My dad and the garden.

My Dad's a really good guy. And I don't mean that in the way that most people say it. Most people call someone a 'good guy' when they have nothing better to say about them. When someone is kinda boring or kinda forgettable but in no way harmful they tend to attract that kind of label. But my dad is different. He really is good, quite seriously; all good. He is good in a really sincere kind of way, all honesty and all integrity. He's a really good business man, but an honest business man. He'd never fuck anyone over for anything as he has this kind of humble honor under his straight up exterior. He enjoys lots of things and he enjoys them with everything he's got. He enjoys complex things like wines and foods, things with subtlety, things that require a degree of knowledge or refinement. But he also really likes simple things and can get quite exited by them, mostly natural things. He grew up in the country you see and he maintains that honest, earthly aesthetic. He can get excited about a sky, or a tree, or the colour of a dog. He can get excited by a rock if it's half way different.


When my dad finds something he likes, he likes it with his whole face, he likes it with his voice, he likes it right to his bones and he is never afraid to show just how much he likes it. I think my brother and I used to get a little embarrassed about it sometimes, I mean when we were a bit younger, when we were teenagers. Teenagers get embarrassed by anything their parents do. It's the way of teenagers really. Anyway, I'm drifting. If we were with our dad when he saw something he'd like he'd call us over in a crowded street with these beaming eyes and broad, white smile of perfect teeth and he'd exclaim something like "Look at that boys! What a ripper of a building that is!". We'd groan and roll our eyes like we'd been done some disservice because that's what teenagers do. Either that or we might complain with rolling eyes, "Jeeesus dad, it's just a bloody building. God you're a dag."


But dad didn't care. He'd just go on liking it. I admire him for that. He never let the world make him cynical and he just kept on going on finding things really good, and he'd always comment on them like he was the first person to see them. He'd comment 0n the most obvious of things. Seriously, you could be in the middle of a parade and he'd exclaim "Wow, look at that elephant!", despite the fact that all you could see was a field of grey, sagging skin because there was this giant African elephant right in front of you. It's kind of cute really, and I don't mean that in a patronising manner at all. Perhaps I should say that it's part of his charm. He really is such a good guy. But he is always stating the obvious. I guess he just wants to make sure that you don't miss things he thinks are good. That's a good quality really; he just wants you to enjoy the goodness of the world like he does, even if you'd have to be blind to miss it.


A bit like the other day. You see my dad decided to come to India to join my brother and I go motorbike riding through the Himalayas. India is a place that can really blow your mind as there's so much crazy stuff going on everywhere and you've really gotta keep your wits about you. You have to see everything but react to nothing. Absorb it all without absorbing it too deeply. I think it was weird for dad at first as his enthusiasm, indeed most of his current thought, is written all over him. Like I told you, he just beams sincerity. Everywhere we'd walk he'd be commenting on things when we were trying to keep as low a profile as possible so as not to get any extra attention from rickshaw drivers or street salesmen. This is pretty bloody difficult anyway as we are white guys in India with shaved heads and no moustaches but with dad being dad any shred of slipping under the radar is quickly abandoned. "Look at all that rubbish". "Wow, these streets are crazy". "Gee this place smells". "Look at those power cables will you?". "Bloody hell it's hot here". Now don't get me wrong, he never whinges. He's a tough character and he never complains, like never-ever complains. He just comments. He just wants to make sure we never miss anything, and we never normally do. I mean Steve and I are reasonably sharp and aware kind of guys, which is probably why we always found it funny the way he would point out the obvious; because we saw it already. We saw it, absorbed it and moved on. Maybe we didn't see it in quite the way that dad saw it, but most of the time we had already seen it.

Most of the time that is.

But the other day was a little different. It was only dad's second or third day in India and we thought he'd had it pretty easy really. He flew into Delhi, which I admit is a bit of crazy little shithole, but not too far out there compared to some of the places we had been. I mean it is a city and a pretty Western city in parts. The streets are paved, there is lighting, some degree of waste removal (although pulled by a donkey) and all things considered it was not too confronting. So that was his introduction. He had prearranged a pretty swanky little hotel for his first night and we were bloody grateful as we hadn't had a warm shower in a month. But after a night and a day there it was time to get out and start heading north and onto our adventures.

We caught an overnight train to some little town that had no more than a train station where you have to catch this other train that is capable of climbing the mountains up to Shimla. I was shagged, really shagged. Usually I can sleep on trains, but this particular night I was plagued with dark dreams and I had barely slept at all as I was still riding the tail of a four day sickness. We arrived at an hour so early that even a sparrow would have hit the snooze button and told you to get fucked. But dad was up and at them like a kid a Christmas. That's another thing about dad - he's a morning person. As soon as the sun gets its morning glory dad is up to meet it with a smile and a bad joke, just bouncing around under the spell of new day. Now Steven and I are not morning people, like seriously not morning people. I think I'd be practically nocturnal if you left me to my natural body clock. Steve and I are patient people, quite patient people, but I tell you what, nothing shits me more than having to deal with enthusiastic people before I have an hour or two to get settled, get a coffee or two under my belt, open my eyes and accept that I am actually awake.

I searched for coffee and only found Chai... bloody hippies. I sat on a bench with Steve as Dad bounced around the station with this excited look plastered across his face like a newborn puppy. Steve and I looked at each other. We didn't to say anything but we did anyway; "Bloody morning people" said one. "Damn straight," said the other. Dad kept pointing things out until one of us got a little snappy. I don't remember who it was but it was probably me. I drank chai and tried to pretend it was coffee. My imagination ain’t what it used to be. Eventually the next train shuffled off and chugged us up into the great, green mountains.

Dad was a little quieter but you could see it was taking a little bit for him to restrain himself from commenting on the scenery. I reminded myself that he was only 36 hours into his trip and that I was a month. I know a month isn't very long but it's a bloody steep learning curve. It doesn't move like the train that wandered and cut through the mountains, it was straight up and fast, like riding a missile with a cowboy hat in your hand and your skin peeling back off your face. I was really quite impressed with the scenery and as I started to wake up I became a little bit more 'conversational'. I was no orator, but I was half willing to communicate. I would have killed the other family in the carriage for a pot of coffee. Stephen was out cold in the corner, his head bobbing with the slow and slack clickety clack of the train, lucky bastard.

The train came to occasional grind at a station. A whistle blew. Dad jumped up and told us all how he was going to stretch his legs. My little crest of energy had come and gone and I lifted my eyebrows with a blatantly half-assed acknowledgment as I slouched into the space where he sat a moment ago. Steve remained unconscious. I sat there with my head in the corner looking out onto the quaint little platform where people were unloading themselves and yawning and stretching in the clear glow of morning light and a strangely unpolluted air. I watched dad from underneath by invisible eyes. He stuck out like a bride at a funeral as he walked to and fro, his eyes scouring the world like a million invisible tongues in order to taste all that he saw. He inhaled the mountain air deep into his lungs. I sat without so much as twitching. Then he walked up to the window with his big direct strides.

"Hey." I said with my pathetically tired and lazy voice.
"Hey!" He replied, with his kind of lit up as it always is, fostering his innate enthusiasm, before he continued in a still excited yet strangely contemplative tone, "There's something in the air here." He stated and then paused as though he could not put his nostrils to it.
"Cleanliness?" I suggested in my lightest of cynical tones.
"Nah" he replied as he feigned looking around and lifting his face up a bit allowing some more air to roll over his face. He paused again.
"Eucalyptus?" I suggested, putting a little bit more effort in this time as we had both recently remarked on how odd it was to see the odd gum tree in the middle of India.
"Nah" He replied again, although this time with a little more haste and almost a shrouded grin.
"It kind of smells like," he hesitated for effect as he turned his head a little towards mine and craned it in through the window. "It kind of smell like," He began again "a heap of ganga."

I almost scoffed. What the hell would my dad know about weed? I have been pretty forthcoming about elements of my life with my dad and I knew damn straight that my dad had no experience with weed at all, and even if he was telling fibs, he wouldn't have been near it since the 60's. I would have dismissed the whole idea off hand if it wasn't so extremely in how surreal it was. I shook my head and clenched my eyes and opened them again and looked at him. There was that silly kind of grin on his face that was both proud yet kind of loaded with anticipation of my response. "Why would he say something like that?" I thought to myself as my focus drifted to some place behind him, further out the window and as they did I sat up in hurry.

The six foot high mud brick wall that was painted a harsh, bleached white held back a mountain of dirt that sat under a small field of lush green foliage made entirely from that famously jagged, five pointed leaf. My eyes opened and my jaw dropped a little. Dad's expression, having noticed my expression, grew a little spark of cheeky satisfaction. I simply couldn't believe it. I mean I've heard about places where it grows wild, but that was just a bunch of words of lands far away. Now it was here. I was actually looking at it. I was in a land far away and I was looking at it, and it was fucking everywhere. Everywhere. My eyes followed it up and down the train platform and those little leaves all sat there like a stadium of green hands presenting themselves for a manicure. I breathed in the air as I simply needed more evidence than that from my eyes that must have been lying to me for some reason known only to them. With the opening of my ribcage, the air passed into my nose and rolled around in my mouth as I scanned it with the concentration of a passionate chef or a concert pianist. The air was loaded with the notoriously sweet scent of infamous grass.

I looked back at my dad and laughed. "Well I'll be." I manage to stammer with a foolish grin and a nodding head. "Lucky he's a morning person", I thought to myself quietly.