To Son, From Father, Through Tears...

Dear Son,

I know I will never post this letter to you... Yet, I want my feelings of today to reach you some day, when I gain enough courage to overcome my ego. Hence I write this to you!

Let me start by saying, you are the one in this world whom I have always loved to the core.  Don’t you see how ironic it is for a dad to have to declare his love toward his son?  But such is the way our lives develop in this world that we often can’t follow what is obvious but are forced to carry on with the unthinkable.

Like any other father, I have followed your journey of the last one year through various stages of this reality show.  At the beginning it was the pride that you have at least inherited the aptitude for singing from me! But soon I realised that your gift was something much more than what I can claim on the ground of inheritance. It was sheer God’s gift to you my son, for you have got such talents that can take you to the very heights.

Obviously, I was very proud to see you being declared as the winner of the contest and I had no doubts that you simply deserved it, being a class above your competitors.  I could hardly see you receiving the trophy and the symbolic key to that flat (worth Rs 1 Crore!) because the swelling tears would just not allow me to. 

How I wished I could be there, with you and your mother, on stage, while you were at that defining moment of your life!  But you simply shocked me when you took the mike and addressed me through television cameras, beseeching me with the request to join you and mom, to begin a new journey.

I don’t know if you have realised it, my son.   That was the first time you spoke to me since you were 5 years of age, when I lost that bitter custody battle after the divorce.   Each time I tried to reach out to you, your mom stalled it and my hurt ego would not let me to beg before her, after all that took place between us.

I have always nurtured this feeling that in spite of all that took place, one day I would be able to patch up with your mom and join you both.  A true selfish man that I am, I always thought your mom would reach out to me at least for financial help to meet the increasing expenses of your education and that would be the time for me to attempt reconciliation. But now that day seems even more remote. 

In spite of your public call, any effort to reach out to you or mom will only be seen as my effort to claim a share in the 1 crore bonanza that you just received.  I can perceive it even now, the potential reaction of our relatives and neighbours (and possibly, even your mom’s)- that I am coming back not out of love but out of the greed for your new wealth!

I know your mom, even more than you know her.  We have loved each other most intensely and we have fought each other even more intensely.  She always valued her independence.  With all her financial difficulties not once she considered approaching me to share the cost of bringing you up.  Now you have won all this wealth, she has even less motivation to compromise.  While I commend her for having done a great job in bringing you up, I do not expect any concession from her at this moment of victory.

No, my son; your dad is a coward.  I will not have the courage to face the derisive comments and looks of people and still come to you.  I have learned to live with my losses with the help of my ego and pride (even if false).  I hope I will learn to die that way too.

My blessings (if they are of any worth) will always be with you.  I will keenly watch your growth and success, more easily now, as you have already become a star.

Last but not the least; my son, having seen enough of this world and its ways, I hope and pray that your call to me from that stage was not out of any arrogance of having won such a huge wealth, but out of genuine wish to see us all together. 

Do not curse me... My heart will be with you always...

Yours through tears,

Unfortunate dad

PS:  This post is my reaction to a real life incident when the winner of a children’s reality show made a similar call to his estranged father, from the stage, through the TV.  I know nothing of the protagonists except for this public call.   All the contents of this letter are therefore, pure fiction, and not attributed to any living persons.