Marriages are always fun. Relationships are built. There are people whom you know but meeting after a long time period. You get introduced to many people whom you don't know. Usually our relatives introduce us to the unknown lot. But sometimes people who don't know you may come up to you to exchange pleasantries and identify you right without any proper introduction and you will be left surprised.
I had the fortune to attend a marriage recently where I ran into many such surprises. I was identified by many as my father's son. Each such rendezvous always fills me up with a sense of pride in my legacy. I have always looked upon my father as an inspiring and motivational person all my life. All children naturally admire their parents. But as I have seen with most of those around me there comes a painful moment of realization, that juncture when your parents cease to be a superhero. Children still adore and love their parents instinctively, but the only superheroes left for them are the caped vigilantes. But I have grown beyond that point, or arguably i have hardly grown at all, as for me my father still remains to be a superhero. I admit there were jittery instances when I expected more from him and the superhero image were about to deface, but he always emerged as an ineffaceable superhero. The image is so ingrained now, I hardly have any fears of rocking that image held safely in the mantlepiece of my heart. It is always highly gratifying when people identify me as father's son be it from my looks, the way I stand or walk, the manner in which I speak or be it my thoughts and opinion.
So, I was dumbfound when I was shown this is not always the reality. I had missed the complete picture. I had missed the duality of nature. I chanced upon an Israeli-German 2012 documentary film, Hitler's Children, that portrays the struggle of family members of Hitler’s inner circle, such as Heinrich Himmler, Hans Frank, Hermann Göring, Amon Goeth and Rudolf Höss, with the burden of a family legacy, and surname, identified with the horrors of the Holocaust. The descendants of the most senior Nazis describe the conflicted feelings of guilt and responsibility they carry with them in their daily lives. They tearfully narrate their grief filled lives and how they live in the shadows trying to rebuild their lives. Some of them even going to the extent of sterilizing themselves so that their surnames are not perpetuated ever on earth. Their struggle to build a wall between their children and their legacy so as to relieve of the trauma they would have had to live with. A guy told how ashamed, guilt-stricken and fearful he was to reveal his surname and how a Holocaust survivor palliated his burden with a forgiving embrace. One broke me down when he said how he could not obey the fifth commandment 'Honor thy father and thy mother' and took to propagating his hatred for them. But admitted that while doing all these researches on the concentration camps, which he plans to do till he dies, how desperately he hopes to find somewhere his father had saved at least any life. And how heartbreakingly he could not find an instance till now. A lady was pensive when she revealed, how she was made to believe of her father as a war hero by her own mother, the agony - the anguish - the disbelief she had as a young adult when that image was shattered.
Every child needs a superhero in their parents. Let no one ever be deafened by the shattering of the images they uphold. Let no one be ashamed, burdened and ostracized from the society due to their surnames. Let no one have to remember their inheritance ignominiously and disgracefully but with pride that comes from a clear conscience. Let us leave a legacy that allows the coming generation to take it with dignity and joy. But for those who still are afraid to unmask their superheroes and continue their mournful miserable lives, I plead humanity to extend their support, warmth and love to assuage their repentant lives.
