At this all-boys school reunion held recently, a batchmate pulled out his phone and told everyone willing to listen to tales of his third newborn. After the contraception jokes were made, something interesting happened. Several of the men who had gathered around the phone were actually listening. It's the sort of scene that would've made Chandler Bing go, "Oh my god, where are all the men?" It wasn't very long ago—in the '90s and early noughts—that the era-defining TV show Friends, reflected the prevalent view of the time: men aren't supposed to enjoy knitting or put on make-up or be seen raising kids. Remember, Chandler's friend Ross had two children who mysteriously grew up in the background even as he stumbled from one marriage to another.

Look back a few decades more and the difference is starker. A Pew survey from 2015 found out that fathers spent roughly seven hours a week on childcare, compared to 2.5 hours back in 1965. And, while the survey is specific to America, the story isn't very different with urban Indian men. In the 2011 research paper, Role Of Fathers In Children's Lives: A View From Urban India, Dr Rajalakshmi Sriram reports that as many of 62 per cent of fathers she interviewed felt guilty and frustrated about not being present during their child's illness, emergencies or spending enough time with them. Men, she writes, also experience conflict between their job and spousal roles. The paper also quotes an AC Nielson survey that reveals that 50 per cent men craved for more time with family.