Papa
Title: Papa
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Heroes in all its glory belongs to Tim Kring, NBC, etc.
Spoilers: Up to 1x23 "How to Stop an Exploding Man"
Word Count: 2300
Characters: Mohinder centric, mentions of Molly
Summary: "Maybe it was destiny. Maybe I was meant to go to New York and find the people I did, find her. Or maybe I found them because I went to New York. Our actions create our destinies. I was born with a purpose and I was unable to fulfill it. And now, I was there, in New York, with this little girl sick the way Shanti had been, and it was one more chance for my father. I had let him down so many times. I couldn’t let him down again. I couldn’t let her down."
Feedback: Please! I'd love you forever!
Note: This is a companion to my Molly piece, Who's Afraid of the Boogeyman?, but it is more than capable of standing on its own. While I don't have as great a hold on Mohinder's voice as I do on Molly's, I started with his roots -- India and the religion of his mother, Hinduism. Even if Mohinder doesn't practice anymore, it stands to reason that he would have been raised in the faith, and so that became the basis for this piece.
Because I am not schooled in the Hindu religion, I needed a crash course. To that end, I'd like to thank The Global Oneness COmmitment for all its help in learning what I needed to learn. Also to that end, I use some Hindu/Hindi terms. Most of them are explained in the context of the piece, butnot immediately and not all of them, so I'll list them for you here:
karma - consequence of action that sooner or later returns upon the doer
ahimsa- the avoidance of violence, practice of non-injury in thought or deed
moksha - the ultimate Hindu spiritual goal, liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth
papa - negative karma
karmashaya - a person’s spirit, the body of a person’s karma
punya - positive karma
asuras - demons
rajapatni - little princess
The title of this piece is double in meaning. I found it interesting, while researching for this, that our term of endearment for a father is the Hindu word for negative karma -- papa. I think this explains Mohinder's initial reaction to the title "Papa Suresh" that Eden uses. It's also interesting that Chandra Suresh would tell Eden to use it. CHoose whichever meaning you like for the context of the title.
And, without further ado, on to the story!
Papa
By our actions, we create our destiny. This idea is one of the basic foundation of Hinduism, tied in with karma and ahimsa and moksha. Through our actions, we create our own destiny. So when I was conceived to save my dying sister, did my parents chose my destiny for me? I have spent almost every moment of my life living for someone else, and I have always resented it, in some hidden recess of my mind, even as I devoted my entire self to it.
My destiny, my purpose in being, went unfulfilled. Shanti died. I was too late to save her. A mark of papa, negative karma, working against me before I was even born. So maybe that’s why I’ve always felt such a need to prove that something, even without knowing what exactly it was. They say the spirit knows things the mind isn’t aware of. Perhaps my spirit, my karmashaya, knew about Shanti, even before I had learned of her.
When I was a boy, my father was my hero. I was convinced that he was the most brilliant man in the world, convinced that he could do no wrong. He would take me into his lab and explain all his theories to me. I was enthralled, fascinated by it all. I wanted to be just like him.
That’s why I became a geneticist. I spent a year championing my father’s ideas, defending him from the ridicule he was coming to face in the academic world. After that year, I, too, became faced with the same ridicule, by association. Slowly, that ridicule began to wear away at me, affect me and how I viewed my father and his ideas. The fact that it was my father himself who dealt the killing blow was the most crippling of all.
It was a harsh and cruel way to be disillusioned. I became more concerned with how I was viewed by the professors at the university. My father was becoming a laughingstock with any respected intellectual minds, and he didn’t seem to care. I couldn’t understand it. Every time someone mentioned Dr. Suresh the Crackpot, I burned with shame and with anger at him. He was embarrassing his family and his name, all for a stubborn refusal to admit the popular opinion - that his theories were baseless and ridiculous.
I couldn’t understand why this was so important to him, why he was willing to throw away everything - his job, his family, his reputation - for this theory. The argument we had before he left for America was the last time I ever spoke to him, and the words we exchanged were not kind - on either side. After he left, I was determined that that was to be the end. From then on, I would live my life only for myself. My father had fallen from the pedestal I had kept him on, and it wasn’t worth my energy to try and put him back up there, especially because he didn’t want me to. At the time, I thought he believed me to be incapable of helping him, incapable of doing what he was doing.
Marks of papa working against me all the way around. But the karmashaya knows when the mind does not, and despite my intentions, I was as unhappy living for myself as I had ever been when I had lived for him. I tried to focus on my work, my teaching, tried to be glad of my freedom, but I couldn’t. They say the spirit knows. The karmashaya knows.
When I heard my father had been killed, I had to know. Some part of me had to know that he hadn’t died for nothing. I had to find out if there had been a reason, if there really had been something to it all. I couldn’t bear the thought that my father had died chasing after folly. The more I found out, the more obsessed I became with it all. I needed to finish my father’s work, find the answers that had eluded him. I needed to prove that he wasn’t crazy, that I hadn’t been crazy to believe in him. I needed to avenge his death.
When I took the time to examine it, that need frightened me with its intensity and its incessant pull. That need was the force behind every move, every thought and deed I undertook. I finally understood what my father had felt. He had died for this; I was willing to die for it. I was willing to do whatever was it took to accomplish finding and completing the List, and whatever it took to stop those in my way.
What happened in Kirby Plaza with Sylar was my fault. I had him at my mercy; I could have disposed of him, and the lives I saved with that act would have generated enough punya to balance out the papa of taking a life myself. But I wanted to see him suffer the way he had made my father suffer. I broke from the practice and principle of ahimsa; I wanted to see a fellow being in pain, and worse than that, I wanted to inflict that pain. My pride and thirst for vengeance overwhelmed my own principles and better sense, and karma has a habit of catching up to you at the worst possible times.
The wrongs you commit against others will some day be paid back to you, that is how karma works. Our actions create our destinies.
But the actions of others contribute to the destinies of those the actions affect. My father’s actions contributed to my destiny. Even after he was dead, or, maybe, especially after he was dead, I was living my life for him. For his work, for his research, for his death. It angered me. It angered me that it was true and that I couldn’t break free. I was still living my life for him, still trying to finish what he could not. Because whether he wanted it for me or not, he had chosen this destiny. It was out of my hands.
It consumed me. Fear or rage or need or all three, it consumed me. Every moment I spent doing something that was not contributing to my father’s work only added to that. For the first time, I wished for an ability of my own - to be able to survive without food or rest, to be able to teleport, to be able to find people at will, anything that would enable me to spend my time more efficiently. With Sylar on the loose, I couldn’t afford to be sidetracked.
Molly was a sidetrack, and I knew I was being used, that my sister was being used, and my father. I almost walked away.
My mother was religious, a practicing and dedicated Hindu, and even though my father wasn’t, I grew up with the traditions pounded into my head. As far as believing goes, I’ve seen too much and experienced too much not to believe. My mother used to tell me that we have to recognize the chances karma presents us with. It’s why she let my father go. It’s why she let me go. And when I met that small little girl, when I heard what was wrong with her, I knew things had come full circle.
Maybe it was destiny. Maybe I was meant to go to New York and find the people I did, find her. Or maybe I found them because I went to New York. Our actions create our destinies. I was born with a purpose and I was unable to fulfill it. And now, I was there, in New York, with this little girl sick the way Shanti had been, and it was one more chance for my father. I had let him down so many times. I couldn’t let him down again. I couldn’t let her down.
I don’t know when the her stopped being Shanti and started being Molly. Maybe it was the first time we colored. Maybe it was when she gave me that star to protect me. Maybe it was the first night I heard her screaming in her sleep, plagued by asuras, demons, nightmares. I don’t know. But I do know that I held that little girl in my arms, trying to give her some comfort, and . . . I finally, finally, understood. I finally understood why my father had done the things he had.
My sister had been special, and my father had given his life to protect her, and he had failed. And so he dedicated his life to helping people like her. It was all he had. He knew he couldn’t give me what a father should, because just looking at me reminded him of his failure. He loved me and he was proud of me, but he knew I could never be the most important thing in his life. His work was always going to come first. Shanti was always going to come first. And he knew it wasn’t fair, but he didn’t have anything left to devote to me. He tried to keep me from following him because he didn’t want me to make the same mistake.
He knew it was his actions that had formed my destiny. He knew I would always have to live my life for others. He just didn’t want that other to be him. He wanted more for me than he could give.
And the need shifted. It stopped being a need to prove my father’s theories and became a need to find the cure he left behind. It stopped being a need to avenge my father’s death and became a need to save Molly’s life. It stopped being a need to live for Chandra Suresh and became a need to live for Molly Walker. Before Molly, my nightmare had been that Sylar would win, that he would kill all those who were special and, in so doing, sully everything my father had worked and given his life for. After Molly, my nightmare was that she and I and our story would turn into Shanti and my father and theirs.
Saving the world suddenly became less important if I couldn’t also save her.
And this need frightened me, more than the other had. How was it possible that one small girl had so much power over me? How had she been able to so completely change what was important to me? But she had. And the fact that I couldn’t find the way to save her made me feel more inadequate than anything my father or the university professors had ever said to me.
And I realized that this must have been what my father felt for Shanti. I thought about everything he’d been willing to throw away for her, everything he’d been willing to do for her, no matter the cost. And I looked at that photograph, and then I knew. I knew exactly what my father had done in his attempt to save her.
Our actions determine our destinies. What you do to others will eventually come back to you. Full circle. Karma.
Twice in my life, I have pointed a gun at a man’s head, and both times, I would have willingly pulled the trigger. Sometimes I think it’s not what we are willing to die for that is most important - it’s what we are willing to kill for. The first time was a mark of papa, but the second was a mark of punya. I would have killed Sylar to benefit myself and my work. I would have killed Bennet to keep Molly safe. I would have done anything to keep Molly safe. Losing her would be the worst thing that could happen to me.
On the night that Sylar confronted us in Kirby Plaza, a great number of things happened, but the one that stands out in my mind is Molly telling me that I had banished her boogeyman and that she was my little girl. That meant the world to me, even though I had known it for a long time.
They say that blood is thicker than water, that we as humans are willing to do more for those connected to us by blood than we are for any others. My blood flows in Molly’s veins. My blood saved her. I am responsible for her life. I watch her sleep now, curled up on the bed in my apartment, and I am assailed by doubts and fears I had long ago decided I would never experience. Can I protect her? Can I keep her safe and happy? Can I be a good father to her? Would she be better off in someone else’s home, as someone else’s little girl? And even if she would, could I bear to let her go? I love her more than I have ever loved anyone in my life before. She is more important to me than anything else, and I would give up everything for her.
Because of Molly, I finally understand. Do you hear that, Father? I finally understand.
She called me her hero. And though I can’t fly or hear people’s thoughts or walk through walls, I hope with everything I am that I will always be able to live up to the name in her eyes.
Almost all my life, I have lived for my father, for his work, his research, his dream. But now I look at this small girl who has chosen to make her home with me, and I know that that is no longer true. Now, everything I do, every action that I take, everything I work for, I do it all for her. For this little girl. My little girl. My rajapatni. My Molly. And far from resenting it, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather live for.