A very special bottle of beer

I do not know how many among you had the opportunity to booze with your dad? Last night, for the first time in my life I had a beer with my dad. Now, I have seen my Dad drinking his usual peg many a time, I have talked to him about alcohol, grass and all possible intoxicants. My dad knows that I drink, he offered me a beer last Christmas when he poured himself a Black Label, but since I had an examination the next day I couldn’t accept it then. But yesterday it happened…I had a beer with my dad.

I was in Chennai doing a small South Indian city hopping trip and had come to Chennai to meet my dad who was down on official purpose. It was all good, met him, had some lunch, talked about Telangana and things back home and the usual son-father talk. By around 7 pm my uncle and his colleague, an Englishman joined us and my uncle pulled out some beer and some Indian brandy. My dad all of a sudden offered me a beer. For a minute I didn’t know what to do! A chilled beer on a hot Chennai evening is quite a tempting offer I must say. I stood like that for a minute, accepted the beer.
While sipping my beer there and enjoying the company of my family members and a stranger, I realised something, I had grown up and beyond that I understood my dad acknowledged I had grown up…

My dad is somebody who never even let me ride a bike or even let me pillion ride it till recently, but now when I approached him saying in a big city I need a bike, he gave me the go ahead after the initial no’s.

I have never owned or used a mobile till I reached HCU for my MA, it had been a strict no for me, but when I stepped into that campus, my dad gave him his own saying use it carefully.

He never gave me money in excess for me to squander, but when he went back to Trivandrum after dropping me in the University, he pulled out a sum, gave me, said the rest he’ll go home and deposit into my account and got into the car. When I counted how much it was after he left, it was 10k.

I have fought with my dad the maximum in my life for a multitude of things. For not letting me use a mobile, for not letting me go for a late night movie, for not letting me stay back for cheering the college basketball team, for not letting me ride or ride behind a bike and for a zillion other things…but now when I think, I am what I am because of what he didn’t let me do and for letting me what would help me in my life.

That gesture of offering a beer to me was very symbolic to me, it was as if he had accepted that I am on my own now, that I am capable of taking care of myself now. I go from Chennai a happy man, and when I say a ‘man’ this time, it holds a renewed feeling…that my dad, the man I admire the most in my life has acknowledged that I am a grown up guy now.

I had a beer, probably one of the best I have had till now...