Father figures, student sons

In recent weeks, an interesting saga played out at one of India's most respected companies. Heralded as an icon of professionalism that rewarded merit and not lineage, this company found itself in the throes of a leadership crisis as members of its senior team left and media and industry analysts speculated that one of its co-founders was leaning towards his son as the chief executive officer. While all that talk has turned out to be speculation and conjecture, it shone a light on how the father-son relationship continues to dominate public imagination, especially in India where business is still viewed as a family inheritance.

Sons are natural heirs to the top job in a business that a father or a grandfather has set up. Lack of merit or capability is never a deterrent. The examples are too many to list but what usually happens is that a son is handed the business with the hope that he will help it grow. Invariably, the power and wealth overwhelm him and the business falls by the wayside. There are exceptions - several sons and grandsons have taken the business to greater heights than their forefathers imagined - but they are not the story here.

The father-son relationship crisis is a core issue of the Mahabharata. The blindness of Dhritarashtra is metaphorical as much as it is a physical challenge. Dhritarashtra is not unaware of his son's follies. As king, he can also see the imminent destruction of the Kurus on account of Duryodhana's actions. However as father, he is handicapped by love for his son. Drona, a father figure for Arjuna, is just as culpable. His desire to see his pupil Arjuna as the best archer of the world causes him to mete out the cruellest punishment to Ekalavya, a contender to the title. Ekalavya has to cut off the thumb of his right hand, putting an end to his life as an archer.

In Indian epics, just as fathers are shown to be hostage to their affections, sons are portrayed as obedient followers. Few question their fathers even when they are wrong. The epic hero Rama, for instance, does not challenge his father's decision to send him to the forest. Yayati's son, Puru, exchanges his youth for his father's old age, and in the Mahabharata, Bhima's son, Ghatotkacha, does not dither when he is asked to sacrifice his life for the Pandavas. Neither does Aravan, son of Arjuna, demur in the Tamil version of the Mahabharata when he is asked to sacrifice himself to the goddess Kali.

The father-son relationship is a tumultuous one in many mythologies. One of the well-known Greek myths is about Ouranus (Uranus) and Gaia. Ouranus is the primeval Greek god of the sky. Both son and husband of Gaia, the earth goddess, he fathered the first divinities and monsters. Ouranos could not stand his kids and he locked them away in the belly of the earth, causing Gaia immense pain and suffering. Gaia approached her Titan sons for help and convinced the youngest, Kronos, to come to her aid. Kronos did as his mother asked and castrated his father. Later he faced a similar fate from his son, Zeus, who overthrew him and took control of the universe. The Kronos crisis found its way into several myths and legends; the most famous is that of Oedipus. In the past, fathers and sons vied for supremacy over their tribes, and myths and folktales reflected the conflict that marked their relationship. In India, the Shiva-Ganesh relationship is similar. There are several versions of how and why Ganesh was given an elephant's head but at the core lies the battle between him and his father.

Different times, people and concerns shaped myths but together they uncover the fabric of the societies that wove them. As the Indian company with which we began this piece goes in for a non-founder professional as CEO, it may be time to write a new father-son myth for Indian business too.