My son Ritwik turns thirteen today.
He was born on 1 July 2013, and today, after thirteen years of being a child, he has officially entered that dangerous phase of life where the voice starts changing, opinions become stronger, parents become less intelligent, and friends become everything.
For his thirteenth birthday, we are giving him something he has wanted for a while – a mobile number. Not a phone with unlimited freedom. We are not that mad yet.
Just a mobile number, so that he can be part of his friends’ WhatsApp group called “Chaotic 8,” which, from the name itself you can imagine is a place where eight boys and girls are preparing to slowly destroy their parents’ peace.
Also, now that he has a number, he can carry a feature phone when he goes for his maths tuition in the evening.
This is our middle-class parenting compromise….just enough freedom for safety, but not for entertainment.
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But before I talk about how Ritwik reached till 13, I need to talk about Rhea.
Because if I have understood anything about fatherhood, it is because of the mistakes I made with my daughter.
When Rhea was growing up, I was not around as much as I should have been in the first three or four years. I was working long hours at a startup called ibibo (now it is called Goibibo).
Back then, I thought I was building the future. I would leave early, come home late, and tell myself that all this hard work was for the family. This is one of the lies men tell themselves with great sincerity, “I am doing this for my family.”
One day, the realisation hit me that what I had been working so hard for had always been right under my nose. The future I was preparing for was growing up in the present.
She was learning to talk, walk, laugh, demand, cry, and become herself, while I was busy attending meetings, chasing targets, and probably using words like “user engagement,” “scale,” and “growth hacking” to feel important.
That day I decided that I needed to spend more time in the present and less time preparing for the future.
I am glad that realisation came when it did because now I know that my kids will remember their father the way I remember mine.
After Rhea and I started spending a lot of time together, Ritwik was born – in 2013. And the day he was born, life gave us one tight slap and reminded us that parenting is not only about cuddling babies.
As soon as he was born he was immediately whisked away to neonatal care because of medical complications,. We could not touch him properly for four days.
You are told you have become a father again, but the child is inside a medical unit, with doctors, nurses, machines, wires, tubes, and that terrible feeling that all your plans were for nothing. In those four days, everything I had been working for seemed futile.
All the ambition, all the work, all that urge to earn more money, all the “I need to build something big” drama…seemed worthless.
There are moments in life when the universe gently tells you what matters. But in our case it wasn’t gentle. The universe held my collar, gave me a shake and said “Look properly, idiot.”
After four days, Ritwik came out of Neonatal care but for the next twelve months and more, he continued to be bogged down by medical complications.
We were worried and tired. But Rekha was strong in the way only mothers can be strong. I was strong in the way men know to be strong – by pretending.
Soon enough, it was time for Ritwik to join playschool.
Because of the medical complications in the first year, he was behind on many of the usual milestones.
Most playschools discreetly refused to take him. I don’t blame them now…I am sure they had their reasons. But back then, every refusal hurt. When your child is already struggling to catch up, the world’s hesitation feels personal.
Finally, we found a school that agreed to take him. But it was clear that he needed time, effort, patience, and parents who would stay close enough to bridge the distance.
That is when I remembered the ‘opportunity man’ my English teacher Irudayaraj had told us about. He once explained opportunity as a bald, naked, oily man with only one tuft of hair on his forehead, rushing towards you, and you are supposed to grab that tuft and not let go.
I know it is a disturbing visual, but it is an excellent life lesson.
I had missed time with Rhea in the first few years…but this time I saw the ‘opportunity man’ coming towards me and grabbed the tuft.
And that is how, in 2016, I became a work-from-home dad. From then on, Ritwik became my pet project. Because every father needs one project where there is no client and no revenue but the stakes are higher than anything else he will ever do.
So while Rekha did most of the bringing up of our daughter Rhea, I took up the mantle for Ritwik.
Come to think of it, Rekha and I have divided our parenting responsibilities – she can claim to have contributed to Rhea 80% of the time while I managed Ritwik 80% of the time.
This is why Rekha is worried Ritwik may turn out like me….but I understand her concern.
After all, no mother wants to raise a son, spend years feeding him, educating him, and then one day look at him and realise, “Oh God, I have produced yet another Rajan.”
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Since there is a story of how I got named Jamshed Velayuda Rajan, I think you should also know how Ritwik got named.
In the US and Europe, I believe parents have to decide the child’s name within two days of birth. But in India, twenty-five days after Rekha and I had our second child, we were still looking for a name.
Probably because in India, a child is not named by the parents….but by a committee which includes parents, grandparents, astrologer, close relatives, family history, dead ancestors, star positions, moon sign, and numerology.
In our son’s case, we wanted a name starting with the letter R. There were three reasons for that wish – Rajan, Rekha, & Rhea.
If our son’s name also started with R, then on that odd day when our family became a family of superheroes, we could call ourselves The ‘R’ Family.
Unfortunately, the astrologer sought after by Rekha’s parents did not quote the alphabet R.
So here we were, about to welcome a new human being into the world, and the first crisis was alphabetical.
Finally, we did what any practical Indian family would do….we paid the astrologer.
Thanks to a NEFT transfer of ₹1000, R was added to the list of probable alphabets without affecting any stars, moons, planets, galaxies, or the future of the child. Back then there was no Gpay.
I was a reluctant participant in the naming ceremony because I have always been against naming children before they turn ten. I know this sounds impractical, but please hear me out.
When we name a child before that it sounds inhuman, because the poor child has no say in the matter.
Nobody asks, “Beta, what kind of identity would you like to carry for the next eighty years?”
They just name him while he is sleeping, crying, drinking milk, or staring at the fan.
I remember being angry with my own parents when I was around eleven. By then my classmates had damaged my name in all possible ways.
I asked my parents, “Why couldn’t you consult me before naming me?”
My father looked at me and said, “Son, you were sleeping twenty-two hours out of twenty-four. How could we consult you?”
I said, “How about in those two hours?”
He said, “Even if we had asked you, you would have only replied with blah-bla blah-baba.”
So when we were naming Ritwik, I felt we were cheating him too.
But as always, nobody listened to me. In marriage and family matters, my role is like that of the President of India…often advisory.
Once the alphabet R was fixed, suggestions started pouring in from all directions. We politely refused most suggestions, but the challenge remained – we had to find a name.
To complicate matters, within a week of our son’s birth, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had a daughter and they named her North West, which unfortunately started trending globally.
Now the pressure increased. How do you compete with North West?
For a brief while, we also thought of names that could become famous.
My mother had always wanted me to become a doctor. Whenever I asked her why, she would say, “Son, I want people to call you Doctor Rajan.”
So Rekha and I considered naming our son Doctor.
That way, when combined with his surname, he would become Doctor Rajan, and my mother’s dream would be fulfilled.
For a few days, this felt like genius.
Then I remembered that my father had wanted me to join the Army and become a General, so that the world would call me General Rajan. So we briefly considered General.
Doctor Rajan or General Rajan? Both had power and respect…but Rekha rejected them both.
During one of those days, our family friend Shaina Ladiwala visited us. She said, “Why don’t you name your child 123ABC?”
Rekha looked at her and asked, “Why would I name him 123ABC?”
Shaina explained, “So that everybody can find him easily. On WhatsApp, if somebody’s name is stored as a number, he or she is visible right on top.”
Now, you may laugh, but this was a modern, practical suggestion.
In every contact list, my son would be first – before Amma, Appa, Ambulance, and Airtel there would be 123ABC Rajan.
Thankfully we rejected it.
Sometimes I think it would have been much easier if we had twins because then naming them would have been easy. We could have gone with Karan and Arjun, Ram and Shyam, Dharam and Veer, Sita and Gita.
Or we could have named them Amar and Akbar, and produce one more child and name him Anthony.
But Ritwik was a single child, so we had to rely on our own creativity and that was a problem.
Whenever Rekha and I zeroed in on a name, I would give my mother a feeler.
She would ask, “So, was it suggested by our side or Rekha’s side?”
Her reaction to the name depended entirely on the answer.
If I said our side, she would say, “Nice name.”
If I said Rekha’s side, she would say, “What does it even mean?”
Similarly, there was intense pressure from Rekha’s side to use the Malayali Name Maker.
Every Malayali family has one invisible Name Maker Table.
You pick one syllable from the first column and one syllable from the second column and combine them.
First column: Jo, Ji, Bi, Si, Vi, Ti, Ri, Ni, Li, Sa, Su, Re
Second column: nu, ju, jo, ji, by, bin, sh, shin, th, son, mon, mol
Now start mixing.
Jo + ju becomes Joju.
Jo + mon becomes Jomon.
Ji + by becomes Jiby.
Ji + jo becomes Jijo.
Bi + ju becomes Biju.
Bi + bin becomes Bibin.
Si + ji becomes Siji.
Si + ju becomes Siju.
Vi + nu becomes Vinu.
Ri + jo becomes Rijo.
Li + ju becomes Liju.
Su + bin becomes Subin.
Re + ji becomes Reji.
But we didn’t buckle down…we fought the Malayali Mafia tooth and nail…and named him Ritwik.
The name sounded like someone who would one day introduce himself confidently to the world.
I remember, for many days after we had named him Ritwik, I would stand in front of the mirror, extend my arm forward and say aloud to myself, “Hi, Ritwik Rajan here. Nice to meet you.”
I used to do this to visualise how my son will introduce himself to the rest of the world long after we are gone.
Then I would look at the mirror and say, “Good choice, Rajan.”
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Today, as he turns thirteen, I feel both happy and scared.
Happy because he has reached this age with his own personality, his own friends, his own humour, his own interests, and now his own mobile number.
Scared because thirteen is not a small age…it’s the entry gate to teenage. Till yesterday, he was a child…going forward he is a Management Trainee in a company called Life.
But I am also excited because teenage years are not just difficult, they are beautiful as well.
My son will start forming his own world, his tastes, friendships, secrets, loyalties, disappointments…and if his father is any indication…he will soon be having his own girlfriend.
With Rhea we have understood that as parents our job is to stand close enough for them to come back and far enough for them to go forward. We hope to do the same with Ritwik.
Any day now he is going to say, “Appa, I’ll manage.”
And when that day comes, even though secretly I will feel unemployed, I will be super proud.
Till then….a very happy 13th birthday to Ritwik, the boy who changed the way I worked, lived, and fathered.
You made me realise that sometimes a child does not need a father who is preparing for the future. He needs a father who is sitting next to him in the present.