Perfect Gift for Perfect Father

We were strolling in the streets near my PG, when he received a call from his dad. He had to leave in a few minutes, and we had a lot to talk about. We were already running short on time. “Do you have to pick that now?”, I complained.

“Just give me a minute, it’s my dad. I can’t ignore his call”.

He took the call, and told his dad something real quick (To this day, I don’t know what he said; his mother tongue was different from mine). What I observed is, he smiled towards the end of the conversation and told me he had bought some more time for us. I laughed in relief.

A few days later in the office, I was hungry and he offered me the sliced apples he had brought; the next day, some grapes. Another day he offered me some fruit juice. (Yeah, I am always hungry!) Yesterday, he asked me if I wanted to have some dates. I finally asked him how he managed to pack everything when he’s already late for office everyday. He grinned and told me his dad packs these for him, so he brings them.

This was surprising because, well, dads don’t usually do it.

At this point in the story, let’s give my friend a name- Mike.

I’ve seen Mike living a very cool life- that’s one of the best parts about him. He brings his dad’s earphones to office some days, and they’re better than his (wink). He goes about saying hi to almost everyone on the gate, on the floor, and is pretty chilled out. He has, in fact, made the riskiest life decisions and has absolutely no regrets. Over time, I’ve discovered that he’s acquired the majority of his personality traits from his dad. So I had always pictured his dad as the cool dad who is more of a friend than a dad (yes, he teases him about me).

But, as I realized over time, there’s more to him. Mike’s mother moved to another country for work obligations when he was 9. She visits them every year or two, and his dad has brought him up since then. So he does all the responsibility-clad mom things for him as well as the dad things.

As a result, they have a very close and sweet bond. While his father is sometimes the brother to Mike that he never had, sometimes Mike takes up his mom’s place and shares responsibilities. Every day, I see him taking out a few minutes of time to call his dad and inform if he’ll be getting late, or order food for him, or book movie tickets for him and his friends. And now every time he does something like that, I can’t help but smile as if it’s the sweetest act in the world, instead of complaining like I used to do earlier.

With time, I’ve started to understand how difficult it must be to be the only family members for each other in the city, and how strong they both have to be every day, for their day to day tasks. The two of them cook daily (except on Sundays- they order food online), do laundry, welcome guests, pay bills, do the cleaning and what not. So one day when my sister introduced me to Seiki Peppermint Green Tea, I couldn’t think of a better gift idea for Mike’s dad. It’s true that he’s pretty laidback and handles the chores well, but having all the responsibilities must get the better of him on some days.

That is when I gifted him the green tea. And though he never lets anyone know when he’s stressed, he has surely admitted the tea helps him relax!