Like father, like daughter

By a surprising turn of events, my father decided to come to the USA to attend my graduation ceremony about a month and a half before the scheduled date. It was on me to make the visit as pleasant as possible, planning to the tiniest detail right from the number of days he would stay here to where all we would go. Never had I shouldered this responsibility on the numerous trips that we have been on together in the last couple of decades. It was rather unnerving to be on the other side by myself, especially having liberally showered blame on my father every time his memory (or the lack of it) got the better of him while planning our itinerary, but still managed to see places and be back home on time. I remember my brother being pretty upset that we were in an Auto rickshaw in Jaipur in Rajasthan, India when the clock struck 12 heralding the arrival of the year 2016 and the three of us trying to cheer him up suggesting how different this was when compared to the usual new year celebrations. That did not quite change his demeanor though.

I waited anxiously at the San Francisco International airport for my father to walk out the gate, wondering whatever happened to the SIM card he had got to use while in the USA. I had left home a couple of hours ago and here I was, tired and sleepy, but excited and apprehensive about the days to come. I and my father being incredibly alike when it comes to impatience, an absolutely short temper and a conviction that we are almost perfect, the two of us together for a few days did seem like a recipe for disaster. All my worries were put to rest as we rode back home from the airport. He did not seem too bothered about anything from finding a guy staying at our apartment to eating at Subway often for about ten days.

We got on the bus that was to take us to Yosemite national park, one of the most beautiful places nearby. I was repenting my decision to take a bus trip soon after starting, but I did not really have a choice. We arrived late in the afternoon and stopped at some amazing view points. The slight drizzle only added to the resplendence of the Yosemite valley. We were on our way to the city called Fresno soon after walking down to the lower Yosemite falls, one worthy of being called a ‘waterfall’ among the many I have seen here. We started early on the next day to Las Vegas. It was a long drive and I felt like nothing had changed as I and my dad engaged in conversation about everything in life, both ours’ and others’. The supposedly five and a half hours drive stretched to eight hours thanks to a stop at an outlet mall where we shopped a lot, mostly for everybody back home, hardly for ourselves. We checked into our room in Vegas in the evening, to be greeted by a sign on the door that said “Damsel in undress” that had me in splits. We toured around Vegas that night, visiting all the famous hotels which are surprisingly familiar to me and my brother thanks to the many Hollywood heist films that we devoured with attention. Like my father said, this was another world altogether where we did not quite feel like we belonged, but were amused nonetheless.

We were excited to visit the grand canyon the next day. This was probably the only part of the trip where we were not deprived of anything the place actually offered. We were dropped off at the entrance to the west rim, and went around just like all the other visitors did, in the shuttle. I was unaware that the grand canyon had anything to do with tribals. The west rim is in fact, operated by the Hualapai, an Indian tribe in Arizona. My father recalled how he had first known about this magnificent result of what millions of years had done to earth when he was preparing for a quiz contest. The sheer vastness of the canyon is overwhelming. I wonder what people mean when they say some such place is ‘overrated’ or ‘underrated’. Who are we to rate what nature has to offer? We are mere mortals treading on this earth for such an insignificant amount of time, mere visitors, not even making an impact on an iota of the earth’s population. Maybe that is why these places have to be rated – so that we experience everything that we think is the best in our meagre lifetime.

We arrived in LA three days before graduation, quite earlier than necessary. We went to the Santa Monica beach, probably the only place I have visited in LA more than three times during my two years there. As I sat there on the beach with my father, people watching, I realized how true it is when some people say how LA is so laid back as opposed to the busy lifestyle everybody has in the silicon valley. In the next two days, I took him to see Venice beach, we caught up with the rest of our shopping and we managed to hike up the Culver city stairs, promptly having our meals at all the Indian restaurants nearby. The view from the Baldwin hills scenic overlook was breathtaking, all-encompassing and I was rather embarrassed that I had not been here before.

I had made up my mind to experiment with my hairstyle this one time, it being graduation and all. I did act on this, to get such a beautiful hairstyle that I could not help looking at myself in the mirror every now and then. I had no hope of it lasting the night before graduation, but was absolutely in awe of how I looked, for once. True to my belief, I woke up on the day of graduation only to see that my curls were back, but not completely. I was dressed up and my father did not seem very happy. We had been to the university to look around the previous day and happened to see a lot of other students engrossed in their graduation photo shoot. He had commented then that they were so well-dressed. Here I was wearing something similar, if not better, and he seemed upset that I was showing more skin than I should have ideally. Hypocrisy at its best. This prompted us to start the day with a tiff. We did forget about it later as I was busy catching up with friends who I had not seen in a long time and posing for a gazillion photographs. Will Ferrel delivered our commencement address. It was absolutely hilarious, and I felt bad that many of my friends had decided to skip this ceremony as they simply could not wake up early enough. The valedictorian, Cooper Nelson from the cinematic arts department did a brilliant job too. How she managed to extract laughs from us and sound serious in between was something not a lot of people can do easily. I remember her saying something about how we all are saying stories to each other in our own ways. I felt like I related to that a lot. Everything was perfect that day and I would change only one thing if I were to do it all over again – wear flats instead of high heels.

My father left a few more days later, during which we visited San Diego and spent some time at a family friend’s place, who seemed to be more than glad to listen to all the advice that he had to offer. We got through the two weeks without any major glitches, and I was left to tread my own path until next time, all over again.