Just a few thoughts about fatherhood that have been on my mind lately. In less than a week, I have had the chance to come into contact with two exceptional fathers, which has made me even more painfully aware of my own dad's shortcomings. Last Thursday, I had a chance to listen to Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. He read from "Other Colors: Essays and a Story" his latest book, a collection of recollections from his adult life. Where "Istanbul" dealt with his growing up years and young adulthood, "Other Colors" deals with his thoughts as a mature man, who also happened to be father to an only daughter, as my father was to me. I always thought of myself as an easy daughter, a young woman who made it simple for my dad to love me. I have always been affectionate and loving and quite mature, at all stages of my life. Maybe too mature for my own good, but that is a whole and separate story. My father, on the other hand, is not an easy man. Unlike my mom, who is an artist and therefore difficult, yet caring and brilliant as well which make up for any shortcomngs, my dad was always just a disinterested father. He never remembered anything I would say to him, he didn't want to help with my problems, he always assigned me second place to anything else he had on his plate. I don't remember him ever coming to see me dance, or praising my singing, or even wanting to read what I wrote. I always figured his life was too busy, and maybe I just not interesting enough. But then I heard Mr. Pamuk speak so lovingly of his daughter, reading a whole chapter from his new book dedicated to recounting their experiences together, when she was only 5 years old, and I realized that if at such a young age she could be THAT interesting to a Nobel prize winner, then the problem in my own paternal relationship was my father, not me. I ask myself, could my dad have been jealous of me? Could he have realized just what a complete little person I was and maybe that brought out his own shortcomings, enlarging them into bright neon signs? This past Monday, I met the second of the great dads, Anil Kapoor, the Bollywood superstar. He's also a father, and his daughter has come into her own, starring in "Sawaariya" a movie coming out in November. Here again was a great man, bigger than life, who's been photographed lately gushing proudly at his daughter's premieres. Another exceptional man, another great father, and again, my own father's lack of interest pricked me - albeit like a tiny needle in my arm. You thought I was going to write like a knife through my heart, but really, no. It's not that bad. I have realized through my own journey that my father's shortcomings are just that - HIS. His inability to recognize the only daughter, heck the only child, he ever brought into this world as a jewel, a gift, makes him a little man, a miser who'll never know the pleasure of hearing from his own flesh and blood the words "I admire you, Dad". So the price I have to pay is that I won't hear those words either, but he loses because if you can't make your relationship work with a little being who simply would have kissed the ground you walked on, then you cannot ever feel like a success....