Call of Duty - From Navy To A Cool Dad

Cool Dad Journey # 0030 - A few days back, I had this amazing and insightful conversation with a Cool Dads' Club member - Digvijay Sodha , who has served in the Indian Navy & is a father to a 9 yr old daughter (almost 10).

?Digvijay grew up around planes. His dad was in the Indian Airforce.

At the age of 16 yrs, he saw Top Gun & was immediately smitten by the entire concept of jets taking off from aircraft carriers.

While growing up as a kid, he always wanted to fly, and becoming part of the Navy became his calling. He decided to appear for the NDA exams and later on joined the Naval Academy.

His transformation to fatherhood was quite a deliberate decision. The arrival of his daughter was obviously a key catalyst in how life has unfolded since then.

He and his wife were in the UK when they got the news that they were going to become parents.

His daughter’s arrival coincided with an important assignment in the Navy, that of being a Commanding Officer of a ship. In the Navy, his role of commanding a ship was obviously a very busy one where the Captain (as they are called) is the one person who is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on the ship. So, when he wanted to take 15 days off during the arrival of his daughter, it was a difficult call.

Being in the Navy you are serving a grander purpose and vision, so being away from active duty was not easy.

But he knew that the arrival of his daughter is going to be life-changing, and new priorities were building up in his mind. This was about adapting to the new role of a father. His daughter was born in 2012, and for almost 8 years he continued in the Navy serving his country.

In 2015, he decided that he did not want to compromise on either of the responsibilities. When called for, armed forces personnel are required to prioritize their duty over everything else. And being a career officer, he knew that he would always prioritize duty over the family.

But his daughter’s arrival and his attachment to the role of being an involved Dad were always tugging at his heart. He decided to do something about it. He spoke to his senior officers about his desire to leave the Navy and get into civilian life, where he felt, he would be free to prioritize family over work, without any guilt of letting the country down.

Fortunately for him, his senior officers were quite accommodating & understood his desire to spend more time with his daughter.

But people still continued to ask him the same question – Why did he do it? Getting into the Navy is a dream for many, and extremely tough to even get into it. So how could he leave it all behind?

But Digvijay saw it differently. He understood that things would change. Just as he was trained in the Navy he felt compelled to decide and act. Though this time the decision was in favor of his daughter.

I asked him about the turning point that triggered him to make this change.

His daughter was born in Mumbai, India in 2012. At that time, he was commanding a ship. When she was one year old, he went to Delhi where he was in a very busy role. Many days he would come back to see his daughter already in bed & then leave early morning before she woke up.

He realized this was not going to work if he wanted to spend time with her. He didn't want to miss out on her childhood days. In 2015, he moved to Mumbai and then eventually to Canada in 2021, where he now works in Amazon.

The anxiety of his daughter having to adjust to a new school environment and making new friends has been difficult. But his wife is quite active in the parents’ community within Canada and is able to provide their daughter with the much-needed social interaction for her. The pandemic has not been kind to kids of this age anyways, with all the isolation and online schooling.

We also touched upon how he was able to prepare himself for his role as a father. To join the Navy, one needs to put in some hard work and acquire skills. But what about preparation for fatherhood?

For him, books worked like a charm. His wife (a journalist) also used to share articles with him about parenting. But leaning on some of the books, helped him to understand a lot more about parenting. The Navy guy was now consciously up-skilling himself as a father.

He also started reading books to her daughter during bedtime routines. And magically in a few years, his daughter was reading Harry Potter by herself.

He says?- "That’s the power of reading books to your children. There is a lot that they learn just by listening to their parents read".

On some of the early challenges that he faced as a father – he remembers the time when his daughter was only 3 weeks old, and his wife asked him to cut their daughter’s fingernails so that she does not scratch her face.

Digvijay got the clipper and got on with the job. After all, that’s how you operate in the Navy. You don’t have the liberty to give excuses - you just get the job done.

His training over the years helped him to take on this very risky maneuver on his 3 weeks old daughter. Unfortunately, while clipping her nails, he clipped them too far and deep, and her tiny little finger started bleeding.

One can never blame him for that incident, considering that 99.999 % of fathers would not even attempt it.

Truth be told, even I would have no guts to do it. But you have to remember – Digvijay is a Navy guy.?

On asking him about how we would now prepare himself for the next phase of raising his daughter, he shared that patience and communication are the key ingredients here.

We concluded our conversation with a reflection on his fatherhood journey –

As a father, he has gone through a lot of introspection and personal growth. He says it is important for him to understand what his daughter thinks and does.

His habits now are very different compared to earlier years. The binge-watching of movies and drinks has come to a halt. He knows it's important to portray the right behavior for her daughter.

He knows that shallow advice does not work. Life is like a mirror where every action reflects back.

And this journey has also helped him to reflect upon all the hard work that his own parents put in to raise him.

From the days of watching Top Gun as a 16 yr old, and then joining the Navy to serve his country, to a conscious and doting father - Digvijay has come a long way.

Even though he has left the Navy - He is always on active duty.

Digvijay, you are a great inspiration to many Dads out there who are looking to become better Dads every day.