Krishna Shastri Devulapalli | A Thousand Splendid Sons (And Fathers)

“How can you allow them to do this to your grandfather’s beloved song?”

“This is utter disrespect shown to a great poet’s work.”

Samples from the messages I received recently from people I didn’t even really know. The cause of their chagrin: apparently, a much-loved song of my grandfather’s had been repurposed in a recent film in what they felt was a disrespectful and vulgar manner.

What did I do? Nothing.

Why? One: because, had my grandfather been around, he would have laughed very hard at the brain-dead reimagination of his song. Two, and, more importantly, I believe there’s a time and a place (by which I mean public or private) to stand up for one’s family, living or dead. And there is a time to relax, have faith about their place in history despite someone’s minor transgressions, and leave things alone.

This works in both directions. When it’s family — it doesn’t matter whether they precede you or are here because of you — one should know when to take up their cause. Not to mention when to become their fawning PR agents and when to let them rely on their own steam.

A couple of years ago, a Great White Writer with thousands of followers gush-posted on X “Just finished reading XYZ’s extraordinary new book ‘ABC’ which he completed yesterday evening (sic) after five years work…” ending with “…it reads like a flat-out masterpiece to me”.

Lovely. A famous writer endorses a debutante. The kicker however was the line in between: “Of course no father can ever judge their son’s work objectively”. No one seeing anything wrong with, on the contrary, applauding, Writer Sahib praising/endorsing/hailing the unpublished maiden literary work of his son — that’s the world we live in today.

With nary a hint of irony, the father actually calls his laadla’s freshman effort a masterpiece. Really? That was needed? The fact that he is his son, you’d think, would be more than enough in our Bwana-worshipping Indian lit-pub world. India, after all, is our boy’s main market, and doesn’t Brown publishing money love to whoosh into White literary coffers?

Even before the book was contemplated, publishers would have been waiting in line brandishing advance royalty cheques with sums capable of feeding a hundred midlisters. Why flog a pony that’s already crossed the finish line in a race of one?

I don’t think this was done in the old days. And if it was, it was done discreetly. A writer wanting to give a leg up to his kid would probably ask (sheepishly) a writer friend or an editor to do it for him. This open sycophancy with regard to one’s own children is relatively new, and something Boomer and Gen-X parents have normalised.

Doesn’t the writer realise what a grave disservice he’s doing his son? (Despite the hundreds of fawning likes and retweets.) Doesn’t it appear like he has little faith in him to make it on his own? How does he expect the light of his offspring’s work to shine if he is training a blinding Klieg light on it even before it’s born?

A couple of days ago this other thing happened. A politician known for his boyish charm and way with words came out pens blazing on X, in defence of a son who had suddenly been laid off. Almost like he wasn’t aware that every single day, across the globe, honest, fearless journalists were being thwarted from doing their jobs. And leave alone their livelihoods, having their lives threatened if they didn’t toe the official line.

That his son — however incredible the politician thought he was, and he may well be — has benefitted immensely from being his son is undeniable. When so many journalists back home who have lost their jobs overnight — for no reason other than pursuing truth — are self-made men and women from small towns, born in ordinary middle-class homes with no wealthy, super-connected parents helping them along, this father’s public lament comes across as a tad insensitive.

If Junior is indeed as good as you claim he is, sir, with half a million followers, among whom, you tell us with unmitigated pride, are diplomats, foreign ministers and scholars from around the world who read him every day, with the assurance/self-belief that comes with that kind of validation, shouldn’t he be given the opportunity to fight his own battles? Shouldn’t he learn the fundamentals of being a good journalist: the art of taking it in the chin, falling down and getting up? Don’t you think, by coming to his aid, you end up infantilising him?

Be a kind dad, by all means, sir. Hold him, counsel him, reassure him. But do it in private. In public, however, stand aside and let him find his way out of this on his own. Wouldn’t that be the making of him? Wouldn’t that make you truly proud?