I waited until I was 15 years old to have my first major disagreement with my physicist dad. We were living in India, and I had just been elected (note, not appointed) captain of my high school. Shortly before I “assumed office”, he was offered a coveted position at an American university. My teenage self was incredulous that he would put his career over my popularity.
My pleas to stay back at boarding school were to no avail. My father made no effort to reassure me that the massive geographical and cultural shift would work out. Instead, he said we were sailing uncharted waters and would have to make the best of our situation. So off we went to freezing Minneapolis where we spent a year before my dad’s reputed lab was invited to move to Pittsburgh. My exasperation was complete.
Recently my own teenager asked what that time was like. I replied that my dad’s decisions had been the making of me. I fell from the height of popularity to being a nobody and was forced to make friends. In the process, I developed a lifelong appreciation for the underdog, curiosity about people and a thirst for American universities that pulled me back as an adult.
Today, my dad turns 80.
When my children note that I never say I love you (and seldom say thank you) to my Indian parents, I shrug that what’s implied doesn’t have to be said. But today it feels apt to take stock of the things he got right.
More than anyone else, my dad instilled in me a sense of self-reliance. He taught me that the long-term consequence of every decision can’t be foretold. But better than being paralysed by inaction is to act with the best information at hand and not hesitate to alter course. This inherited habit of deliberation mixed with a certain fearlessness of failure has enabled me to take chances in life and career, one being to pursue a passion for writing.
My favourite definition of integrity is what you do when no one is watching. My dad would be surprised to know where I learned this. As a university professor in India, he graded a lot of exam papers. Each day, he would sit with a pile of booklets containing essays and physics calculations while I hung around with my homework.
I remember the marking season for two reasons.
A daily parade of parents stopped by our gate to beg my dad to go easy on their child. They had heard on the grapevine that he was the assigned examiner and had come to plead their case.
Even more surprising were the notes that fluttered out of the answer booklets. They were heartfelt pleas from students imploring my dad not to fail them. Sometimes, buried within a discourse on the laws of physics was a paragraph outlining the disadvantage and poverty that had tested a student – and an appeal for clemency. Rarely, a currency bill as a bribe would fall to the floor.
My dad heard every parent. He read every note from a student. He tucked away the currency note back in its place.
But when it came to decisions, he said that pleading parents and students deserved understanding but not inflated grades. An exam must be judged on merit alone.
From this annual ritual of my childhood, I learned to balance sentiment and principle without neglecting either. It has been a useful lesson in medicine and in life.
What gift to give your dad at age 80?
He would say only the gift of time with his children and grandchildren even though the latter good-naturedly groan that his interest in their education surpasses their own. As for me, I am resigned to the fact that to know my dad is to know that his daughter is a doctor. (I say sorry to all the people who don’t really care.)
My dad is many things – generous, resilient and intelligent. But if there is one word that embodies him, it is scholarly. As a young boy who lost his own father, he found his way through scholarships from a tiny Indian village all the way to the Australian National University. His staunch belief in education as a means of self-improvement has been the North Star for our extended family and a generation of students.
So, for his 80th birthday, we decided to endow an award in his name at an Australian public high school. My dad believes that scientific literacy is an essential skill for a thriving Australia. The award is not necessarily for the student with the highest grades, rather it recognises a young person with exemplary commitment and attitude to scientific enquiry.
This week, our family attended the school assembly where my dad presented the inaugural award to an impressive young man. It felt like the passing of a baton. The assembly was inspired, and my dad was thrilled. More thrilled, I daresay, than the times we gave him lovely photos, swanky dinners and a fancy laptop for his birthday. In an incredible coincidence we discovered that the science teacher’s uncle was my father’s PhD supervisor.
I can’t help thinking that a lot of years must pass before we realise our parents knew a thing or two about parenting. (As a parent of teenagers, I am getting a taste of my own medicine.)
At age 15, I seriously doubted my dad knew what he was doing. Today, I realise how few decisions he really made for me but the ones he did altered the trajectory of my life. The values he practised but never preached went on to shape me.
Every year on his birthday, a deceased patient’s daughter sends me a moving note telling me how much she misses her dad and how grateful she is for the years I gave him. As an oncologist, I know not everyone is so fortunate.
It really has been a remarkable journey being my father’s daughter. Today, on his 80th birthday, there is reason to be especially grateful.
• Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, award-winning author and Fulbright scholar. Her latest book is called A Better Death
