To dad, the writer

Every time my article has been published and I'd got to know, I'd call up dad at work. His voice said it all as to how proud he was of me. Dad is a man of few words. The one who has encouraged me in all my endeavors silently pushing me to give in my best - be it trying for a new job, freelancing, trading or now writing.
I know he reads my blog regularly now. I have never cared so much about who reads my blog or what they think of it as much as I have begun to now. He has raised the bar for me by reading my blog. I care about how I churn my articles now because there's a standard I want to meet and wouldn't want to wrote carelessly anymore.
Dad, any day, writes thousand times better than I do. He never knew he had it in him to write, until one Sunday in August, 1988 when a colleague of his approached him to write an essay on "Energy Conservation" for his daughter who was taking part in an Essay Competition in school the next day. What was strange is his daughter and I studied in the same school and shared the first two ranks amongst us every after year. So dad decided to write the essay but instead asked me to participate. If there was one thing I have been good at like all the other million school going kids in India, it was at rote learning (for the record, I don't take any pride in that and wouldn't ever want LG to pick up that). I churned out the essay word by word the and went on to win the competition. Prizes in elocution, debates and essay competitions followed for the next three years.

The proudest moment for dad came in 1991 when I went for the State Level debate on "Natural Disaster". I regret not saving those sheets of paper on which he wrote. To this day, I don't think I can ever write such a to-the-point, well researched essay on any topic with all the information I need being just a click away. The school did not sponsor beyond the district level. So dad bore the expense which was a LOT those days to take me from Gulbarga to Bangalore. I didn't win against contestants who were much older than I but the journey was an experience I will cherish forever. Every contestant had his/her school teacher on the stage changing slides for them as they spoke, for me dad was with me on the stage. I was nervous but he said I was good, which was bigger than any prize that I would've got. The stage was mine but the words and research were dad's, the encouragement and practice those of mom. Looking back, I guess I am fond of writing because of what I saw in dad, the writer who never wrote professionally. I would be more than thrilled to see him write professionally and getting published.