Opposite or not?

My father and I are the opposite in most ways. While I like to keep things organised, if he sees things organised, he would just put everything everywhere and then work peacefully. I don't mind waiting in a queue where he would do everything to get the work done early, even if he is the first person in the queue. I like to keep it formal at the beginning, while he likes to keep it informal.

Despite having different approaches to life, there are a few things in me that I feel that I have gotten from him, and I am proud of those. Putting two of them here:

1. Driving: I am capable of driving a car. Most of the credit for that goes to my father (and my elder brother), who was able to show faith in me. I practised on the car, which he bought for our family around 12 years ago. I changed its shape from concave to convex, and he didn't utter a single word. He did give me the freedom to experiment when I needed that the most.

Technically, driving is just about handling 3–4 things at a time. But this is not how I see it. I see driving as freedom and independence to go anywhere, anytime, and also be a resource when there is an emergency.

2. Welcoming loss as we welcome profit: He has been a businessman for almost 35 years. In business, there is profit, and sometimes there is a loss as well. While he would welcome profits, I have hardly seen him worry about losses. He would say that these things happen in business. It's just that the net amount should be positive.

This approach has helped me a lot in accepting things that didn't go the way I expected them to be.

Now, being able to see the big picture, I find it funny how I used to sulk about how everyone can't be the same and everyone can't just do the things that are supposed to be done.

But who decides the way things are supposed to be done? When the second wave of COVID hit the hardest, it was the driving skill that was the most useful for me and others around me. When I was hating my job and the whole world was going under lockdown, it was the patience and balcony view that helped me survive, and I could quit my job because of the second lesson that I got from him.

Like many Indian families, my father and I are not very close and don't speak very often, but the lessons I have learnt from him are not through those conversations but mostly through his actions.

Like many Indian families, my father and I are not very close and don't speak very often, but the lessons I have learnt from him are not through those conversations but mostly through his actions.