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Since Karina had left her husband Gobi and their son Abed with him at age six, it is just both the elder and younger Nadir to survive on their own without her, and they have. They seemed to have shared a typical father-son relationship with one another, however as the years kept passing by while Abed developed in his teen years, he and Gobi somewhat felt like strangers to one another, distancing themselves but only together during mealtimes and doing chores around the house.
Not much was really communicated between them, Gobi would get either one or two worded answers from his son, but while conversing face-to-face when it comes to a particular topic or making plans for the weekend, some of it sounds reasonable coming from both parties, yet, oftentimes when Abed does want to talk about what he does want to do for himself, it is immediately overridden and gradually shut down by his father, who does not wish to follow through with the suggestions, or consider the ideas or opinions of his son and determines whatever's best for him as long as Abed lives under his roof.
Times such as this would make the younger Nadir's skin crawl, his stomach churning with unpleasantness, and sensing some sort of a meltdown waiting to happen. He just wants to lock himself up in his room, embrace the comforting silence and blackness for hours on end, and hide beneath the covers to wait for the voices in his brain to stop screaming at him, which he has multiple times on occasion.
Abed knows that his dad has to stop treating him as if he's still a toddler, deciding everything for what he should do to please him in his life, and just be supplied with as much autonomy as he needs because his father has had enough of it over the course of his son's teenage years as he now enters into adulthood.
It's tough enough as it is being the child of any foreign parent(s), those said parents who are close-minded when the subject of depression and mental health is being brought up in the conversation. There's absolutely no getting through to them no matter how hard one might try to push to admit such a hard fact.
At nights laying in bed, all Abed had ever craved for in his life is to be able to make his Baba happy rather than continue to bring disgrace and disappointment to him. He loves baba and merely needed for himself, his own autonomy and the approval of his father, but he wouldn't give it.
Abed does remember praying alongside his father, grandfather, and uncle at the local mosque, for Allah to guide him and be his inner peace, keeping his faith and hope within him that by his grace, Baba will eventually come through in understanding his one and only son.
Gobi never questions himself if by doing what he does was appropriate for his son's benefit, but that deep feeling of guilt lurking somewhere within him says otherwise and that was just something he refuses to admit, especially for when he does happen to handle things poorly. Gobi couldn't talk to Abed about it, and Abed cannot talk to his father about anywhere going on with him - mostly he'll expect to get degraded and belittled about what's going on wrong with him in his life, which oftentimes do lead to his shutdowns.
One thing Gobi will admit is that his son Abed is very difficult to understand as he interprets life through TV characters, putting himself in their shoes and acting in character during different situations. Gobi might think that he could read his son well like a book, mentioning facts back then in his childhood or even in the now, but no one truly knows Abed better than Abed himself.
Besides the usual TV, Gobi has no idea if his son may have any interests, hobbies, any social media platforms, friends at school, or maybe even a lover he has no knowledge of, but what he does know is that he really does love his son and vice-versa despite their differences, even for if the latter does happen to have some troubles expressing and/or communicating his words, or trying to comprehend social cues.
Gobi will always be there for Abed for whenever he requires him.