The Father’s Day mood was setting in at Saptaparni, Banjara Hills with fathers chugging along with their children for the launch of ex-cricketer and author Harimohan Paruvu’s book This Way is Easier Dad (Jaico Books). The autobiographical book encompassing witty conversations between a father and a daughter since the latter was about three (she is 9 now) was a product of the author’s fascination to blog and generate innovative content. The young can teach you a lot with their forthrightness, the author shares, as when his daughter Anjali once told her dad who was getting judgemental about a Bollywood dance number on television, ‘Let them do their job, you do your job’. That was an eye-opener for Harimohan, who found similar opinions coming in from chief guests psychiatrist Purnima Nagaraja, Jayesh Ranjan, cricketer L Venkatapathy Raju at the event.
Purnima revealed that she was up till 3am in the morning to complete the book and given that children-guidance has been her pet topic, she didn't regret it at all. While she read a few lines from the book that emphasised on how one needed to make time for happiness, she also took the opportunity to recollect an incident where her daughter had just joined school and had just picked up the word ‘incredible’ from one of her friends. “She was using the word incredible for everyone and almost everything she saw on the road, from the watchman to the people on the road and herself while finally saying, you know what, everyone is incredible. I took that statement to heart and I haven't been disappointed to date, finding a quality to appreciate in almost everyone I meet,” she added.
Jayesh Ranjan, who has a 12-year-old daughter, had found the rakhi startup idea in the book interesting. Talking about his daughter who isn’t too interested in cricket, he was surprised to see her ask him at an IPL match in Uppal recently, ‘Why isn’t Mustafizur (a player from Bangladesh) playing today?’ “I mean Mustafizur is no Justin Bieber, but I was surprised at how aware my daughter was.” L Venkatapathi Raju spoke frankly, “I get nervous when I see books. I wasn’t much into academics and came to cricket for the job I would get at a bank at 18 years, after I played for the State.”
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Besides personal nuggets, a few stories like the skating story of hope, where the daughter despite losing her race came up to her dad each day to say that she’ll beat her counterparts someday. Nine-year-old Anjali was the star of the event, with her reply to a question on how she and her friends responded to the book and if that changed anything, “I had told about the book to almost everyone, but I don’t think that changed anything.” Harimohan added that he made sure that he asked his daughter if she was fine with a book on her. “Only when I got a yes, I got the confidence to go ahead.” Other notable personalities at the event included Gunnam Gangaraju, Daggubati Suresh Babu, Satish Kasetty and P Rammohan.