Father’s Day and The Romance of Sacrifice
Like every Father’s Day, this one too saw the social media floodgates open. A wave of sepia-toned memories and black and white stoic portraits of fathers who walked barefoot so we could wear branded shoes, who skipped meals so we could eat out, who didn’t buy new clothes so that we could, who served a small helping of his favourite dessert to himself so we could get an extra serving, who quietly shouldered burdens, who defined love as responsibility and care as invisibility, and who gave up dreams so we could chase ours.
I’m not writing to question the truth of these stories. I’m sure it all is true. However, what caught my attention is that the subtext is unmistakable: the nobility of a man lies in how much he gave up.
What makes me curious is: why do we keep telling this story in the same way? Why are we so compelled to romanticise sacrifice?
Perhaps it begins with how we've historically understood love in Indian families. Unlike the West, where love is often expressed through words and physical affection, here, love hides in action—and often, in absence. The father's love has long been the background score—never loud, but always playing. He doesn’t say “I love you,” he silently pays your coaching class fee. He doesn’t hug, he hands over the keys to a second-hand scooter once you completed your board exams.
Till the late 80’s and early 90’s, India was a country coming to terms with intergenerational poverty and scarcity, sacrifice became the only acceptable form of ambition. If you were poor, you survived; if you were middle-class, you sacrificed. To be a "good father" was to become invisible—to blend into the background like ceiling fans and dusty almirahs: present, but uncelebrated.
However, today, the strange thing is that the generation that romanticises their father’s sacrifice is often the same one that resents the idea of giving up their own dreams. We would choose a holiday to a new destination over visiting our hometown. We’d take the job offer that requires relocation over staying put for the kids. We repost quotes about our fathers taking a bus to work, but want to change our cars that are just four years old and have clocked under 30,000 km.
We celebrate fathers for being self-effacing, while actively seeking therapy to avoid becoming like them. The disconnect isn’t hypocrisy—it’s evolution.
But the guilt still lingers, and perhaps that’s why we keep returning to this familiar script. To say, “I see you, Papa,” is also to say, “I know I’m doing it differently.”
What we rarely ask is this: Did they want to sacrifice? Were they given a choice? Would they have preferred joy over martyrdom, if society had allowed it?
As offsprings of the Great Indian Middle Class, the stories of our fathers—their simple lifestyles, and the sacrifices they made—all sit well in the story arc of a hero overcoming all odds. From mythological tales to Bollywood scripts, the ideal father is one who folds his desires into a neat bundle and places them beneath the needs of his children. He is not to be celebrated for who he is, but for what he has given up. Love was measured by what was surrendered. The more he gave up, the more he seemed worthy of celebration.
We’ve built entire altars around the idea of sacrifice—as though love isn’t real unless it comes at a cost.
Perhaps the greatest irony is this: as a generation that grew up on their fathers’ sacrifices, we are now busy writing LinkedIn posts about work-life balance, and updating our Facebook and Instagram with pictures of the excesses we indulge in.
Or perhaps… is it just repackaged guilt?
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