Keep your Paa off me

Daddy Long Legs... That may have been the name of a delightful novel about a girl who is growing up... But what happens when daddy's legs really get so long they interfere in his married daughter's life?
My daddy strongest! My daddy's biiiiig car. Whenever any of these and other countless syrupy father-daughter ads play on telly, Raghav Choudhary swears under his breath.Unlike the rest of the world, Raghav doesn't find the beautiful bond between baap-beti making him go awwwway. Simply because he's married to a daddy's girl. "And it's a pain," winces Raghav. "Even at 30, she just cannot stop being her father's little girl and will insist on comparing me with her old man in every possible situation, from drinking to driving. Each time I see these ads where girls gush over their dads, I tell my wife I pity their poor husbands. She doesn't find it funny."
In the Indian set-up, marriage is so much about the saas-bahu saga that we forget to think of the poor son-in-law, who has to live in his father-in-law's shadow. For Rohan Mistry, an IT programmer, it worked both ways. "I think being a daddy's girl helped my wife win her father's approval easily when we decided to get married. Her mother wanted an arranged match with a Bengali Brahmin, but her father was more understanding when he learnt that we were seeing each other and was keen to ensure that his daughter had her way," says Rohan, who started out believing marrying a daddy's girl was the best thing that could happen to him. The honeymoon was short lived. "One evening, he dropped in at my office to chat me up and find out if things were fine on the domestic front. It was embarrassing," recalls Rohan, who realised that day that his FIL had more than just a passing interest in his daughter's well-being. "It is impossible to win an argument with him in my wife's presence. He'll go on and on, making the same point in different ways - mainly to impress her - until I fall silent."
Amit Mukherjee, 32, narrates an incident, only if we promise to keep his identity secret, "for the sake of matrimonial harmony". "My wife would often go on and on about how her dad was so strong, how he would intimidate ruffians on the street or lift an LPG cylinder with ease. Unfortunately, unlike me, her dad looks like a bouncer who drinks two jugs of milk mixed with steroids." Amit, who refers to this behaviour as the 'my daddy strongest' syndrome, once let it slip that the pa-in-law wasn't exactly in the slim-trim category and maybe he should hit the treadmill. "Suffice to say, the words used in the argument that followed aren't exactly printable," he grins.
Sheetal, 33, has been married for 10 years to Sandeep, but still lives on a 'Dad's-the-way' philosophy. "My husband would get irked by my constant references to my father. I referred to my dad as my genie and he pulled my leg by calling him an underworld don," she says. All that changed, when Sandeep became a dad himself. He now wants to be his li'l girl's genie. "But I'll make sure she calls him a don," guffaws Sheetal.
In the 1970s musical Grease, Sandy's new friend Frenchy gives her a solid piece of advice with the line, "The only man a girl can depend on is her Daddy." Most girls grow up believing their father is Superman. And when they look for a husband, they're actually trying to find somebody closest to their fathers in terms of attitude and personality. Which almost led to a split in the case of entrepreneur Tushar Khanna and his wife Annika. "She kept looking for her father in me and nobody wants to be their wife's father. We finally visited a marriage counsellor to sort things out," says Tushar. "Initially I didn't realise how often I crushed Tushar's ego by comparing him to my father all the time," confesses Annika.
"Losely termed as the Princess-syndrome , this is a situation where the wife expects her partner to pamper her and mostly acts like a helpless little girl in his presence," says Shamsah Sonawalla, a consultant psychiatrist at Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital. "Unfavourable comparisons with the father follow and the husband-wife equation deteriorates from being one of equals to that of a parent and child. All this leaves the son-in-law feeling angry and frustrated. And without help, this predominantly unhealthy situation may lead to permanent cracks in the marriage," Sonawalla adds.
"I've always told my pals never, ever, marry a General's daughter," says Kulwant Sharma, who adds that he's speaking from experience. "They are the worst type. For my wife, my FIL was always the shining star and I the little pipsqueak. We filed for divorce after two years of trying to make it work."
Of course, not every case is as drastic or tragic. Priya Yadav, an air hostess with a leading airline, recalls how her newly-married husband flipped when she compared him to her dad for the umpteenth time. "I once told my husband that my dad knows more about cricket than you." That really had him riled. "I made two major goof-ups ," she admits. "I treaded on the father-vs-husband nerve and I followed it up with a cricket bouncer. Eventually, I was no-balled as my husband didn't speak to me for the entire day," she rues.
Advocate Kranti Sathe, a family law specialist, confirms she has had cases where wives wanted their husbands to be as successful as their fathers. "Obviously the daughter doesn't remember her father when he was her husband's age. And she raises the bar, not realising that her father must have also been a struggler once, financially or otherwise," explains Sathe. "Many young men complain about this to me. This also aggravates the husband's demand for divorce."
Film maker Kunal Varma gets along famously with his FIL, yet has a funny story to tell. "My dad-in-law retired in Mumbai. Being a mechanical engineer, he put his life and soul into making these neat compact cabinets to keep things in. In the eyes of my wife, Dipti, those were the ultimate designs. My Daddy's Cabinets would have been the name of the company had they floated one. So when we moved into Beverly Park in Gurgaon, where space was no hassle, Dipti insisted on following her dad's designs in the bathrooms . I stub my toe once a week at least! But Dipti still thinks the designs are fab."
(Some names have been changed to prevent WW III)
anubha.sawhney@timesgroup.com
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