My Daddy Coolest !!

Yeah well, as the title suggests, this post is dedicated to my Dad. Not coz today's his birthday or coz he did something great today. Even it were a special occassion, it would be very uncharacteristic of me to write a post about him because as I mentioned earlier, I'm a private person and besides, my dad and I aren't the very vocal-with-our-feelings kinda people.

Infact, my dad and I haven't done any of the things people usually associate with "dads". We haven't ever discussed my career. When I decided to take up engineering, he didn't ask me the quintessential "Why?" question even once, though he was a mechanical engineer himself. Nor have we ever discussed what I plan to do ahead. When I started my MS applications, he had no idea of the universities I was applying to. But the most amazing thing is, I'm glad he's not like that! See, I get enough of those life-shaping discussions from my mom so I am more than thankful about not getting them from dad !! My mom was always in awe of her dad. She's told me a million times that though they had really enlightening talks together, she always considered his words to be the pather ki lakeer. It was never that way with dad and me. I respect him and all obviously, but in the normal way one respects ones' parents. We aren't back-slapping buddies or anything but I definitely don't get intimidated by him !!

Anyway, since this post is for him, and both of us share a weird fondness for list-making and bulleted info, I'm going to list out why I think he's the coolest dad in the world -

• He knows everything about Bollywood. The new movies, the link-ups, gossip, what happened on which film's set...all such kind of crap. Which is rather cool considering not many 51 year old men are really interested in that kind of stuff !! So, being crazy about Bollywood myself, most of the "discussions" we have at home are on the latest B-scoop. And considering the fact that the Mumbai newspapers print a lot more of this info than the Pune editions, I sure get a hell lot of updates from him!
• He gets all the latest flicks a day after their release! A movie releases on a Friday and it's on his pendrive on Saturday! Some guy in their office is heavily into piracy apparently. Ok, so I'm not proud of it, but the advantage is- if there's a particular movie I really want to see, but it's not worth spending even 50 bucks in a theatre, then this works out perfect! I'm really waiting for him to get Tashan..
• Speaking of theatres, he's the only member of my family who doesn't mind watching a movie from the first row. And my years in COEP have made it sort of a tradition to buy only the cheapest seats available.
• We both are cricket crazy people. So if there's a match going on over a weekend, it's like a picnic for us. My mom watches cricket only if it's an India-Pak match or if India is playing the final of a series like the World Cup (which is rarer than a blue moon !! :-P). That's why I see IPL matches only on Saturdays and Sundays! Only problem though is that he supports Mumbai Indians (damn those people for winning yesterday !! :-P) while I support the Knight Riders !!
• He knows all about politics, so he's my one-stop encyclopedia for all the crap that goes on between BJP, Congress, Bush, Obama, Clinton blah blah..
• He's as technology and gadget crazy as I am (though I wouldn't say the same for techno-savvy !! ;-)) So whenever we buy any electronic items, they have to be the absolute latest in the market. He'd rather not buy them than buy a cheaper, older version.
• He's actually proud of my collection of books and so in effect, appreciates my reading habit. My mom also likes "story-books" (yup, that's what she calls my grown-up bhandars of knowledge, how insulting na!) but she considers reading them to be a waste of time and money! Maha-paap !!!
• He's totally cool with us drinking! He doesn't go all "He bhagwan, my daughter's gone haywire, ab mera hya hoga !!" My sister had her first beer with him when she was 18.. Yup, he abhors laws too !! :-) (Please note: This does not mean that we take undue advantage and go on drinking binges. We're good girls and know our limits. Seriously.)
• One thing I've inherited from him apart from my weird hair, is a knack for sarcasm. (Well, it may not show on the blog but when I bring it on, it's really biting crazy!) So we have these spontaneous duels every weekend where we're allowed to say whatever we want to cut each other and no one takes it very seriously. And believe me, it is so amazing to have a parent who doesn't expect you to be too respectful of him every waking moment and can take a joke on him light-heartedly!
• My dad truly understands my need to be in a creative field too, in addition having a "stable job". And it's such a relief to know that!

Anyway, I guess I'm going to stop now, though I can think of a lottt of other reasons. I guess the main reason I wrote this post is coz I was feeling kinda guilty about not having written about him on my blog earlier. I've mentioned my mom a lot of times. So this was to take that guilt away though I know he's never going to read this coz he doesn't have my blog address and well, I don't intend to give it to him in the near future !! Anyway, I'm not going to end with the maha-senti "I love you, Dad", coz as I said, we're not very expressive people. So all I want to say is- "Dad, please don't change ok!" :-)

Cheers! *clink*