Gifts of Life

One of the earliest photos I have of myself, is the class photo when I was in "preparatory" class. Then the nursery classes were called lkg, ukg & preparatory. So that was my 6th year of life. I remember my friends from that class, remember my teacher and had in fact met her later in my student life. So for me, anything before my 6th year is a blur and after that I remember several things. When I realise that my kids are now in their 6th year, three thoughts come to my mind - "you are getting old, but great memory, wow, kids are already there!"

The last comment is amazing to me because I still remember very vividly the moment they were born on Apr 2nd evening, 2004. That defintely has to be the moment of my life. I remember my brain jammed. There were so much excitement and so many thoughts going through it that I felt I was carrying a numb muscle in my head. I was trying to recollect what all I felt then or if somebody has written on a similar experience felt. 

Recently I read up this rather interesting essay by Atul Chaturvedi called "Gift of Life" in "Chicken Soup for Indian Soul" and I felt he has described most of what I felt when I became a dad. I have reproduced a good portion of that essay here (thanks to Atul) :

"she leaned towards me and handed my daughter over to me. I felt her warmth. She was small, delicate, she was simply beautiful, wrapped in this soft white linen that still seemed too rough for her. Till that moment, I used to think she was mine... but now I realized it is just the opposite. I was hers. I held her close. The true motive of my life stared at me through those half-opened eyes. I was responsible for her now. I had to protect her, nurture her, love her; not because, she was mine but because I was her slave. I knew I wouldn't , even in my dreams, be able to repay her for what she had given me; happiness, contentment, courage.

My heart now beat within this little being.

I had never held a baby before in my life. I felt awkward. And then I remembered she had never been held by anyone in her life. And yet there was no fear in her. If she was not scared to live her first moment then why should I be fearful? She was teaching me things already!

She stopped crying, perhaps because she was in my arms. I thought "Will I be able to protect and comfort her always?" The answer was no. She wasnt going to be with me forever. I was taken aback by the thought. A tiny tear rolled down my cheek. I held onto her, promising myself that I wouldn't waste a moment of our time together. I would teach her everything she would want to know.I would prepare her to face the world. I would be there with her forever. I'm her father.

I'm scared - will I make a good father or a bad one? But I do know this - that I will do my best to make sure that she has a fulfilled life, a happy one. I will make sure that this tiny bundle in my arms will live a better life than I did"

And I felt like this twice in two minutes!

Two kids & Their Three Birthdays

Last Saturday, all the three formats of the kids fifth year birthday got over. The birthday at school happened on Mar 20th (on the last day of the term) where they distributed "cadburys munch" chocolates to their friends and basked in the attention they got. Apr 2nd was the actual birthday which was a rather quiet day. A visit to the temple nearby and many of the relatives calling & wishing them happened through the day. By evening they got frustrated and were refusing to take the calls. The frustration was more about the party not being there that day rather than anything else. I or rather my work was the major culprit for moving the party to weekend & Apr 4th.

And it was a great party & the kids and their friends enjoyed thoroughly. There were about 25 kids who turned out. Many others were away on their summer breaks. Here are a few snippets of the day & events leading up to it:

# we took the kids to a toy store last week to buy them some gifts and told them that they can choose. I was ready for the pocket to get lighter by 2k or so. The kids went around the alleys of saphire toy store in Jayanagar, gleefully, knowing they had a free license to buy. After the initial excitement of "I want this, I want this too...", they settled down on two things. Nidhi picked a soft toy of her favorite character - tom (his friend is jerry :-) & a pack having barbie headband & magic wand. Neha picked up just the headband & wand and insisted that she doesn't want anything else. I was not satisfied for a while cos that costed much lesser than I thought. The soft toy was like 200 and the head band & wand set was 55 each. Better sense prevailed in my head after a few minutes saying cost doesn't matter, their happiness at getting the toys they wanted matters. As I write it now, it seems so very obvious but money (the less of it in this case) can malign your ability to determine the real worth of a material sometimes.

# Back home, Neha wore the head band and went around wishing for things by holding the wand in hand. She came back to me and asked " appa idharalli yaake magic agalla?" That moment was worth tons of gold for innocence shown. Again the dumb guy in me thought "aha that is why you didn't want anything expensive in the toy store; you thought you could get everything through this wand". I was wrong again. Though Neha appeared a trifle disappointed, she went around wishing with the wand with the same enthusiasm and now she knew there is no magic as well. I wanted to kill that guy in me who told me twice that day that money can buy happiness.

# Last year, the kids would rush to the door to welcome their friends and snatch the gifts from them. They did that this year too. And they did something better. They went to one of their friends house, snatched the gifts from her at her doorstep and got her to the party.

# I was playing the "2007 bollywood hits" CD on the music system and was enjoying humming "in dino, dil mera ..." when one of the kids came and said "uncle can you play something new?". That was shocking. Wow. 2007 is old to you I thought. To me 1970s or 80s songs are old. Then I realised that if you are 5 or 6 years old, 2007 songs were hot & happening when you were almost half your age compared to now. So that must be a while back. So I switched to slumdog songs without putting up much of an argument.

# The birthday cake had tom & jerry on it. The favorite characters on TV for neha & nidhi and in many ways, characters they ape. These two girls cannot stop fighting when together and cannot live in peace when away.

# Note the label on this post. Their sixth year has started.