Baap Banoge Toh Samjhoge!
Unconditional love for us to experience and to reciprocate in life.
This was the essence of what we got when we recently caught up with two proud Flipster Dads - Manuj and Ankit, to hear them talk about their fatherhood journeys. Being a father is hardly just a title - it’s an emotion, a safety net, a promise of warmth and hope, a shoulder to stand on, a teacher, love and so much more. Being a father encapsulates all manners of existence!
At the time of writing this, Manuj Bansal is a Senior Director with Network and Line Haul Design, while Ankit Jain works as an Associate Director with Product Operations.
Taking Baby Steps
“I’ve always been ambitious - working hard at my job, thinking about my team’s and the company’s future. 12-14 hours was a regular day’s work for me, even when I was married at the beginning”, recollects Manuj when talking about his pre-parenthood phase. “After 7 years of marriage, when I finally became a father to our first baby girl Gaavya in Jan 2019, those long hours had to be rethought around shouldering responsibilities at home with my wife and our extended family.” Now a father to two lovely girls, Manuj says that his overall fatherhood journey has been ‘transformative’.
Jab baap bana toh sahi mainey mein time ki value samajh mein aayi!
For Ankit, his parenting journey started about 6 years ago. After joining Flipkart in 2018, he became a father to his darling boy, Shaurya, in 2019. With the birth of his son, Ankit says that his life “suddenly changed”. How? Like many couples out there, Ankit and his wife were both working at the time, so taking care of a new baby became a bit challenging for the couple, who weren’t necessarily fully prepared for what was to come next. Yep, Covid-19 soon became the new order of the world. In this weird new setup, the couple automatically found themselves closer to their child at home. “Fortunately or unfortunately”, as Ankit mentions it, while recounting the pandemic days!
For the better
“You gotta remain patient with your partner and understand their needs. Similarly, you start to better understand stakeholders at work. Fatherhood really brings you to reason, you know!” said Manuj, on how the couple’s parenthood journey started shaping up after conceiving.
While it took him a few months to effectively communicate this, he was able to consciously step out of work and balance that with supporting his wife through the maternity process, including doctor’s appointments and more. Over time, he had to find a way to give time equally to his work and his family at home. Fortunately, Manuj’s fatherhood journey with his 2nd child was even better than the first, or “beautiful”, as he mentions. Learning from their first outing as parents, he and his wife were better prepared for the second time around, shouldering responsibilities with much ease than before. Manuj believes that at the end of the day, having the support of your line manager and your organization through all this really gives you a deep satisfaction with the whole process!
With his son trapped inside the home all through Covid, Ankit and his wife found an ingenious way of engaging the little one - they cleared out the space in their hall, got a bunch of slides placed and transformed their hall into this kids-park type space for their son to play in and enjoy. So all through 2021 - 2022, their son was given the experience that he would normally get in a park outside (Color us impressed - our values of ‘ABC’ were at peak display here from Ankit and his wife!) “As men, the experiences we have are very different to when we become fathers”, says Ankit. If binge watching was the norm before a child, now every sliver of time is well accounted for!
Backed by the experience of the first child, Ankit and his wife were well placed to welcome their 2nd child soon after, with loads of learnings and patience. Yes, there were many sleepless nights, undoubtedly. But they also had the support of fellow couples that they met during prenatal classes, who motivated them to look at the positive aspects of the journey. On the work front, Ankit says he enjoyed a supportive environment from his manager and at Flipkart overall. Flexible paternal policies including WFH, Ankit says, allowed him to maximize his fatherhood experience!
Means everything
Becoming a father changes things for you, for the better. Firstly, both Manuj and Ankit feel that being a father did put almost all things in their life into a laser sharp perspective.
From being a strong-headed taskmaster known to work with agility, Manuj found himself practicing patience more ardently than before. The old Manuj would expect quality solutions from his team mates from the get go; however, the ‘new’ Manuj knows that just with his kids, it often requires more than one take to explain things to others and find synergies accordingly. “It doesn’t mean that I look at my team as childish or immature. It just means that my approach to both sets yield similar results, one that is now guided by trust, patience and composure more than anything!”
For Manuj, having kids has also made him maximize even more, citing, "When my 2nd baby was born prematurely at 7 and a half months, we had to start taking extra care of her, which meant I was absolutely clear about what this phase of fatherhood would mean for me and my family. Over time, I’ve become even more productive now, and am able to derive greater value out of the time I spend at work! And the same then relays at home in the form of diaper change and feeding duties.”
“Baap bana, toh ache se samajh mein aaya!” said Ankit, recounting how he’s started to actively empathize with people around him at work. In the spirit of risk-taking and bias for action, Ankit said that before becoming a father, he would often find himself pushing people with a slightly aggressive approach. However, now that he’s a dad, he’s softened himself to understand people better, and the situations or challenges they may be facing. Ankit also believes that he’s truly started to experience joy and gratitude in small things around him at home and at work. He says that his children serve as his inspiration on this - from when he sees his son nonchalantly playing with his hot wheels car on the table and enjoying a simple enough moment, or when he wakes up early morning to find his daughter smiling at him in bed, leading to a heartwarming experience each morning.
With fatherhood, Ankit has also truly embraced being flexible in life and adapting to ever-changing situations. “You could have your day well planned, and the next moment, the kid may not be eating well or feeling great, and suddenly your entire day plan can go for a toss. With being a father, I have embraced change as a constant, and being agile at work with changing situations all the time. I still try to plan things, of course. Even if that means waking up at 5:30AM to go for a run, and return just in time for my kids to be awake!”
There’s much to being a father or a father figure in life - from understanding a heightened meaning of responsibility, to planning your collective future. Being a Father, you try making a quality life happen for your loved ones, for the better. You embrace change more openly, for the better. You maximize love, support and care, for the better. From thinking about self to thinking about others, you change, for the better.
To Manuj, Ankit, and all the dads at Flipkart and out there…
Congrats on Being a Father, for the better!