“I cannot remember my mother

but when in the early autumn morning

the smell of the shiuli flowers floats in the air

the scent of the morning service in the temple

comes to me as the scent of my mother.”

These lines are extracted from the poem ‘I cannot remember my mother’ by Rabindranath Tagore. Well, do you remember any poem written on father?

With the ink of love, the word “parents” is entitled. It is obviously portrayed in the minds that mothers are more caring and loving than fathers as the latter never show the amount of love and care they hold in their hearts. Fathers always try to show the character who is not weak, not emotional, not enough caring, and not lovable but that’s the role they’ve to play just to keep a gap between the generation otherwise fathers are really like eggs with a hard covering outside but soft inside. They don’t talk about intimate feelings, they try to be hard just to make children strong. They are blunt because they care about you. They get hurt by unkind words too. They are afraid of looking weak too. Fathers are worried about your future too, but just showing that they don’t care does not mean they really don’t.

What does a mother do when you’ve to leave for a trip, for further studies, or for vacations? They’ll never be able to hold their tears just because they are affectionate and loving. They can’t bear the pain of leaving us alone. Yes, fathers never cry but doesn’t it bother them too? They too feel alone, afraid, and weak to bid you goodbye but they will never show the amount of care they hold inside. Fathers are unsung heroes. There’s a time, a phase in every boy’s life where they found themselves having a mature gap between them and their fathers. It is probably normal in the teenage phase but this phase too shall be made us understand the importance of dads in one’s life. It is simply the new innovative ideas crossing our minds every day that made us feel superior in spite of the fact that our dads were young too, they too shall have passed this phase with these ideas. Our young blood and fresh mind give us feel that we’re privileged, and we start arguing with their ideas and decisions.

Every religion has given an important and privileged position to fathers in every aspect of life. Islam has nourished the importance of fathers through great life lessons from Qur’an and Hadeeth books. The father is termed as the leader of the family who is held accountable for the family. Our Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) has said, “On the day of judgement you’ll be called by your names and by the name of your father’s.”

Either it is about Ibraheem (AS) sacrificing his son Ismail (AS) for Allah or Yaa’qub (AS) who nurtured his bond with his youngest son Yusuf (AS) and listened to his every dream.

We all have listened to expressing love through actions when we speak about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his daughter Fatima (RA), even when Prophet (PBUH) was on his last bed illness.

In Hinduism, Ramayana holds a special place which is all about how Ram went and survived the life in jungle for fourteen years because it was Raja Dashrath’s order who was his father. Although it was planned by his stepmother Kakiyi he didn’t refuse his father’s order.

We should remember that every year in India, Father’s day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. It is neither mentioned nor a public holiday, but as Sundays are mostly off days, Father’s Day is attached to this day. We should give them presents too. Mostly male children should try to overcome the gap on this special day and express their love and warm gestures and speak their heart out because as Zakir Khan said in one of his shows Tathastu that in order to accomplish our passionate goals we lost our personal lives. The professional losses are temporary but the personal losses are permanent. Let’s not lose our personal and golden time with our superheroes and let’s strengthen this bond further because a good conversation can fix a lot.

May Almighty bless all the fathers around the world and bring happiness to everyone’s life.

Faisal Mehraj Pir is a B.Pharmacy student and works as a member of JKSA. He is a senior member of NGO Qalbi, and can be reached at [email protected]

Faisal Mehraj Pir