Open letter to Baldev Sigh from the movie ‘Apne’

Namaste Uncleji!

When we first met you, you were resigned to spending the rest of your days bitterly obsessing over winning that boxing trophy/belt/whatever. You didn’t even realize how your single track obsession has ruined the lives of everyone else in your family. Especially, both your sons. They might put on a brave face in front of you, but on the inside, they’re probably rueing the day that they were born.

Let’s begin with the eldest. Why are you so hostile to him? Why do you expect him to fight your battles? Did you want him to continue to give up the best years of his life trying to achieve something that you failed to? Okay, I get it. You’re an Indian. From a village in Punjab. You want your son to follow you into the family business. Which he did! For some time. He gave you the best years of his life! (-ish). His best, mate-attracting, child bearing, years. He let you waste his precious putting-in-the-hard-work-that-you-can-only-do-in-your-20’s years. And then he went on to do something that seems like an alien concept to you: provide for his family. It’s because of him that you can spend all your time shadow boxing with your demons. It’s because of him that your wife doesn’t have to spend all winter knitting sweaters and mufflers to sell at the local bazaar or spend her summer washing your neighbour’s dirty utensils. It’s because of him that you live in a big-ass house in which you and your best friend/#1 fan/stalker get to reminisce about the good ol’ days. Instead of going “Thank you son! You’re a fucking national treasure,” you don’t even bother to TALK to him? What the hell is wrong with you?

As for your youngest spawn, do you realize that your he lost his arm because you were out trying to be the youngest-boxing-champion-who-looks-like-an-eighty-year-old? That itself should have given you pause, Mohammad Ali. Anyway, one day, a miracle happens. His hand recovers! A person who had made peace with the fact that he is going to have to spend the rest of his life with only one hand (do you have any idea how difficult it is to both masturbate and manoeuvre porn with just one hand?) is then able to use BOTH HIS HANDS. A life changing event! Something which only happens to perhaps one in a trillion people! A lesser man would have counted his blessings and lived happily (albeit a little bitterly) to the end of his days. But, as we all know by now, you’re not a lesser man.

So you start training your formerly handicap son a week after he starts recovering from his disability. Good call, father of the year! You put him through a gruelling physical regimen for a dangerous and useless boxing championship which he, on paper, has no chance of winning. Again, let’s remind ourselves that HE WAS LIMITED IN HIS MOVEMENTS TILL ABOUT A WEEK AGO!

Now, after your hard and vigorous training, which would not have been good for his newly un-paralyzed hand, he finally enters the local boxing championship, defeating the last guy who betrayed you. A more mature man would have realized how hard he has pushed his luck, but as we established in the beginning, you aren’t a mature man. You are the sort of person who interprets the recovery of his son as the last opportunity for you to finally be able to tick the last item on your bucket list. If god didn’t want you to emotionally blackmail your offspring into spending their youth trying to accomplish your unrealistic goals, then he wouldn’t have ordered his stork to drop them into your glove shaped house.

So you finally set sail to “America,” for the “international boxing championship” which no one has ever heard about. HOW PRESTIGIOUS CAN IT REALLY BE?

Anyway, unrealistically, your son keeps winning. He even manages to reach the finals! Then, something which everyone with even a pea brain could see coming happens. He ends up in the ICU! It hasn’t even been six months since he regained the use of both arms and you pushed him into doing something which even stronger people who can use both their hands are not able to do. Best Dad ever!

After you send your youngest progeny to battle between life and death, you start training your eldest son again. SERIOUSLY? He’s fifty years old. He can barely lift a handpump anymore and you want him to fight a boxing championship against someone who is at the top of their game? And you think you can train him to do that in one month? Even David Blaine is going “Dude, that is some crazy shit.” Do you want to relegate all the women in your family to go back to sewing and knitting for the rest of their lives?

However, thanks to the big bookie in the sky, the biggest miracle in the world since you having a career happens and your eldest son wins the championship. Phew! I hope that makes you happy! Couldn't you have just stuck a sock down there like a normal person instead of almost destroying the lives of the unfortunate fruit of your lions?

And if you think that your eldest son won the trophy for you, then you’re a few bottles short of a full crate of Bagpiper soda. He did it because he realised that if you didn’t get your “prestigious” trophy, you would’ve lived long enough to make his children fight your battles.

In short, paaji, you’re a terrible father!

History’s greatest monster!

Also, what’s with all the overacting?