Its all in the jeans

Dad celebrated his birthday over this weekend. He's always been a young father to me. When the rest of post independant India was wearing bush shirts and trousers, he wore jeans. He, along with Mom, were very modern in comparison to my friends's parents. We looked forward to celebrating his birthday with the usual spirits.

Dad is also a very very good surgeon. So when I saw him come up to the house from his clinic below, with a very serious face, when he should have been in party mode, it was unsettling. He told me that one of his patients had died just then. The dead man was a friend of ours, it was no ordinary faceless death for us as well.

We've always lived with the fact that Dad has to face death, even on good times, but I think this was possibly a first. It just showed me that a surgeon's life is very different. He has to face disease and death. Not just profitability and management B.S. like a lot of us in the corporate world. Its very real, and very raw. It gets him a lot of respect from all of our extended family. The fact that he has chosen to remain fiercely independant from "big hospital" culture endears him to me even more.

I had to run an errand and be back in a couple of hours. When I got back, the mood was different, and party like. Dad was chilling out with some family and friends. Death was accepted, but so was celebrating life.

Its all in the jeans. And no pun intended!