A Retreat to the Hills

Inertia... and fear. Well.. erm mostly inertia.. No wait... a fair bit of fear as well.

With that stupendously eloquent piece of prose, I, Blimblop, writer of long winded sentences who aspire to be paragraphs, that convey next to nothing and could instead be replaced by a handful of words, albeit at the tragic loss of the signature verbose-ness of which i have am routinely accused, do hereby stage a dramatic comeback to blogdom. Its been a while so audience, bear with me till the juices start flowing in earnest.

Having gone incommunicado for the better part of forever I'm all set to escape into the wilderness for a while. Go visit my dad in Samirpur, district Hamirpur in Himachal where he presently works. Samirpur, dist. Hamirpur is a tiny little village stuck in the back of beyond, in the midst of some of the most verdant hill valleys I’ve ever seen (ok so I haven’t seen too many, but if you asked, “how green was my valley?” I’d say, “pretty damn green”). The nice people at Jaypee ITC decided to build an industrial training institute there and proved their niceness further by appointing my father it’s principal.

I feel this is papa’s true calling. I always thought that if he could take to fatherhood as a profession he’d not only be rolling in it, he’d be really and truly satisfied. That’s because VKP was born a father, or rather conditioned by life to become one. He once told me how painful it was to feel completely cut off from Bauji, a difficult person to talk to at the best of times and that he never wanted to be the kind of parent who couldn’t be spoken with. There’s just way too much ‘dad’ in him for just two children and I believe his inherent ‘papa-ness’ makes him best suited for his latest career shift. All that uncertainty after his leaving the Navy finally seems worth it… he’s happy and that works brilliantly for me. There’s really nothing more upsetting than watching your parents put up a brave face.

Papa is really a dad’s dad. Always enthusiastic to drag us to the most obscure touristy places, museums, monuments, amusement parks, exhibitions. I’ve been for the republic day parade 3 times with him (4 times in all, I’m a real patriotism junkie) and each time was more fun than the last. Together we’ve been to Agra, contemplated atheism on the painful journey up to Vaishno Devi (ok that was just me), successfully survived the stinky alleys of benaras and mathura, explored just about every ‘makbara’ of merit in Delhi (humayun, safdarjung, lodhi and more), suffered indigestion at the hands of super spicy Andhra food in Lalbagh, been ridiculously short of breath in Leh (at first it was the lack of oxygen, later the scenic beauty and later still the wonderful people)… and while we were in Bombay, done the craziest things while touring ships docked at the naval dockyard: ate papads in the galley of the Godavari (a frigate, for the uninitiated), squirmed in and out of a submarine, raced up and down the tarmac of an aircraft carrier (I think it was Viraat).

He’s also at some point of time been everyone’s dad. Every kid in my family has a silly story associated with him. And as we grow older and more obnoxious, he’s the only one who still gets a laugh out of all of us. Some parents have authority, some have wisdom but all have good intentions. What I love most about my father is that he was never ashamed or scared of them. That may not sound too unique or grand… but its hard to explain in any other way.

The people we turn out to be depends on so much more than what our parents put in. But even if you do judge my father’s performance based on his progeny you’d say he did more than a half decent job. I don’t know how successful we’ll end up being, but we’re good, sincere and hard working individuals who are responsible with money and other peoples’ feelings.

And after all that, all he really asks for is for us to be ourselves, be happy and visit once in a while. I am a horrible horrible child…

Samirpur, dist. Hamirpur, here I come

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In other news, I recently took a decision. Of course, as is characteristic of me and my irritating me-ness i subjected it to more thought than is humanly possible. Pluses, minuses, pros, cons, best-case, worst-case... Cautious pessimism is an art.

But post all the if-ing and but-ing and general pondering I suddenly suspended all thought for a split second. Some decisions should be allowed to make themselves. By some beautiful accident they may happen to be the right ones.

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Many thanks to the Duke (he of Puke) for braving the vicissitudes of what promises to be an interesting patch of weather.