"Me, Dad?!"

In the movies, whenever Rajesh Khanna and Shammi Kapoor found out that they were gonna be fathers, they would lose no time to inform everyone from their doodhwaala to their neighbor’s kid in their elation about their good fortune.

But I think, most of us (am talking of men here) in the real world seem to greet this news with also a good deal of trepidation. It’s almost as if somebody has told us that from tomorrow, we need to do Dr. Manmohan Singh's job.

Now Ashu, a good friend of mine, has kept quiet about this piece of good news for more than a few months. When I eventually found this out, thanks to Kripa, who happened to be a friend of Mithali (his wife), I called him up.

"Actually, I've not told anybody" he says.

"Why?"

"I don't know. It's just that..."

"I know, you are feeling utterly incapable of doing this new role"

"Exactly", he says.

"Well, you still have __ months to get ready for it"

He seemed a bit relieved at that thought. Almost as if somebody had told a poorly prepared student that the CAT had been postponed for a few months.

Most guys seem to be content with sending a two line terse mail in the egroups which says,
"You will be glad to know that me and ___ have been blessed with a baby____. (The second line)."

Another friend of mine, Abhinav, took longer than that and casually mentioned in one telephone conversation that he was now father of a 4 month old son.

I think nature has been biased to men in giving us a good lead-time to don this new role. Women generally handle this so much better, though I guess they would prefer to get the whole thing done and over with more quickly.

Hey Ashu, you told me you wouldn't mind me spreading the word around!