I lie to my Dad. Not just little white, harmless untruths but massive, big, fat, whopping lies. I'm not proud of myself for doing it as it's for a very selfish reason - having a quiet life. And I'm not very good at lying so don't enjoy it much. I love my Dad, of course I do but to say he's a bit much is an understatement. I know every Dads' favourite line is "I know best" but that statement precedes almost everything Dad says to me. And with those lines it doesn't come before, it's very heavily implied. He is a very traditional Indian father. He came over to England in 1969, aged nine, with his parents and siblings. His upbringing was heavily influenced by the Punjabi attitude of the 1960s even though he grew up in Telford in the sunny Midlands and it's those beliefs he kept throughout life, even though his Motherland has advanced greatly in the past forty years. Dad is very proud of his heritage and rightly so but he's terribly confused by the fact that my generation feel honoured to be British. I always get a hard time for supporting England over India in the cricket, though that's the mildest of lectures. Dad still harps on about Partition like it was yesterday and as if it affected him personally - he was born 12 years after the event.
My life would have been so different if my parents hadn't have separated when I was seven. I wouldn't have been allowed to move to a different city for my studies and I most definitely would not be the extrovert I am. My Western attitude would have been smothered and I wouldn't dress or speak the way I do. Dad is still hurting from the separation 21 years, one wife and another daughter later. He does everything he can to "bump in to" Mum at every opportunity. Once, he called my mobile and found out I was in the local supermarket with Mum. Within ten minutes he was scouring the aisles, sans wife and child, as he'd "just popped out for a pint of milk". His older brother married my Mum's older sister a few years before my parents marriage was arranged (it's ok, it wasn't incest). That's when Dad first saw Mum and, in his words, fell in love. I think he's still besotted with her. At my cousin's daughter's first birthday he arrived early as he knew Mum was leaving early to avoid him, just to catch a glimpse of her. Mum scarpered as soon as she saw him walking down the garden path.
I am a massive disappointment to my Dad. He'd never tell me to my face but I can see it in his expression whenever I visit him. This is why I don't visit often. The biggest reason I am a failure in his eyes is because I followed my heart and chose a career in the arts rather than becoming a doctor/lawyer/accountant. Instead of bursting with pride at my first television credit, he clipped me round the ear when he next saw me as I use my Mum's surname, rather than his. Now I'm economical with the truth so as not to hurt him more. That's how I justify it in my head anyway. I'm certainly not the daughter he wishes I was and not good little Hindu girl he thinks I am. He goes absolutely crazy when I get my hair cut (even a trim) and went ballistic when I had the second piercings in my ears so needless to say he knows nothing about the tattoo I have on my back or the one I plan to get when I turn thirty... my life would not be worth living!
Dad thinks I have no male friends and only talk to boys in a professional capacity. That makes it sound like he thinks I'm a hooker, he doesn't. He thinks the only men I speak to are the IT boys at work (when something goes wrong with my PC) or any male customers. He doesn't need to know that some of my closest friends are men. Nor does he need to find out that I'm not his virginal little princess. What's the point in shattering his dreams?
Dad doesn't know I drink alcohol. This makes it sound like I have a drink problem, I don't. He thinks I've consumed the maximum of one bottle of champagne in my whole life. Those of you that know me know that my alcohol intake, on average, is more than that per week. One of my very close friends was dragged in to preserving my Dad's unrealistic image of me a few years ago. I was moving back to Bristol after ten months in London and needed a place to crash for a few weeks whilst looking for somewhere to live. My closest male friend and confidante offered me this bedroom floor which was fantastic. The only snag was that Dad was helping me move. My friend and I had to orchestrate a lie involving his female flatmate being my friend but being out at the time so him receiving me in her absence. His boyfriend, who was also one of my friends, had to pretend to be another flatmate. Dad didn't question the fact there there were only two bedrooms. After lugging my stuff in to the flat, we all sat down for a relaxing cuppa before Dad drove back to London. This is when Dad proceeded to tell my friends, who I'd known for five years, how I was such a great daughter and didn't drink and didn't swear and spent all my spare time in the library and barely spoke to boys and how, one day, I'd have an arranged marriage. And so on. My friends and I did everything we could to stifle our laughter and when Dad left were in stitches for ages, mainly because we were having one of our infamous cocktail nights that evening.
My visits to Dad's are rare because however long I'm there for he lectures me on various aspects of my life. I went to see him yesterday wearing some lip balm and the tiniest bit of eyeliner. Before he'd fully opened the front door I was greeted with "what's that crap on your face? That stuff on your lips makes your teeth look false and your eyes look horrible". My response? "Hello, Dad. How are you?" because I've had that kind of criticism all my adult life. Then, whilst my cup of tea was still boiling hot I'd already had to justify why it had been so long since my last visit, told him to mind his own business about what Mum was up to and apologised (again) for wearing make up. He usually lets me settle for about thirty minutes before his sermon starts. This sermon is the one, no matter how much I try to mentally prepare for, that knocks me for six and gives me a migraine. It lasts for a good few hours and is interspersed with hair pulling, kicking, biting and spitting by his six year old Brat Child. I'm sure they plan and rehearse for hours before I arrive as they have the routine down and make a wonderful double-act. I may enter them into Britain's Got Talent later this year. Anyway, this sermon is on arranged marriages and how, if I don't have one soon, it'll be too late as at the age of twenty-eight I'm already past it. (This is when Brat Child dances around me singing "you're old, you're old old old".) To him it doesn't matter that most of the arranged marriages in his family (and Mum's, come to think of it) have fallen on their arses and three of the four brothers are divorced and on their second marriages. He still thinks girls should be hooked up with the perfect doctor/accountant/lawyer/IT boy by their families to preserve their, ahem, honour and family's reputation. You may not believe that Dad could make such a topic last for hours but he can. He does it well.
My friends ask me why I don't set him straight and tell him it's never going to happen. I guess it's because deep down he knows this. A friend recently asked if I was going to give in to him. I think the "don't be so stupid" look on my face said more than anything that came out of my mouth. Dad has suffered several heart attacks and isn't in the best of health so why should I aggravate his worries? There would be nothing gained from me saying “you lost every right to decisions in my life twenty-one years ago”. What's the point? He loves me unconditionally and hates that his eldest daughter doesn't rely on him for anything and is fiercely independent. He's a desperate man trying to hold on to his heritage the best he can so I can deal with his verbal onslaught once every month for a few hours. I have no doubt that he'll be there for me whenever I need, especially when I might say, “Dad, I'm ready...”. x
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