Dear Aachi Good Morning! Great to have you back. This was hilarious except I really want to know what was going on in his head!

Thanks for having the blog on your brochure!!! Guess that means you're going to have many more interesting questions coming your way....lucky man:-)

love
Anusheh

Good Morning Aachi

In the eye of the beholder indeed Lol! I think you relieved him from feeling he was obsessively seeing 'sex' in everything. That was a kind gesture Aachi!

Wonderful story.

ahh, what a sex obsessed guy u r aachi for putting it even in your brochure!!!!!!!!!!tsk tsk...shame on you for corrupting pure lovers of art....:)

Good Morning Aachi,

That was funny indeed!!! :-)

And i too would love to know what was going on in the father's mind. Very interesting! Do keep sharing these anecdotes with us.

Have a great day!

This is what many indians see when they hear about Osho. ; - )

Hello Aachi,

its really funny how the mind works. I was wondering though that is this typical of fathers only? i mean is this sort of a thinking process induced by the over-protective attitude that they tend to have towards their daughters? Would it have been the same way had it been their mother and not their father?

Just wondering ......

A friend of mine once narrated to me how his mom would observe his face whenever some mushy or love making scene came on the tv screen. My poor friend used to dread watching tv when his mom was around.

Anusheh,

You must have heard about the traditional south Indian aunties. Well, I by mistake gave the brochure to one such middle aged aunty and the moment she saw the blog's name on the brochure she was...what shall i say...suddenly well behaved and aloof...:)

I decided to give the other aunties a miss!

I am sorry that i couldnt mail IFSHA the brochure for i was really hard pressed and it was all hectic. I will however send it tomorrow, though the show is over. Hope you dont mind.

Jasjit,

thank you so much. till now whosoever i narrated the incident have told that i was a little naughty in playing along with him, only you have said something else. Thank you.

Sundar,

I really had a lot of fun courtesy some unsuspecting conservatives. :)

Shubhosree,

Thank you.

I really enjoyed the anecdote of the guard and the couple in the bush that you posted on another thread. That incident was so beautiul in the way the guard actually waited for the right moment to blow the whistle.:)

Rohit,

i think that you have hit the nail right on the head. I was one such Indian until recently till i started reading about Osho and recognised the greatness of the man.

Shalini,

I think that the mothers are more conservative than fathers. They are more protective and hence are compelled to see things which are usually not there. I thank god that it wasnt a mother...she would have given me a long hard malicious stare certainly!

Chaitali,

This has happened to many of us. The Tv suddenly shoots up a sensuous scene and there is a little discomfort in the air of the hall which reaches a final point of tension when the adult picks the remote and flips the channel.

Dear Aachi, LOL My sympathies are with you. But if it provides some solace we get our own fair amount of nasty looks, suspicious looks, weird looks and walk aways all the time :-)

Would love to see the brochure...pls dont worry about not mailing it earlier. All is always as it should be:-)
love
anusheh

Aachi, what a sad, funny story. This is so typical and highlights two impulses in the protective father: a) the propensity to see sex (repression?) everywhere and b)the transmuted urge to effect sexual control in his schoolgoing daughters..I often wonder how do South Asian males cope with the fearsome idea of their daughters and sisters having sex when they marry them off (another patriarchal handout) - Gosh?
On fears, I recall reading: there is nothing to fear but fear itself!

Raza

Welcome. Hmm good question. I wonder Raza if that is why many fathers can never find men good enough for their daughters.
love
Anusheh

"sad, funny"...well said, raza...dont think i have seen you in these spaces earlier...hi and welcome...

Sundar and Anusheh:

many thanks for the welcome! Sundar, you will hear more from me and I just browsed through your blogspot..Inspiring is what I can say to start with.
Anusheh, you are absolutely right on the fathers and daughters. Partly, this is why fathers do not approve other men as the right ones for their daughters. Also, letting go of patrirchal control - over sexuality and all its manifestations -is not that easy for the ones used to exercising this power. Is it not true that the control over body then shifts to the husband who decides (exceptions notwithstanding) on the conduct of a woman's reprodcutive powers.This is changing and will change sooner than we think, though I am not sure in which direction since globalisation is further reinforcing woman's body and sexuality from a patriarchal perspective. The mainstream media equating women's bodies with cars driven almost always by men is a sign of our times...this is a messy situation.
However, the father-search syndrome is the other side of the coin. The infamously famous electra complex also makes inroads into this already complex situation particularly in our shared contexts.
Too many questions but good that we have a decent space to raise these! best, Raza

Just to share something re: fathers and daughters after Raza's post (hello Raza, welcome - and great story Aachi, I love yr little anecdotes)

....growing up with a father with a large personality that was based on his skill, perseverance, and intelligence as a surgeon was a huge act to follow, a role model all through my life. A man who helped around the house and fairly domesticated too so not a 'traditional' patriarch
I have a partner (not a surgeon but a man who works with his hands nonetheless) with a carelessness about 'outcomes', self-oriented and wandering. As rigid and persevering and 'rational' (and therefore successful in a worldly sense) as the father is, so 'loose' languid and intuitive is the mate...(a poor struggling artist in the worldly sense) (So maybe I wanted to experience both, encompass and be encompassed by both)

I have a laugh to myself when I see the two interact. At first the husband clearly distressed the father at some 'traditional' level (will he be able to 'take care of my daughter' - till i reminded the father of the reasons why they gave us education and opportunities!) - and also because he saw someone as strong and formidable as himself - but in a different way. And yes it was easier to blame this man for all the daughter's sexual excesses and 'transgressions'.

Now that we've appeased them all by having a wedding everyone is more jocular and chilled out. I watch each one try to know and reach out to the other...each one does small things to appreciate the other. Each one daunted by the other. Each one learning from the other. And a surface bonding/bonhomie on single malt whisky and cricket statistics(The latter being the universal language that bonds men across south asia)

What anusheh asks about fathers finding men good enough - at some level a good enough man would be an acceptance of "some other kind of man that is not me" - at least in my case I think. My father has not known anyone like my husband. Everyone around him for the last forty years has been a doctor.

I think there was a turning point last month when at a family wedding the mate had to take on certain responsibilities and deal with situations, which he did with aplomb, and gently, sensitively. Did the mate finally "prove" himself to my father? Maybe. Has the father decided to let it go? Perhaps. I think he also saw the vulnerability in the mate a few months ago when he was unwell... and this is an important thing in the relationships between men I think. The elder man has an edge over the younger man being more disciplined in the body (tae-kwon-do, pranayam, tennis and yoga at the age of 57) whereas the younger one's favourite exercise is turning the page of a book or flipping TV channels. Competition is somehow central to male relationships. Maybe thats how men/masculinity is wired.
Sorry that was so long...these interactions are happening around me right now so its all topical and relevant!

Dear MG

Right you are. Men are extremely competetive. I think the other thing at play though when it comes to daughters and the husbands they find is that actually the tension arises from the fact that women usually end up marrying mirror images of their fathers. If you look carefully you will find more in the Mate which is like your father even though they are seemingly so different. Alternatively, one is seeking in the mate all that one has desired in the father, so mirroring in that sense too.

Love
anusheh

Love your wittiness:-)

MG

What an insightful and poignant story you tell between the two. So different from the way a wife and mother-in-law stake their territories around the man and (nearly wipe him out in the bargain). Perhaps women are stronger (emotionally) and more competent at giving both men a sense of exclusivity and so the competition doesn't normally become so toxic.

Good story!

Raza, well come to the blog.

What is this electra complex that you have stated? Is it the same as Oedipus complex of Freud? I personally think that the father is more protective about the daughter than about the son. Exactly why is it so is hard to define. When there is a lot of love for someone obviously protective responses are amplified and manifest as various emotions, the search-complex being one of them.

Maya,

I love your writing. I second Anusheh in the opinion that the one searches for a mirror image of the father in one's life partner because for a daughter the biggest hero in her early years is always her father and if she finds someone who mirrors that image she has in her mind she falls in love. I might be wrong.

Oops...the invitation to Raza should have been 'welcome' and not 'well come'....

Aachi

LOL. That is a freudian slip Aachi.

The electra complex also coined by Freud is the opposite of the oedipus complex as in it refers to boys being in love with their mothers.

love
anusheh

Thanks Anusheh.:)