Tribute to Papa by Mamta Kalia - Summary and Analysis

  Mamta Kalia’s Tribute to Papa is a poem filled with rage and discontentment. The father in this poem is a man that complies with the norms and rules of society. The father is so afraid of society that he does not even thinks of breaking any rules of it.

 

                   In the first stanza, the speaker is enraged by her father. The poem begins with the lines,

‘who cares for you, Papa?’- which explains the amount of anger and discontentment the daughter has for her father. She is ridiculing her father’s acts and declares that nobody cares for his modesty and nobody would want to be an angel like him. The speaker thinks that whatever the father is doing to be accepted in the society is of no use. Nobody cares about it. The speaker thinks that her father is an unsuccessful man because he could not even own a house with his earnings and has always led a life of limited dreams and the same is (of course by default) thrust upon his family.

 

                In the second stanza, the speaker explains how she had wanted her father to be. She thinks her father is a coward and says to his face that she wishes that he had the guts to smuggle 80,000 watches at a stroke and then she would have said that her father is in import-export business. These lines perhaps are not to be taken literally they (the lines) might simply suggest that the daughter is not happy with the professional position her father has and she wants him to engage in a more fancy and rewarding job that she would say in front of everybody and be proud about it.

 

            The third stanza explains how the speaker’s father has spent his life, trying to impress other people and maintain his image of a noble, modest man and the daughter of course is not happy about the ways of her father which is quite evident in this stanza. The daughter is criticizing her father’s wish to be a model man in front of everybody. She hates his efforts of being an ‘ideal’ man in other’s eyes. The daughter complains that when her father cannot think of doing anything, he starts praying. This act of praying and spending hours at the temple is useless according to the speaker.

 

            The fourth stanza explores the father’s wish for her daughter to be great. The speaker says that her father wants her to be like him or Lakshmibai. The speaker further reveals that he himself is not sure about what greatness is but he wants his daughter to be great. This explains how the father who himself is not sure about what exactly he means by greatness, but he wants his daughter to follow his footprints or Rani Lakshmibai whom the society considers great and ideal. The daughter is upset with her father's wish for her to comply with societal rules and models.

                         In the following two lines, the daughter clearly ridicules the father’s (by and large the society’s ) idea of greatness. She rejects to be great or to be like Rani Lakshmibai. Maybe because she does not want to be dictated what she must do and be.

 

                In the stanza that follows the speaker explains how she is exhausted by the ways of her. To the extent that she is seriously thinking of disowning her father. She is fed of him and his sacredness. Because she knows that it is all a disguise, a fake personality for the people to see and accept. The daughter asks her father what if she starts calling him by his name and designation. Because they do not really share the bond and affection that a father and a daughter share and with time they almost have emotionally become strangers to each other.

               The final stanza is especially hard-hitting as it exposes the personal details of the speaker’s life and how she is enraged and disappointed that her father is criticizing instead of taking a stand for his family. The theme of societal obligation over family is evident throughout the poem with the character of the father and in the final stanza of the poem too this theme is quite apparent and easily observed.

                The stanza starts off with the speaker revealing that she has been having an affair and the father is suspicious about it but he is so shy that he cannot go to his daughter and get it confirmed. The daughter is aware of her father’s hesitancy and asks him what if she gets pregnant and her tummy starts to show? And what would he do if she refuses to get it curated (aborted) ?. the daughter is asking these hard questions to her father and she knows that her father does not have any answers to these questions. Lastly, the daughter affirms that she will be careful that she would not get pregnant because she knows that if she does get pregnant her father will surely think of committing suicide.

              The daughter is well aware of the fact that her father’s societal image and pride matter to him more than anything else and if the daughter will get pregnant outside of wedlock, being unmarried, the image that the father has built and maintained all his life will be crushed in a second and an unbearable amount of shame will be thrust upon him which he cannot possibly go through. Hence the father will choose to commit suicide and end his life than face the society or break the norms for his daughter.

 

 

           The ironic title is quite apt for the poem considering the nature of the topic the poem is focused upon. There is no tribute for the father, as he has done nothing for his daughter, for his family that is worth remembering or celebrating. The poem instead is a speaker’s complaint letter to her father.