“How My Daughter Saved Me From Growing Up” by Harimohan Paruvu, a former Hyderabad fast bowler, is a collection of father-daughter conversations that capture the relationship beautifully. Published by Jaico, it is Harimohan’s fourth book after the best-selling “The Men Within – A Cricketing Tale”, “If You Love Someone” and “50 Not Out”.
The latest offering from Harimohan captures the innocence and inquisitive nature of a child, the growing up process creating a unique bonding. It has been illustrated in a breezy style by a father who is doting and observant. It is a dedication to “The daughters of the world who add sweetness and light to out existence.”
Harimohan has meticulously built on the conversations with Anjali which he maintained in a diary. He began the notes when she was two and seven years down the line it had developed into a priceless collection.
The essence of the book, as Harimohan observes, is “about how children have a simple, clear and uncomplicated view of life — how they have no agenda. It’s something we as adults also had but somehow seem to have lost along the way. All children have this — and if we listen, see, understand — we can access a life that is so much simpler, easier and uncomplicated.”
“Is Hugging Boys Bad,” Anjali is keen to know. Is there a right or wrong in an act of friendship? Of love? Every anecdote ends with a return gift and here Harimohan avers, “Be open and receptive to finer emotions. True strength comes from being vulnerable. True power comes from love.”
Harimohan is an apology for a fast bowler – gentle and softly spoken with lot of respect for batsmen. He recalls, “I found the responses from Anjali as she was growing up very interesting and it was perfect content for my blog. So I kept noting the incidents or conversations we had — specially the ones that made me think or got me amused — and the blog was the perfect motivator for me. I’d blog about the incident as it happened which helped in retaining the freshness of the incident.”
Interesting content
The freshness, Harimohan believes, is the “strength of the book. A couple of my writer friends who read the blogs told me they found the content very interesting and suggested I make it into a book. I was sceptical about the idea initially but my publisher liked the idea and it took off from there.”
The subject, obviously, is close to Harimohan’s heart. “One that Anjali is my daughter and secondly that children are by themselves so original and such fun to be with. Anjali was pretty nonchalant about the work. But excited to see the book. Someone asked her how she knew
‘This way is easier’, and she replied - ‘I don't know. That’s what he thinks.’ I asked her before approaching the publisher if she was ok with the idea and she was. She has been reading these blogs anyway as I write them.”
A response from a college student of Christ University, sums it up.
“Anjali is such a beautiful human. It’s a must read for every father and daughter. To be honest, it changed my perspective towards so many things after reading this book. It also teaches how parents should spend quality time with their kids and not by simply giving them gadgets and other luxuries in life.”
