to make my father proud

I've been self sufficient for a while now. Ok, not really, two months. But a glorious two months! Feels good putting food on the table (feels even better putting the table in the house first, hehe). But yesterday I had a row with the old man. I dint even know we were having it. We were discussing stuff about the future over phone then I started joking as usual, he got irritated and I couldn't tell so I went on then he swore he'd never talk to me about that future again, and hung up. And it still didn't click he was mad. So as it happens he told my mum who told me. I freaked out like even I didn't believe when I heard. Until I apologized I couldn't stop worrying about what I was going to say, you know, how he was going to react. We rarely kosana so it had been a while and I'd forgotten just how much influence they have over us. Or me, maybe it's just me. What's surprising is that they still do, even now after we've sort of stopped depending on them. I remember a time when everything I did I used to do so my father would notice. Before I was old enough to have dreams of my own his were mine. I used to say if it'll make him happy it's got to be good enough, and if he even so much as frowned I'd go back and change the whole thing. He balked at my handwriting once so I had to go and change it completely. I mentioned Starehe once and saw how his eyes lit up, so it became my goal (although it became a goal for real when later in class 8 I visited it and fell in love). I started ironing clothes because he strongly approved, and many other things. In fact I don't think there have been many major things during my growing up years I didn't do to get his approval.

I've been lucky, I guess, on two accounts: that I always managed to succeed at whatever I tried, and that the person I picked to be my beacon had a persona that could always find the true north. When with just one word a person can make or break you, it helps if that person's intention is purely to make you, and I'd say his has always been. And even after I was old enough to start having ambitions of my own I remember my father's opinion always counted. Like my first real love as a career was law. Actually I think it still is. I sit down and watch The Practice or A Few Good Men and I see people spit facts and argue law and convince juries and I can't help but think wistfully about what could have been. I know law isn't nearly as glamorous here as I see it on TV, but no one can contest the fact that enough of the great people of our times had a legal background - starting with the biggest one of them all - Barack Obama. I tell myself that could have been me (not the president, a lawyer!) But he didn't think it was a very good idea to go into law at the time. So I changed my dream to engineering. This one I held steadfast, coz I genuinely liked it and coz, of course, he seemed to like the thought. But JAB had other ideas. So when I finally settled on B.Com we both sat down and recharted my future, and so far it all seems to be going well. He's the kind of guy who seems to have something to say about like everything, so when Im in doubt about very many things it's never not come up to ask him. One of his favourite phrases when he was laying down the law and knew we weren't going to like it was "As long as you're living in my house, eating my food...", so there were times when all of us couldn't wait to go out on our own. Well, for me that time did come, and it came on good terms (which is abit more than I can say for my brother), but it still took me aback when I found out just how much Im still under the influence. I guess it never really ends, when you look up to someone as much as I did to him. The student never really becomes the master, especially when the master constantly keeps reinventing himself.

Anyway, I did apologize and now we're good so all's well that ends well. They keep telling us there's no teacher better than experience, but I think if you look really carefully and are willing to learn, you can find a few. And I think in him I found mine. There must be a reason why they say things like "like father like son". Or "the apple does not fall far from the tree". Fortune [the magazine] keeps running these features on the most successful people in business and asks them who the most influential person in their lives has been, and 9 times out of 10 they say their father. I know Iacocca did, Al Gore did, Trump did, Bill Gates did, and Welch did (Obama probably won't, coz he didn't really grow up with his dad :). But you get my point. I look up to very many people. I read about very many people. And when I grown up I have dreams about being very many people. But at the end of the day the one voice I want to hear sanctioning my hopes and dreams is still that same one I listened to when I was still a child - my father's. And this time I actually know for a fact it's not just me. There are very many of us. The title of this post is the name of a song by Michael Jackson. This is the guy who bleached his entire skin and put tonnes of product in his hair and almost lost his nose trying to make himself white just so he could look more like his idol [Diana Ross], and even he thinks about stuff like what kinds of things would make his father proud! Imagine that.

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