Dad's the Word: The Perils and Pleasures of Fatherhood

by Soumya Bhattacharya

A book about the perils and pleasures of being a 21st century father, from one of the most distinctive literary voices of our generation.

“I suppose people want to have children for all sorts of reasons. I knew why I wanted to. (This is a big thing for me; I seldom have a clear idea of anything.) Being the infantile, continually perplexed, perplexing, obsessed-with-obsession sort of twit that I am, I wanted to grow up. Or at least feel grown up. Nothing - travelling around the world on my own, having a job, being married, seeing my name on the cover of a book - has made me feel as grown up and responsible as crossing the road with my index finger inside my daughter’s fist.”

In our country, most books about parenting turn out to be books about motherhood. Do you recall reading about parenthood from a father’s point of view? Now, from one of the most distinctive literary voices of his generation of writers, comes a book about the pleasures and perils of being a 21st century father. Based on an immensely popular weekly column in Hindustan Times, Dad’s the Word talks about why we want to have children; how they come to shape our lives; and how every moment of being a parent is evanescent and unrepeatable.

With warmth and wit, Bhattacharya describes the unconditional love, the anxiety and the self-doubt that colour a father’s life. Insightful, funny, tender, intensely onest and moving, this is a memoir in which you will see yourself. If you are a parent, or ever want to be one, here is a book you can’t do without.

Genres: Indian Literature

212 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Born in Kolkata, Bhattacharya grew up and studied in Kolkata and London. As a journalist, he has worked on The Times (London), The Sydney Morning Herald, India Today magazine (New Delhi), The Telegraph (Kolkata) and the Hindustan Times. He is currently the Editor of Hindustan Times, Mumbai.

His essays and literary criticism have appeared in a number of publications across the world, including The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, New Statesman, "Granta" and Wisden in Britain; The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia; Sports Illustrated in South Africa; and The New York Times.

Bhattacharya's first book, a work of narrative non-fiction called You Must Like Cricket?, was published across the world to critical acclaim in 2006. Part reportage, part travelogue, part cultural politics, You Must Like Cricket? is a memoir that explores how India's identity got so closely tied to a game and the troubling hold that cricket has over him and a billion other of his countrymen.

Writing about the book in The Guardian (London), the cultural critic Mike Marqusee called it 'highly entertaining' and said it was an 'heir to a tradition harking back to cricket's first literary classic, John Nyren's The Cricketers of My Time, published in 1833.' You Must Like Cricket? was one of the notable books of the year for the award-winning Observer Sport Monthly magazine in the UK.

All That You Can't Leave Behind, Bhattacharya's second book, was a sort of sequel to You Must Like Cricket?It was published in India in 2009, and in the UK in 2011. Historian Ramachandra Guha called it 'a vivid and empathetic account of the highs an lows of cricket watching in contemporary India'. Writing about it, author and columnist Peter Roebuck said: 'Combining personal touches, socio-economics, emotion and statistics... it is a rich tale told with the sentiment of a supporter and acumen of a historian'.

Bhattacharya's third book (and first novel), If I Could Tell You, appeared almost simultaneously with All That You Can't Leave Behind in December 2009. A haunting and tender novel, If I Could Tell You has at its heart the universal themes of longing, love and loss. Written in prose of beauty and power, it is a story about how luck and chance and a twist in events can irrevocably alter our lives, how love can lead to catastrophe, and, ultimately, about how the new India can make - and then break - a man. Greeted by several glowing reviews, the novel entered India's national bestsellers list on publication. It was nominated for the Crossword Book Award, and shortlisted for The Hindu Best Fiction Award. The author Vikram Chandra wrote of it: 'This is a remarkable novel by a writer whose work we will read for years to come.'

He is most recently the author of the fatherhood memoir, "Dad's the Word".

Bhattacharya lives with his wife and daughter in Mumbai.

Reviews

[Amit Gupta · Rating 2 out of 5]

“You don’t know suffering until you have children. You don’t know joy. You don’t know boredom, you don’t know — period,” says Philip Roth in The Anatomy Lesson. Soumya Bhattacharya’s book, Dad’s The Word: The Perils And Pleasures Of Fatherhood, not only quotes Roth but is rooted in the belief that becoming a father changes you forever.

Dad’s The Word does not profess to be a book on parenting, a treatise about fathering or any sort of go-to guide. It is simply a languorous unravelling of Bhattacharya’s most intensely private thoughts, fears and observations about being a father and more specifically, an entirely personal recounting of being his daughter’s father.

The author is not shy of self-exploration with his daughter as co-traveller, student and teacher on this great journey. How do you explain money and financial matters (why we don’t live in a bigger house with more things) to a child who is growing up in the country’s financial capital? How do you ban television-viewing when there isn’t a ‘great outdoors’ for your child to explore? Is it ok to give your nine-year-old an occasional sip of beer and wine? How do you explain the death of a pet? How do you justify your refusal to quit smoking?

The book is easy to read. It reflects on the whole parenting issues without making a heavy production out of it. It answers questions, leaves behind more questions and is prepared to face whatever situation that arrives in parenting. Therefore in one way parenting makes one bold, daring and responsible. To be able to think on their feet and to be able to answer convincingly, questions that are difficult to answer and learn to even evade the uncomfortable ones.

The problem with the book is that pontificates a little too much, inundated with too much information about English writers and their classic works, in turn making the prose turgid. He also does not delve at all among the most important facet of Parenting - Sibling rivalry. No fatherhood can be complete without dealing with this important and exclusive theme. Read it for some of the insightful portions as the book is cut from his weekly columns. But as the writer says, "Anyone could have written this book". In the hindsight, after reading the book, may be yes!