HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!  I am off with your other daughter doing festive things without you, but at least I can put up a blog post in your honor.

You know the truism that we tend to marry/fall in love with people who remind us of our father/mother?  At least, if we had a good relationship with them.  A good father sets a standard that you look up to as what a good man should be.  So let me explain how it is my father’s fault that I am so in love with these movie stars.

My Dad is very very tall.  And when he was young, he briefly had a motorcycle.  And longish hair.  Thus, I love Amitabh.

(really, this was about as long as his hair ever got, even in the 70s when he was an anti-war activist and everything.  He’s just not a long-hair kind of guy)

My Dad has a beard, thus I love Shahrukh most when he is bearded.

(His beard tends to be a little fuller than this, and a little grayer lately.  But otherwise, identical!)

My Dad has an engineering degree, thus I love all those engineer heroes.

My Dad fell in love with my Mom at 18 and that was basically it for him.  Thus, I love all those movies with the young hero and heroine who grow up together.

(My parents didn’t get married until 25, but they were still awfully young when they met)

Most of all, my Dad was a wonderful involved father who made us breakfast every morning and helped with our homework every night and was happier spending time with his daughters than anything else in the world.  So I love all the movie stars and movie heroes who love their kids.

(When I was Little Anjali’s age, he taught my Sunday School class and it was basically the same as this)