The battered mind of the father and the Western preoccupation of the sons
A retired colonel from Lucknow committed suicide after writing a heartfelt letter to his sons. Both sons were settled in America and could not show full sensitivity even on the death of their mother. The father wrote in the letter that he gave respect to the country but gave insensitive sons to society. This incident is not just a suicide but a mirror of the decline of Indian family values. In the race of modernity, sensitivity of relationships and respect for elders are being left behind.
The uniform of a soldier father is not for salutation, but a symbol of respect and dedication. But when the same father, before taking his last breath, writes a letter with the bitterest words of his life and then shoots himself, it is not just suicide – it is a social death. A retired colonel living in a posh colony of Lucknow did just that. Two sons, one busy in a corporate job in America, the other engrossed in life with his family. The father and mother had spent their entire life raising these sons. Higher education, better life, foreign stability, worldly facilities – they gave everything, but in the end the responsibility of loneliness also fell on the same parents.
It is said that every father wants his son to become greater than him, but hardly any father wants his son to forget him. If the father sat by his son’s bedside all night when he had a fever, and the same son says on his mother’s death that “I will come to Papa’s funeral” – then not only does the relationship break, but the soul also breaks. That father did not abuse or taunt, or show any anger in the letter. He simply said that perhaps there was some shortcoming in my upbringing, because I gave society not civilized citizens but insensitive children.
This sentence is as simple as it is terrifying. This is not the grief of a father, but of a generation. This is not the story of a single colonel. This is of every parent who wants their children to fly, but cannot even see their shadows returning in old age. This is of that Indian society which is proud of the son going to America, but becomes silent when the parents are left in an old-age home. This is a statement of that insensitivity which is strangling relationships behind the mask of modernity.
The father’s letter said that now no one will wait for him even near his dead body, so he goes – so that there is no compulsion, no excuse, no son can say that ‘flight was not available’. This sentence is not a part of any news; it is a declaration of a cultural defeat. The father who fought the enemies in the war, who gave priority to the nation in service, lost to loneliness in his own home. His last wish was that his medals and photographs be returned to the battalion. Perhaps he did not want his photograph to hang as a false memory in his children’s drawing room.
We live in a society where every festival is marked by ads like “spend time with family”, but in reality, parents have no one to spend time with. Relationships are maintained over video calls, responsibility is considered fulfilled by sending a cake on birthdays, and attending funerals can be avoided on the grounds of ‘work pressure’. For Colonel Sahib’s son, it must have been just ‘another day’. But that day quietly martyred a father – this time without an enemy, without a war, without orders.
In a society where mothers used to teach their sons that parents are like God in old age, sons have started avoiding coming to their mothers’ funerals. This is not a generation of values, but of opportunism. Where sentences like “our priorities have changed” have been placed like stones on the grave of relationships. Relationships are now maintained not with emotions but with convenience. If someone calls, I will talk. If someone asks, I will come. If someone dies, I will think about them. This is our modern culture, which considers parents only as an expense or a burden after retirement.
Do we think that our children will be treated like us? Won’t what be sown today be reaped tomorrow? Did our sons study only to lose compassion? If education is limited to career and earning dollars, it does not produce an ideal child but an insensitive machine.
Colonel Sahab did not shoot himself – he made an announcement. That he was a failed father because he produced sons who were afraid to see a dead body but did not hesitate to take selfies. He left behind a society that considers the talks of the elderly boring and the tears of the elderly a matter of only guilt, not compassion.
Now the question is whether we should just express regret after reading this letter or introspect. Are we really moving in a direction where the value of relationships is less than the dollar? Are we teaching our children that success means not looking back? Colonel sahib’s letter is a warning for all those who think that settling abroad ends the roots. No, the roots always remain. They dry up and bring destruction.
This society will survive as long as the elders are respected. The day sons start considering their mother’s funeral pyre as an ‘event’, that day civilization will start to end. What happened to Colonel Sahab today will happen to someone else tomorrow. Maybe to you. Maybe to me.
In the end, I would just like to say this: maintain relationships. Give time to your parents. It is not bad to go to America and achieve success, but if sentiments are left behind in that flight, then it is not a flight; it becomes oblivion.
Colonel sahib’s suicide is not just the death of a father – it is the defeat of the soul of our society. And if we do not wake up now, the next generation will only give us birthday cards and toll-free numbers for funerals.
