
After a long time I watched a tamil movie at leisure at home. Being in Mumbai am not able to watch any tamil movie in a cinema hall. As am a movie buff I would never want to miss any good movie especially in Tamil and when the subject is all about a Father-Daughter relationship. I have been trying hard to get a DVD of this movie from the day my sister called from Singapore at 12.30 in the night, to cry to my dad, after watching that movie. Finally when my friend’s father-in-law went to Chennai recently he got a DVD of the movie. And today I spent my Saturday afternoon watching one great movie in Tamil.
I don’t know from the beginning of the movie how many times I would have paused in between to tell my friend, who was watching this movie with me, about a similar incident that happened between my father and me or my sister. Am sure she would have got fed up. Initially I was laughing thinking of those sweet memories and after sometime I could not stop tears rolling down my cheeks. I was feeling horrible as I was not sure whether I had told my Dad till date what he means to me and he is no doubt the “World’s Best Dad”.
Where do I start about my Daddy? All those days he has been a driver to me picking and dropping me to school and college(even when I was doing my Post Graduation), all those evenings as a kid, when I got back from school and was upset as I didn’t get anything interesting to eat, he rushed me to a nearby hotel for my favourite ghee roast and sambhar in spite of mom’s non acceptance, an evening when he was almost in tears as he got delayed to pick me up from school and couldn’t find me waiting for him, the slap he gave my little sister as I cried “appa” when she bit me with love, many a times signing my progress card when I used to sneak it to him when mom was not around, years of freedom to be myself, trusting me all along and never controlled any of my steps in my life in spite of many comments in a small city like madurai.
One small incident, that he was so friendly even with my friends, girls and boys. I remember as a farewell dinner all my PG classmates came home and after having a sumptuous dinner cooked by my mom the boys who smoke got a surprise gift from my dad. He got them a pack of high quality cigarettes and let them smoke on our terrace. These guys were so surprised to see such a Cool Dad those days.
He made me trust myself and learn from my own mistakes. All along all he used to tell me is “Be a Roman in Rome”, never he raised a voice at me in all these 32 years of my life, never said No to me directly for anything I wanted. But still when I want something I never go to him to ask anything as I was scared of a No from him directly and also never want him to feel that stress of saying no to me. I was ready to hear it thru my mom which used to bug her a lot. But he still never said No.
Even when my folks were trying to get me married and when my husband, then a prospective match was arranged to meet me and we took 3 months to decide whether we should go ahead, and when all my relatives and friends were forcing me and putting pressure on me to decide my dad never said a word. That was his patience and thanks to my dad I found a patient husband like him. I don’t remember how much I cried on the day of my wedding, thou I keep crying every time I watch a movie or something on TV where a girl is getting married and bidding her dad farewell. I always feel I have not done my duty enough for my parents especially for the kind of parents they have been, though they often tell me now that I make them proud by being a good wife and a daughter-in-law. There have been days even now that I wake up early and sms my dad as am sure he is awake and he replies promptly telling how much he wants to be with me. Even today when I called him after watching this movie all he said is “Those days were different. Then you were a kid, but now you have one. That’s life”. That is my Dad. He is so dutiful. Does what he has to, never expects anything from anyone. Even today he refuses to come and be with me or my sister and says he prefers to stay there and earn so that he can spend enough on us when we go there with our kids for our holidays.
As a teenage girl I used to tell my mom that it is easy that I get a man who is a good father but not a great husband like my dad was to her. But I take back my words. I have a got a husband who may be is better than what my dad was to my mom, but he cannot even get close to what my dad was to me, to our son.