#MyRoleModel: Someone Who has Taught me Everything!

"Family is the first school for young children, and parents are powerful models." -Alice Sterling Honig

Every person has their own perspective to consider a person as their role model. They can be the source of the positive aura in life or the greatest motivator or just the one who sets an example. But, many will agree with me if I say the only person’s image our mind is able to sketch when the word ‘role model’ is heard, is surely our father’s. 

Like any other children of my age, my life started along the road my father showed me, with of course my mother’s directions. Following his footsteps was not my goal, but to be like him, be protected by him and to be appreciated by him was the only reason for a new sunrise to me. A lot of things has he taught me over the years. A lot of things I owe him, a lot that I can’t ever repay him.

My father is the only reason for what I am today. I inherited my power to write verses from him. From my very first days after acquiring consciousness, I have seen my father bringing books from the local library and reading them up (read gulping) sitting on his favourite camp chair. I, a little girl, completely influenced by her daddy, used to sit next to him to peek at the pages. I was never impeded to read all his books. At least my father never stopped me; but he realized that it was the time when I should be handed a book. So, he got me a children’s folktale by Abanindranath Tagore. Even today, at this age, I crave for that book. I wish I had it now, in my hands. My nights wouldn’t be sleepless. Then, I started to grow up; text books took over the places of story books, but my father didn’t give up. I continued to get many Bengali classics from him. When I passed my Higher Secondary (12^th) exam, my father presented two omnibuses and one novel by a famous Bengali author Buddhadeb Guha to me. I was totally occupied by those books for one month. The best books I’ve ever read in my whole life are gifted by my father.

A nature and travel enthusiast

Everybody says my flair for writing poems is gifted and I say, it isn’t gifted it’s acquired from my father. He writes poems, but only Bengali poems. I have read them and ended up thinking how this could be genetic! I have a strange similarity with my father. He loves literature, so do I, he loves creativity, so I love, he writes poetry and I am also into writing poetry. When in school, my father once wrote a travelogue and that got published in the school magazine, and surprisingly my works had also been published in my school magazines many times. This skill of writing has surely come from my father to me. Maybe not genetically, but inspirationally.

“One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” -George Herbert

A poet and an encouragement

Being a teacher, his ultimate motto always is to preach. He has taught me many lesson and many lessons I’ve learnt watching him. The most common thing he would preach is ‘daughters are priceless, they should be cherished’. I don’t have any intention of getting married in near future, but he gets tensed about how my husband would take better care of me or what would happen if he fails to live up to his expectations. Maybe fathers of all daughters’ are like this. He says daughters are to be held in palms, they deserve the best treatment on earth. He, in my eyes, is the best example how a father of a girl should be like. He gives me the inspiration to become a good parent in future. If I ever have a daughter, I’d raise her up the way my father brought me and my sister up. I eagerly want her to have a father like mine.

Not a good father only, he is a perfect son. Most of the years of his childhood were spent alone, without parents. He lived all his years of studentship in his maternal grandparents’ house. There he had to live with almost 20 people, most of them around his age, but still he managed to excel at studies. As heard from his uncles and aunts, he was never complaining, never condemning, never impugning neither did he ever blame his parents for keeping him away from them where his other siblings got to live with them. The time when he was at college, his only ambition was to get a job as soon as possible so that he could bring his parents from where they were living at that time and rent a house and all live together. He refused to take a scholarship only because he was told to lose one year of his graduation, he refused it because he wanted to get a job quickly and he couldn’t wait for an extra year. He did as he dreamt of it. He got a job with a nominal salary, but it was okay for him as it brought his family together.

A picture from his childhood days

My father excels in being a good husband too. I have a boyfriend, but I can never say that he is more romantic than my father. He is such a maestro when it comes to coaxing my fuming mother out of sweet talks. When I look around my surroundings, I acknowledge the fact that my father is the best husband in the world. 

There is a lot of things that I’ve learnt from my father- how to be a good father, how to be engaged with creativity, but the thing that have affected me the most is, how a human should be like. A role-model inspires, encourages, sets examples, teaches and most importantly makes you who you should be, thus, there is no uncertainty about my father’s being a role model in my life.

"A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there but a guiding light whose love shows us the way..."- Unknown

I am writing about #MyRoleModel as a part of the activity by Gillette India in association with BlogAdda.com.