They saw, read.

If you thought I’d buried myself underground because my parents now know about my blog, well, you’re kinda right. I’ve also been moonlighting as a Singapore tourist guide and have had no time to drop by the bar at all! Finally, here I am, with the sequel to the last post.

Though Dad uses a computer at work, he's not very good at it (he keeps one finger of his left hand permanently stationed at the shift key, while one finger from his right hand does the actual typing). And, he makes statements like "Your mouse cable is too short. I can't move the cursor from one end of the screen to the other." Also, since he only uses the computer for his office email, he doesn't know very much about the Internet. Mom, on the other hand, is absolutely hopeless with the computer (I taught her how to double-click and it was, as Neil Armstrong once said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for Sayesha's mother.")

Basically, I didn't quite know how to introduce them to the blog without making it such a complex procedure that they give up in despair. So I created a desktop shortcut to the Label ‘Meet the parents’ (nothing involves a reader more than to read about himself!) to start them off, and asked them to read it after I’d gone and hidden my face in my office. I’d also set up a gmail account for Dad and told him he could email me at work. Now Mom's not very expressive (until I ask her "Do you like it or not do you like it or not do you like it or not?" a million times over and she's forced to say that she does, just to shut me up) but Dad does give me his opinion on things, and I was dying to know his reaction to the blog.

So I get the first email from him in the middle of a crazy work day.

“If I email you, won’t it disturb your office work?” He'd written.

Sheesh. So I assured him that it wouldn’t as I’d only attend to his email in between my tasks.

Finally he replied with what I’d been waiting for – his reaction to the blog. “The pieces (he likes to call the posts 'pieces') are very nice and readable!” He wrote. He told me which ones he found hilarious, which ones serious and which ones thought-provoking. And then came the much dreaded question.

"Why didn’t you email them to me earlier??” he wrote.

Errrmmm...

“Uhhh… I couldn’t email them to you, because there’s like 500 of them!” I replied. (Oh wait, that just made it worse, didn't it?)

Anyway, he asked me where the 500 were, and I told him he could read them by clicking on the archives links on the right side of the page.

When I came home that evening, he was still engrossed in reading. I went close to see which one he was reading. To my utter surprise, he was on Iday’s blog! Holy cow, that was fast reading! Had he read all 500 of mine and then gone on to read all the blogs on my blogroll??

So I asked, “Dad, what are you doing?”

“I am reading your archives like you'd asked me to. But you sound very different in this one.”

ROFL!

“Dad, that’s not my blog!! That’s my friend’s blog!!!!”

“Oh!!!!!!! No wonder! I didn’t quite know what you were talking about in this one!”

ROFL!

Over the last few days, they have been going through the archives and thankfully, have not been too shocked or scandalised. It was just a bit difficult to explain to them why I call this place a bar, and what I mean by 'bewdas got fultu talli' after each post. Recently, Dad also gave me detailed comments on how I could improve my writing, just like Mom gave me detailed comments on how I could improve my cooking. Errm, not very happening stuff to listen to, but as parents like to say, "it was all for my own good".

But the best part was when he was going through some of my blog titles and said, "Now that is a wordsmith's work."

Holy cow. :O

You see, the only person my Dad ever uses the term 'wordsmith' for is Bachi Karkaria, the Times Of India columnist. Dad is a huge fan of hers, and even though he likes many other columnists, he says Bachi is the only true 'wordsmith'. I've read her and she's absolutely brilliant. And now he had used "THE WORD" for me! Woohoo! Actually it's WOOHOO!!!!!!!!

Move over, Bachi, cos I'm the real (inhouse) bachi! Muahahaha!