In the night she came and hugged me and said, ” I had a wonderful day”. That was from my elder daughter. She had come to meet us and celebrate her 20th birthday. It was a delight as these are times when as a family we think about new things to do. Otherwise, it would have a Groundhog Weekend with the routine things. She had her list ready. First on the list was going to a mountain top and having a look at the sunrise. It was predicted at 6.38 AM. Well, we reached there at 6.45 AM. What we saw was as in my wife’s words a “stairway to heaven” kind of sight!
My younger daughter and I were full of Josh and decided to have a go at the steps in the beginning to reach the top. We came down after some time to pick up our other fellow travellers and took the road less traveled by others. I noticed that the mountain top is full of people who are twenty-something. All along I was seeing people taking reels, and shorts and preparing their images for the stories. I decided to join the party with my girls!
We saw a lot of our long tailed simian ancestors and their families on the way. One such family member -since we did not include him in our family photo, took a shot at us. The place was buzzing with the latest models of bikes, and the latest lenses and so so-called authorities managing the place were making money while the sun was under the fog. It was a fog-filled morning with no sight of the sun when we reached but luckily on our way to the hilltop, we saw the moon at least for a celestial experience. Once the sun shone on us, we noticed that if we take images from behind it gives a nice look. We spent quite a lot of time clicking those silhouettes.
Our favourite driver who knew my elder daughter had brought his new car and he was driving between 60kms to 80kms- very slow for him! It was quite an adventure for me to get my iPhone to sync up with the Bluetooth in the car before I became the Car jockey for my family. I played out some Amit Trivedi numbers which is quite a hit with all in the family. We came down the hill around 9.45 AM and we were ready for the next part of the journey which was to have a nice south Indian Restaurant from the old part of the city. Since I could rely on the experience of my driver I left the choosing of the place to him. We landed one of the famous joints and it was full even though we knew that it was around 11 AM. In the next 30 minutes, we had a mix of good food and pathetic staff behaviour. People sitting behind me were complaining of a mix-up in the delivery and there was a hot exchange of words. The waiter who was also taking care of our table was on the receiving end and that threw him in a tizzy and he started showing tantrums. We had to cancel a couple of orders and we wanted to leave that place. We waited for the driver to finish his breakfast from the same place and that is when I went and offered my feedback to the manager that the staff responded to us in a very condescending tone. I noticed to my utter surprise that the place where we parked the car did not accept digital money. Is this part of our city still waking up to the reality?
We met one of our lifelong friends and there we had a nice coffee. The nicely trimmed Golden Retriever was all over the place. I am a dog person from a distance. But this time I yielded and I appreciated the intelligence of this breed of dog. I checked and understood that the Golden Retriever is an exceptionally smart dog, sitting as the 4th smartest dog breed. While they may seem goofy and affable, Golden’s are often used in hunting, as guide dogs, and search and rescue, because of their strong instincts, adaptive intelligence, and intense work ethic. It was time to leave my friend’s place and we were taking photos and we included the dog as well. That is the time when I noticed how it became subdued and sheepishly started lying around. My wife later was explaining that it has that adaptive intelligence that came to the fore and sensed that we were leaving and thus displayed its sadness. There was a nice exchange between my friend and my daughter on what she learned in life so far staying far away from her parents. It was good as parents to understand that as well.
Now it was time to meet my other lifelong friend who also is a coach and guide to our family. In that supposedly lunch conversation I had only black coffee and my daughter’s stolen pasta. I was very observant when my wife, daughters and my friend went on a literary journey. They all started talking about their reading fiction book journey from their school days and how my friend finished Tolstoy novels and finished most of the Russian ones by the time he was in the 9th grade. He also mentioned the novel he has written and that is something I never knew about him. His love for mathematics and English was something he discussed. They mentioned a slew of authors Dickens, Wells, and Saki. My friend narrated a story from the country of the blind by H.G Wells and when he mentioned that quote : ” In the country of the blind, the one-eyed king can still goof up” that was the only one I could relate in that conversation.
It was a perfect day for my daughter who made the most of it finally with the cake with her best friends and then the dinner with us in one of her favourite restaurants. An interesting experience for us as well as we enjoyed the sight of nature as it gave us a beautiful present in the morning. Relationships make us and interacting with our friends bring joy to all of us. This time around we also had a Dog’s love on display and finally, we were enriched by the food and ambience of those places. My younger daughter was so impressed by the staff during our dinner that she filled out a feedback form and asked for the server’s name and I’m sure those comments made his day. The special birthday of my daughter was especially a remarkable one for us to remember. Her 20th Birthday made us remember this maxim.
