And another tale of a father and daughter

Geethu left on a holiday yesterday evening, and, I had agreed to fetch her and drop her at the airport.

Her flight was at 8.30pm, and, though I would have wanted to be at the airport by 5.30pm, I agreed to fetch her at 5.30pm from her apartment. Given the downtown Toronto traffic and Christmas shopping rush there was no way on earth we would reach the airport before 7.00pm. "Let me deal with this, Dad...I have travelled..." was the response I got from beti pyaari (hereafter referred to as bp, jr).

Five minutes before leaving office, Geethu called and said, "Dad, we need to stop to pick up a parcel from the post office on the way to the airport..." I was on another line, did not say anything, just said, "OK"

Earlier in the morning, Lakshmi told me that she would like to join me for the ride. Not wanting to upset the other bp, bharyaa priyaa, (bp, sr, for future reference) in my life, I did not say No to her, either. It meant that I had to make a detour in downtown Toronto traffic, fetch bp,sr. and then go to fetch bp, jr.

I left office around 4.20pm, twenty minutes after I wanted to, not wanting to cut off a telephone caller who had called for some work.

So, now, you have the scenario. Downtown traffic, 40-45 minutes to make it to Lakshmi's office which is in core traffic and then to Geethu's apartment. As I neared Geethu's apartment I tried to reach her on her cell phone to connect with her to ask her to come down. In anticipation of my coming, bp,jr had started the eighteen storey journey down to her lobby and couldn't answer my phone calls as she was in the elevator. Asked bp,sr to try as I wasn't comfortable juggling the phone and the traffic. bp,sr. tried, same response. Geethu wasn?t picking up the phone. "We can never get through to her...she is always on the phone...whom does she talk to ?..." bp,sr. said, coming out with all her frustration over Geethu and her independence. At that precise moment, bp,jr was making her way down the elevator so as not to make her parents wait.

The last half a kilometer up Church Street was an absolute pain. Unlike in Mumbai or Bangkok, there was total traffic order. No one jumped a traffic light, no one changed lanes without giving a signal, everyone stopped for the pedestrian cutting across...perfect traffic order, and, in that order was misery...traffic crawled because everyone was so considerate...you will never understand that misery unless you have driven in such orderly, dense traffic?it took me twenty minutes to do that half kilometer stretch.

"Dad, you sit back and let me drive..." bp,jr told me, when we reached. I was glad to take up the offer and parked myself in the back seat as bp,jr started the car.

"I have to stop and drop off a key at my friend's apartment," bp,jr told me. "OK" I said, observing the breath that was waiting to blow up in fury. She expertly manoevured her way through the traffic and reached her friend's apartment, parked the car on the busy road with the hazard lights on and said, "Will be back in a second..."

As she got out, a cop car pulled up and saw the parked car, "Move on, sir...no stopping here..." he told me...me...getting ready for a snooze in the back seat...

I got out, moved the car, and, as bp,jr came running back in a few seconds, let loose...for the next ten minutes, father and daughter exchanged swear words that would have

a Qualified us as senior faculty in the Fishmongers College of Advanced swearing technology
b Left Mr S. Gautama, aka the Buddha, wondering about the impact of meditating for two hours a day on menopausing men...

Geethu told me to stop, she would take a cab. I just kept driving...and swearing...she cited all the miseries growing up as the child of such uncaring parents, and, I continued driving and swearing?

Anyway, it all settled down within fifteen minutes, much apologies exchanged, we had dinner together at the airport and Geethu sent me an email from her Blackberry saying that she had bought me a neck pillow for the long trip to India in February, and, that she would ask her friend to arrange for me to rest in the Business Class lounge...

in short, pyaar restored...

+++++

This morning I did not do my usual meditation sit. The memory of the exchange with Geethu, one of the few people I claim to love unconditionally kept coming back. I do not remember every having shouted at her or she at me. As I reflected a couple of experiences came through:

When I snapped soon after the cop had asked me to move there was no sensing of anything else. Just the awareness of the anger that filled me. I could not see or hear anything else. "How can this girl leave the car where it is blocking traffic ?"

And as the anger let itself fly free in the swear words, the dim awareness, "Was this how Pervez felt when he found his daughter not wearing the hijab ?" Blinded to everything else but his sense of being wronged...

And the words of Goenkaji to Kiran Bedi as he started the Vipassana courses at Tihar jail, "All of us are prisoners...some are behind bars...some are not..."

From the time I have known, I have been on time for everything. It is a family value. I remember how we would joke about a distant family member who was a senior Government official, missing a flight, "Is this how a senior Government officer should behave ?" No one in our family was ever late for a flight or missed a train. In fact, the joke in the family was that we would always be early enough at the station to fetch the train from the yard....

There was pride in that conditioning... I grew up in England. The British were never later for an appointment. Never missed a train, never late...

As I reflected on that pride, that deep conditioning about being on time, the words of an uncle of mine who was a senior IFS officer, an Ambassador, came through...He had just retired, and, he told me, "For thirty five years, every morning, I would be at the door of my Residence to take the flag car to the Chancery. The day after I retired it came to me that, twenty four hours after I retired, it mattered to no one that I was not there in the flag car at eight in the morning"

My dear uncle who had been on time all his life, died a year after that conversation...

Look at that conditioning, the depth of it. As long as I could control the children, I would ensure that they were at the airport at a time that met my needs. Now, Geethu is grown up and while I can quote Kahlil Gibran ad nauseam, I cannot accept that she can deal with her life on her own terms in such a simple matter as getting to a flight...Any difference with Pervez except that unfortunately for him the outcome of his conditioning was far too tragic for words ?

And what did Jesus say to those waiting to stone the adultress to death ?...
"Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her..."

And so much goes on in my mind, how do I let go ? How do I let go of trying to thrust my ideas of life on a 29-year old child because I say that is what is good for her ?

The assumptions we make about others' behaviour...why does she not pick up the phone ? All our own self absorption in what we want to accomplish?

And another pearl of wisdom that came through from bp,jr, as we competed for senior faculty positions in the swearing technology college, "Why don't you say 'No' if it is going to cause so much difficulty for you ?" That is definitely Generation X gyan...

And, as the awareness of the conflict within me comes through, along with it comes the realization that fully observing the depth of the conflict without judging it is what meditation is...not achieving some heightened orgasmic state, sitting cross legged and with eyes closed...

Makes sense ?