Today, says Ajit Menon, CEO, PGIM India Mutual Fund, he's pretty much cruising on the parenting highway but that wasn't always the case.
He looked the tiny bundle in his arms, his heart so full of love, he was not sure he could breathe.
Tears in his eyes, he looked at his wife, grateful for this amazing miracle.
Their new-born little baby girl was the light at the end of their painful tunnel, the balm to their agony of have lost their first daughter two hours after she was born a year earlier.
That tragedy, says Ajit Menon, CEO, PGIM India Mutual Fund, played a huge role in making him the father he is today.
"Aashia was a precious child for us, in that sense," Ajit tells Rediff's Savera R Someshwar, because they knew how they could easily lose someone they had loved and wanted so much. "We were extra cautious as a couple, extra attentive, towards her."
Both Ajit and Alina come from a large family -- cousins, uncles, aunts -- and they knew they wanted a second child. Four-and-a-half years after Aashia, they welcomed their son, Aymaan.
Then, Ajit was just happy to be a father. Finances, and other factors -- "I just wasn't thinking about them," he laughs as he reveals a few secrets about his relationship with his children.
Grappling with the generational difference can be challenging, admits Ajit.
"I'd like to think I am the cool dad," he grins, "but there are times I realise I am also the traditional dad."
Today, he feels, he's pretty much cruising on the parenting highway but that wasn't always the case.
There were moments when he questioned his decisions as a father; wondering whether his children were too young for the dreams he had encouraged them to see.
He also worried whether he would be able to embed in them the values he believed should be part of who they are.
Parenting, he says, need to evolve if it has to be effective. As, the children grew older, the most difficult thing he had to learn was how to "back off".
"Bringing up a boy and a girl in today's world, there is so much on the face of it that you don't think is right but you also realise that the kids today know how to take care of themselves so you have to disengage."
It is also, he laughs, easier to relax as a parent when the "tantrum" phase ends.
Achieving all of that wasn't easy but today, looking back at his 23 year journey as a father, he is grateful and so very proud of his children.
Ajit came from a middle class family, where decisions were taken -- and no arguments or pleas entertained -- by the father.
He wanted to join the Indian Army but like it was with most Indian parents those days, you either studied commerce or science and made sure you entered a profession where you could earn well; a decision taken because parents did not want their children to struggle financially.
Ajit trod the tried route -- standing up to a firm father was not easy -- but that impacted who he is as a father today; a father who will do the best he can to help his children achieve their dreams.
But as he grew older, Ajit began to see his father in a new light and today deeply values some of the lessons he was taught; lessons, he says, that are absorbed by children as they watch how their parents behave with each other, with the world. He is proud to see those values in himself and in his children.
How they were parented also helped the Menons -- "Parenting," says Ajit, "is a team effort" -- tackle a scenario that is common in many homes today. The children stay in their rooms, happy chatting with their friends and living in an online world that seems more familiar to them that the reality that awaits them outside the shut door.
Family gatherings can become awkward moments, in which children remain glued to their phones, barely saying hello, while the adults keep the conversation going and their relationships with each other alive.
The Menon family, though, escaped that, largely because, says Ajit...
On Father Day's, Ajit -- who sings beautifully -- has a special song for his daughter and his son. And he explains why he chose this particular song.
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