is grateful for his prosperity, but he is not generous with it. You always wanted possessions. You wanted things that were not yours. You didn’t want to participate in providing, but always wanted to possess. This is why you are like Indra and could never be like Krishna.

Indra creates a raṇa-bhoomi, a battleground. You fought for your rights and your entitlements. And I am glad that I do not wish to wrestle for what is not mine. We need to create Vishnu’s rang-bhoomi, where people share and take care of each other. This is not based on laws or commandments or policies. It is based on contentment and empathy: happiness with what you have and concern for what others do not have. I learnt this from my Mom and my Daadi. They struggled to provide, but they were content with what they had. It may not have been a mansion that Mom bought for us, but the home she eventually created came out of hard work and sacrifice. She didn’t do this for herself but to secure her children’s future.

When we are not generous with wealth, we will be surrounded by people who will feel we have stolen their share of wealth. After all, the Earth from which all wealth is generated belongs to everyone. We are all Earth’s children. Why should Earth’s wealth belong to some and not all? Why should Earth’s wealth not be shared with the hungry? These are complex questions with no easy answers. But what is simple to understand is that hungry people are angry people. From hunger, conflict is created, and the world becomes a hostile place. You were angry and you remained so. Because of your anger, there was a time when I was so angry at the injustice of it all. Why couldn’t I have a better father? Why did my mother have to marry you? Why would you abuse me because of your inadequacies as a parent? In my twenties, I was so consumed with anger against all authority figures. But, over time, I have learnt from your mistakes, Dad, and my own; predominantly because I chose to focus on the examples I had that provided hope.

I think what happened last year is a wake-up call to everyone who feels and behaves like you. COVID-19 happened because there are people like you who want everything for themselves and refuse to share what they have. The Earth’s resources are being plundered as we speak. Have you imagined what it means when we say that over half of the world’s net wealth belongs to the top 1% of the entire world population? This just means that a very few people in this world corner all the wealth. Not only do they have it, but they are too insecure to share it. The rest of the population feel tricked, cheated, denied, deprived, oppressed and abandoned. When social injustice like this happens, Vishnu has to wake up.

When the Earth is happy, Vishnu sleeps under the hood and on the coils of a serpent that floats on the ocean of milk. But when the Earth cries, he descends to the realm of mortals as a mortal. He becomes a king and a cowherd, his avatars, to teach the world what it means to be human. We need to do daan. Be generous.

How difficult is it to help your domestic help when they can’t afford to buy groceries? How difficult is it to reach out to your friend who cannot pay his rent because of a pay cut? How difficult is it to take care of an abandoned animal you see on the road? Why can we not find meaning in committing the tiniest act of generosity, if we cannot be selfless?

Why must we be like Indra and think only of our hunger? Isn’t being human also equivalent to being empathetic to all? We must learn to share. If we pass on our hungers, fears and delusions, why can we also not learn to create a generous heart and a desire to share? If only we could learn to give before we ask, provide before we receive, show that we can be helpful before we ask for help. Isn’t that what being a good father means? Isn’t that what being a good human being means?

I wish you could have seen this and understood this. But your being you has taught me how not to be you. Your presence has served a purpose in my life. It has shown me what I can do better, how I can be better. I must say, you have shown me, by your example, what I should not be. And by setting that example, I can love and care for the people who care about me. If need be, I can also be there for those to whom I owe nothing. So, in essence, you were a father, since you taught me something invaluable. And so, I thank you.

In gratitude,

Your son.

Different Equations

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I am writing this because a recent conversation with my sister showed how easily my relationships can be judged through comparisons that overlook their different foundations. She believes a partner’s right to speak to a parent should be reciprocal: if she cannot speak to her father-in-law in a particular way, Hamza should not speak to my mother that way either. She also sees Anand differently because he has been part of the family for decades and supported my mother through difficult times.

I understand her perspective, but Anand and Hamza entered my life under different circumstances, occupy different roles, and have distinct relationships with my family.

Comparing Anand and Hamza as though they occupy the same place within my family misses the central point: they entered my life at different times, under different circumstances, and have developed fundamentally different relationships with me and with my family.

This is not about deciding who matters more or who has more rights. It is about recognising that these relationships cannot be judged by the same standards.

Anand is family in a way that is difficult to explain

Anand has been my spouse for almost twenty-six years. In September, we will have been together for twenty-six years.

His place in my family is not based on longevity alone. Anand is the person who gets things done. He makes phone calls, fills out paperwork, deals with banks and government offices, speaks to handymen, solves practical problems and takes responsibility when something needs to be sorted out.

He is the family’s all-purpose fixer, and everyone knows it.

My mother, my sister and my cousin regularly turn to him:

“Anand, do this.”

“Anand, get me this.”

“Anand, how do I do this?”

“Anand, can you sort this out?”

And he does.

He has managed this house for years. I have given him that responsibility because he is my spouse and because I trust him to handle it.

A long time ago, my therapist described Anand as the Rock of Gibraltar. That remains accurate. He is solid, dependable and still standing when everything else is falling apart.

But that description has limits.

A rock is a rock. It cannot be cuddled. It does not necessarily provide emotional intimacy.

Anand is my spouse, my family and my rock. He has been beside me for twenty-six years. But his relationship with me is not the same as Hamza’s.

That is why the comparison fails.

Hamza occupies an entirely different place in my life

Hamza came into my life in 2019, and we began our relationship in 2021.

That is around the same time when Geeta married Ishan, so the duration of her relationship with Ishan and mine with Hamza is not dramatically different. But the circumstances are entirely different.

Hamza entered an existing relationship and an established household. Anand had already been part of my life for more than two decades, and my family already knew and accepted him.

Hamza also entered a polyamorous relationship, something most people do not instinctively understand. I did not fully understand it until I lived it, and Hamza is still finding his place within it.

He was around twenty-two when we began seeing each other. He is twenty-nine now. He has grown enormously, but he is still learning where he fits, how to speak, when to speak and what his role is within a family structure that existed before he arrived.

He is also less comfortable speaking English than Anand. He is not as quick or confident in conversation, and he does not ease a room in the way Anand can.

So he often keeps quiet.

Because Anand has been with me for so much longer, Hamza naturally defers to him. He generally does not approach Anand directly; he comes through me.

That makes sense. I am the person with whom he has the relationship. I am the person whose reactions he watches.

He looks for me in a crowded room. He thinks about me. He brings me food even when he is tired after work. He worries about me. He cares about what I am feeling.

When somebody has a problem with me, he stands up for me. He will tell me when I am wrong, and he will tell somebody else when they are wrong.

That is Hamza’s role in my life.

Where Anand is my rock, Hamza is my emotional partner. These are not competing roles. They are different roles, and both are real.

My family also has to acknowledge Hamza’s position

Hamza is a Muslim man.

That should not matter. But pretending it does not matter in the context of my family would be dishonest.

He is aware of the attitudes around him. He knows that my mother and sister have voted for the BJP. He has heard conversations about Muslims, Israel and Palestine, Narendra Modi and other subjects that have made the family’s political and social attitudes clear.

He knows he is not necessarily entering a room where everyone sees him without preconceived ideas.

That is difficult because he knows I am, in many ways, the only person, apart from Anand, who will look at him without that filter.

He knows that I see him—not his religion, not the assumptions attached to it, and not what somebody thinks a Muslim man should be.

Him.

That is another reason his relationship with my family cannot be compared casually with somebody else’s relationship with their in-laws.

The comparison with Ishan and my mother is misleading

Geeta has compared how she deals with her father-in-law with how Hamza deals with my mother.

I understand why she sees a parallel, but there is not one. The relationships are fundamentally different.

Anand has always understood the distinction between being my spouse and being my son-in-law. He has regarded Goodie Pua as his mother within this family, and there was genuine affection between them. But he has also understood that my mother is not Goodie Pua and his mother-in-law.

That creates a particular boundary.

Hamza’s relationship with my mother began differently.

When my mother became seriously ill, Hamza cried because he genuinely thought she was going to die. He did not react like someone worried about his partner’s mother. He reacted like someone losing his own mother.

He had placed her in that position emotionally. He regarded her as a substitute mother.

That matters because when you regard someone as your mother, you expect affection, concern and some degree of reciprocity. You do not automatically adopt the emotional distance associated with a mother-in-law.

Unfortunately, that reciprocity did not exist.

Hamza initially genuinely cared about her and gave her a place in his heart far more intimate than “my partner’s mother”.

Then he lived with her. He watched and listened. He saw how she behaved and how she treated me and him. He saw things that someone who visited occasionally might never see.

Gradually, he came to understand her as a person rather than as the mother he had imagined her to be.

His relationship with her changed because his understanding of her changed.

That is not interference for its own sake. It is a relationship changing as someone comes to understand another person’s character. As no doubt my sister and mother have done with regard to him. 

We are not in a conventional family structure

There is another point that cannot be ignored when discussing who has the right to speak to whose family.

Anand and I are in a homosexual relationship. Hamza and I are in a polyamorous homosexual relationship.

Those facts matter because the family structures heterosexual couples often take for granted do not necessarily exist for us.

A heterosexual man who marries a woman does not necessarily have to announce to his parents that he has a male partner. A heterosexual woman does not have to explain to her in-laws that she is in a relationship with another woman.

Ishan does not have to come out to his family for his marriage to Geeta to exist.

Hamza has not come out to his family.

That is not because he is indifferent to them or ashamed of our relationship. He fears that coming out could provoke a completely hostile reaction. His silence is therefore not a casual choice or a sign that he does not value his family. It is a matter of safety.

That difference has consequences. There is a privilege in entering a family relationship without first having to explain your sexuality or risk hostility before you can claim a place within it.

Hamza has never had that privilege.

Neither did Anand.

When Anand and I began dating, he came out to his family early in our relationship. Even then, I did not suddenly acquire the same place in his family that he had in mine.

I could not speak to his mother as Anand could speak to mine. I could not enter that relationship and assume the same authority. I did not expect to.

So why should that principle change simply because Hamza now lives in my home?

Why should his ability to speak to my mother be judged by whether I have equivalent access to his family?

It was never equivalent. It did not need to be equivalent. It still does not.

Authority comes from the relationship, not from reciprocity

If Hamza lives here as a member of my family and as my spouse, his place here does not depend on whether I can speak to his family.

That is something I have given him.

If he speaks to my mother in the wrong way, I will be the first person to tell him. I already do that.

If I think he has crossed a line, I tell him. If I think Anand has crossed a line, I tell him. If I think my mother or Geeta has crossed a line, I tell them.

That is what family should be. It should not be governed by an abstract rule that says, “You can speak only if the other person has been given exactly the same right.”

Families do not work like contracts. They work through relationships, and those relationships are different.

Boundaries still matter

None of this gives Hamza unlimited authority to intervene between my mother and me.

He does not have that authority, and I have been clear about it.

I have also been clear with my mother: I do not want people stepping into the relationship between her and me unless I ask them to.

That boundary applies to both sides.

I apply the same principle elsewhere. Geeta has her relationship with Ishan. I do not insert myself into conflicts between Ishan and his father.

That is how these boundaries should work.

There are lines, and some of them are fragile. We all have to understand and respect them.

But the existence of a boundary does not mean that every relationship on either side of it is identical.

Ultimately, this is about honesty

I have never been good at pretending relationships are simpler than they are. I tend to speak the truth, even when it is uncomfortable.

The truth is that Anand and Hamza occupy very different places in my life and, consequently, within my family.

Anand has earned his place over twenty-six years. He has worked for this family, helped this family and carried responsibilities for it. He has been there through crises, illnesses, paperwork, bureaucracy, repairs, practical problems and the endless small tasks of ordinary family life.

He has earned the familiarity and authority that come with that history.

Hamza has a different history. He has been in my life for less time. He entered an established relationship. He is younger, still finding his place and navigating a relationship structure that most people around him do not fully understand.

But he has also become my emotional person.

He sees me. He worries about me. He looks for me. He fights for me. He takes care of me in the ways that matter emotionally.

He has experienced my family from a different position.

So when Geeta says, essentially, “Hamza should be able to speak to mummy only when I can speak in his family with authority,” I do not think that follows.

It compares two relationships simply because both men are my partners. That is not enough.

Relationships are not mathematical equations. They are histories: accumulated trust, affection, hurt, responsibility, intimacy and boundaries.

Anand has one history with my family. Hamza has another.

Neither needs to be diminished to make the other legitimate. Hamza does not need to become Anand in order to have a place in this family.

He already has one.

It is simply different.

The mistake is assuming that relationships that look superficially similar must operate according to the same rules.

They do not.

Anyone who wants to understand Hamza’s behaviour must understand the history that produced it before judging the behaviour itself.

There are no simple lines here. There are only relationships and the fragile boundaries we have built around them so that all of us can live together.

Forgiveness Does Not Mean Going Back

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I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately, and about how easily people confuse forgiveness with reconciliation.

We are often taught that if you forgive someone, you should also let them back in. That once the anger has gone, the relationship should return to where it was. That forgiveness somehow creates an obligation to restore the closeness that existed before.

I don’t believe that anymore.

I can forgive someone and still recognise that something between us has changed.

I can let go of anger without pretending that nothing happened. I can stop carrying resentment without erasing what the experience taught me. I can forgive without forgetting the things I learned about a person, about a relationship, and about myself.

Forgiveness does not delete the data.

It simply means I no longer want to spend my life being controlled by what that data revealed.

And that distinction has become incredibly important to me.

There are relationships in which I have loved deeply, given repeatedly, compromised endlessly and tried to make things work because they mattered to me. But there comes a point when protecting a relationship begins to mean sacrificing yourself.

That is not what I want anymore.

I don’t want to live anticipating the next argument. I don’t want to constantly wonder when something I say will be interpreted as an attack. I don’t want to spend my life managing somebody else’s perception of me while simultaneously questioning my own reality.

And I don’t want another person to live that way around me either.

I don’t want relationships built on fear, guilt, emotional accounting or the constant possibility of another explosion.

That doesn’t mean I don’t love.

It means I have finally understood that love and proximity are not the same thing.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing either.

Reconciliation requires something more than forgiveness. It requires change. It requires accountability. It requires both people to acknowledge what happened and to be willing to create something different from what existed before.

Otherwise, reconciliation is simply a return to the same circumstances with the expectation that somehow the outcome will be different.

And I cannot do that anymore.

If I forgive someone, it is because I don’t want anger to own me. I don’t want resentment taking up space in my head. I don’t want to spend years replaying conversations, keeping score or waiting for someone to finally understand what they did to me.

I want peace.

But wanting peace does not mean I have to give unlimited access to the person from whom I needed peace in the first place.

I can forgive you and still not trust you.

I can love you and still need distance.

I can wish you well and still decide that certain boundaries are necessary.

I can stop being angry with you without becoming comfortable with the behaviour that hurt me.

None of those things are contradictions.

They are boundaries.

And perhaps the hardest thing for people to understand is that forgiveness is not a contract promising future access.

Forgiveness is something I do for myself.

Access is something that has to be earned.

If someone wants to return to a place of closeness in my life, that cannot happen simply because I have stopped being angry. It has to happen because something has genuinely changed.

There has to be accountability.

There has to be a willingness to listen.

There has to be an acceptance that the relationship cannot simply return to exactly what it was before the rupture.

Because I am not the same person I was before I experienced what I experienced.

I have learned something.

And I am allowed to remember what I learned.

Sometimes people hear a boundary and call it bitterness. They hear distance and call it punishment. They hear someone saying, “I have forgiven you, but I don’t want to go back to the way things were,” and assume that forgiveness was never genuine.

I disagree.

Sometimes the most genuine form of forgiveness is precisely the one that does not demand a reunion.

I don’t have to hate you to stay away from you.

I don’t have to punish you to protect myself.

I don’t have to carry anger in order to maintain a boundary.

And I certainly don’t have to perform a reconciliation that I don’t genuinely feel simply to make everyone else comfortable.

There is a difference between closing a door in anger and closing a door peacefully.

One says, “I want you to suffer.”

The other says, “I have accepted what happened, and I have decided what I need in order to live peacefully.”

That is where I am trying to get to.

Not revenge.

Not punishment.

Not bitterness.

Peace.

And if that peace requires a different kind of relationship, then perhaps that is what the relationship needs to become.

Because forgiveness should free me from the past.

It should not imprison me in the same circumstances that created the pain.

I can forgive.

I can love.

I can remember.

I can wish someone well.

And I can still decide that my peace matters enough to have boundaries around who gets access to me, how they get that access, and what has to change before I open the door again.

Forgiveness does not come with a key.

And perhaps that is the part we need to understand.

Sometimes forgiveness means letting go of the anger.

Reconciliation means rebuilding the relationship.

They are two different choices.

And I am allowed to make them separately.