We all love our Dads. We love them for what they have done for us and for how much they love us and care for us. But I believe most of us would agree on the fact that all of us love our dads for what they are. I will tell you about the Dad of one of my friends back in school.

Shaggy was one of my closest childhood buddies. He was one of the pranksters in school and at the out of school tuition classes we used to attend. He was a happy go lucky fellow and we enjoyed many an evening together. Me, Tarzan and Shaggy.

This article is dedicated to Shaggy’s father. He was a very simple person, close to the earth, very humble. I rarely remember him speaking. He looked as if he did not understand the hustle and bustle of modern urban life. If Uncle or Shaggy is reading this, I am sure they will take this in the right spirit. This is about a small incident which happened in our high school days and which involved Shaggy’s dad. This might be very much an irrelevant story to many but we friends enjoyed the incident very much and to this date I feel happy when I remember it. It makes me remember that there is still need for simplicity and there are still simple people around. They might be rare but they are still not an extinct species.

I specially remember our high school days when we friends used to visit a Maths tutor in the evening. We would walk the misty and dark winter streets, do all the mischievous things and would return home very late at night.

One particular night we were late than usual. I don’t remember what important task we were accomplishing so late at night in the bitter cold; all I remember is that we were very late and we were hurrying back home. Shaggy’s house was the nearest and we were walking towards their gate. Now, their house was at an ‘L’ shaped corner of the street where when you come out of the house, you have two options, either you could go straight ahead or you could turn left and take the other street. When we reached Shaggy’s house we found Uncle standing in front of the gate looking perplexed and confused. When Shaggy asked what happened he replied, “Where do you take tuition classes?”

Later on we came to know from Shaggy’s mother that seeing that we were so late she had asked Uncle to look for us. Before that Uncle was sitting pretty without a worry in this world! When Auntie started worrying and told him to look for us, he decided to go out and find out where we were. He came out of the house. So far so good! But just as he closed the gate behind him and looked at the road he became confused. He did not have the slightest idea of which way to go looking for us. Any other person, and he would have taken a guess and take the more probable route in a couple of seconds but not Uncle. He stopped then and there and started to wonder what to do. This is where we found him. This was Uncle. He would do similar things time and again. 

Oh I miss those days, my school and my town.