By Pallavi Preetinanda
Kolkata, June 4, 2019: I have been traveling with my dad ever since I was 3 years old.
Mom isn’t much of a travel person, though after working for nearly 30 years, now she is taking out time to travel.
But dad and me, we have been travel chums for a really long time.
So when we travel, we book a single room, because obviously I can’t stay alone, and we need to cut down the cost. We take turns, sometimes I sleep on the floor, sometimes he doesn’t let me, and he sleeps on the floor.
Sometimes at night when am groggy, I climb onto the bed and sleep in the opposite direction, with my head near his feet.
All these years I have never felt uncomfortable, which is obvious since he is my dad, but that’s the kind of security he gives me.
I can sit and change in the same room, when his back is turned towards me, and I know that he will not turn back even by mistake. I can pee without any worries, even if I forget to lock the door.
We go to the beach together and I am in my shorts and tank top and I never feel a thing that am in front of a man, and I should dress more appropriately.
We go swimming together and I am in my two piece swim suit, and not once do I feel like I am in the wrong place in the wrong attire.
When I am in the bar with him, he offers me a drink, but never do I feel, I am being judged for being in a bar, having a drink.
I don’t know, people might say he is my father, maybe that’s why. Or because he is from a very broadminded family which lets women the way they want to be, which is again untrue because my father is from a small village where things can get as conservative as it can.
But what I know is, that is the level of security a man is capable of providing. That is the level of freedom, a man is completely okay with, and that is how a man can make woman comfortable.
So all that talk of being provoked and having a problem with how a woman talks and behaves and dresses goes straight out of the window.
I feel if my dad can, any man can.