How Should We Celebrate Father's Day

When India achieved independence, we chose Gandhiji to be called the “Father of the Nation”. So shouldn’t we be celebrating Father’s Day on 2^nd October every year and not on the third Sunday of June? We do have Gandhiji’s face on the currency notes that people use for daily transactions. I suspect it was meant to keep symbolically reminding us, to stay on the straight and narrow. Does it make people cringe to accept bribes when on each of the currency notes there is the photo of someone who abhorred such behavior. The presence of Gandhiji’s photo in the courtroom also does not deter us from having us wash our dirty linen albeit under his supervision.In India we have a tradition of celebrating the bond of the siblings. Rakshabandhan celebrates the bond of the brother and sister where the brother commits to defend his sister forever. Bengalis and many other communities in India have their own version of ‘Brothers Day” where the sister prays for the well-being of the brother. There is no such ritual allocated for the sister. The Bengali married man also gets to be fussed over on Jamai-Shashthi, a festival aimed at pleasing the son-in-law with food and gifts. Mothers have various rituals aimed at praying for the well-being of their progeny. Clearly being a male boosts the chances of hitting the spotlight – at least in India.Urban India is now aggressively adopting Valentine’s Day as way to declare their love. So what is wrong with having a day to fuss over dad? Every day is father’s day and mother’s day in our culture, some defenders will jump to add. Please note however, there is no special day dedicated to celebrating mothers and motherhood in India. And that may be a limitation of my own awareness.My wife reminds me that we celebrate woman power when we worship Shakti. Don’t I know that? You may say that we celebrated Mother’s Day last month, but that is also an opportunity to “sell to a specific demographic by leveraging emotions” – as my marketeer friend would say.What does it take to have a day dedicated to a relationship? The US President Lyndon B Johnson officially announced the third Sunday of June as Father's Day to honor dad. It was the much disliked President, Nixon who made it a permanent national holiday by signing a law.Bollywood is also a little short of songs celebrating the father child relationship. My choice would behttp://youtu.be/d3dGYom7PDISeveral countries use the term ‘father of the nation’ to acknowledge the contribution of one individual in the formation of the nation. Dictators often like to bestow this title on themselves only have it expunged from the history books as soon as they get off the chair. Sometimes the title is also taken away by a change of regime. The 1972 Constitution of Bangladesh declared Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to be "father of the nation" only to have the title removed in 2004 during the BNP rule. US doesn’t have one person but refers to a group of people as the Founding Fathers.What really are we celebrating when we celebrate the occasion? If we really have to celebrate Father’s Day, it should bedone by living up to the ideals of the person? In that case we certainly fall short, and how. We are ranked 94^th by Transparency International in the list of 177 countries based on how all pervasive corruption is in the country.Maybe Father’s Day is just another occasion to boost the sale of greeting cards and men’s products since following the father’s values seems too hard.What do you think? Leave your comments below.--------Join me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriMy take on Mothers Day