When it comes to parents I was truly blessed. I had a mother who never ever gave me the feeling that I’d want for love and a father who was the best friend I’ve ever had.

And he told me that I could do anything in the world as long as I did it openly, even in front of him. So when I began to smoke for instance at a late age of 24, it was a bit of a ceremony that both he and I sat in the living room and lit up. Later on, he used to bum cigarettes from me. In fact when Mom cleared his cupboard after he passed away, she showed me how many packets of cigarettes with just one or two cigarettes left in them, had been ‘stolen’ by him from me in the last year of his life.

While I suspect that whatever I do in life I will never be able to match the diverse experiences that my parents had, I have tried to, quite unconsciously, be as much of a friend to my children as my father and mother were to me.

I speak not just of ‘radical’ things like sharing a smoke or splitting a beer, I remember also how, when on my first trip to Goa and the flea market there, he quietly picked up a bouncy hat because he thought it would look good on a girl I had a crush on at that time.

What I am saying, in short…is that there was nothing my dad and I couldn’t discuss…and that obviously influenced me when I became a father. Of course there was a not so subtle difference…I fathered two daughters, so naturally there were areas I had to tread carefully. But in terms of values, my advise to the kids was the same that I had been brought up with…do anything you want, as long as you can do it with pride and honesty, and do it in front of me!

And this is what I tell my children’s friends too.

That is another area where I have been fortunate. Many of the kids friends have become friends of mine…the age difference notwithstanding. In fact a few months back, on one of the rare occasions that I got drunk, two of my children’s friends literally carried me back home…and we still laugh about it even today.

The fact that this was on the occasion of an old boys meet that went hysterically awry and we all ‘bhuddas’ landed up at the same place the kids were partying (10 D) should tell you lots about how comfortable we are with sharing space with the children. And their friends.

So naturally we regularly exchange notes about new places to eat or drink. Some places I hate, some they do..but we have tried out almost every one of each other’s haunts. As a result I tease them about the seedy, shady joints they go to for their happy hour excursions and belittle their taste for Y2K biriyani…and they tease me about my love for street food, my bengali palate, my kerala fixation and even my coastal andhra cravings which they may or may not share.

But one place has baffled me. It’s the now being talked of DLF Gachibowli Food Court…the street food capital of the IT District it has been called…the egg maggi, the dosa keema, the bread omelette…oh the dishes being discussed are mouth watering, and I do so want to go there.

But the kids who are prepared to drive me to the Tupran Dhaba or to Novotel Airport or even Jadcherla for breakfast, have been hesitating whenever mention of a midnight foray towards DLF comes up for discussion.

I am sure the mystery will be solved soon, but until then I feel like a foodie banned from a specific district. Because he is too old? Too fat? Too out of place?

I need to know…otherwise I will have no choice but to gather a bunch of like minded oldies and go blaring into the wild west with a Tom Jones song playing loud enough to drown out the hip hop.