Nonu has now stepped out of the protected home environ and it has been a fortnight since she has been attending her play school . She is happy with the experience that she is getting, unhindered by watchful eyes of the parents.
There are certain memory cues which we all hold so dear to our inner circles of thoughts for all our lives. Those are not very significant things, usually not the things which we anticipate that we will remember. For instance, I remember, the strange smell of new books I got at the start of the session, the collection of phantom comics, the feel of sunlight falling over me as I would climb on the rooftop to complete assignments in Kanpur during winter vacations in class fourth, or the story told by father of Androcles and the Lion, lying hurt after putting my foot into the wheels of the bicycle.
No one can predict, what are the visions, colors and lights and shades that the child will carry into her maturity. We just spend moment of togetherness, hoping one of those spent will stay with us long enough to carry us through life. Last few days have been just that, a bad medical report, a worry of shorter than usual life stretching its long, menacing shadow over the sunshine emanating of wonderful splendor of togetherness, a play between happy sunshine and gloom clouds.As we, just two of us, go out to a small, Tibetan shop nearby to have momos on the wooden bench and then going for dinner, again two of us, to Ananda Bhavan for Rice and dal. It was truly blissful. I do not know if I will have those lovely father-daughter times when she grows up, but I am having my share of Havana now, a sense of bliss over a plate of steamed rice. I do not say it as a token of philosophical bravery, but only with a sense of resignation and surely with a tinge of sadness. I could have avoided it, maybe, I do not know, and knowing will not help anyways.
Will it matter now? no.It matters to no one and to me, it matters only a little more than it matters to anyone. Life goes on and will go on, I suppose this is one good thing about being an only child to the parents is that sooner or later you resign to the loneliness. I have a great length of extended family and have always been there for my cousins and their off-springs. But no matter what you do, you will always remain that, a distant cousin. I have spent half of my living days to struggle against that, being forced by my parents to supplement my lack of siblings with cousins. But I know, blood will always be thicker. The only blood which I share with any one in the living world,is my little daughter, apart from my parents, which is a lonely thought. My young nephew has gone to Germany, for his higher studies. I have always cherished the way he grew, like my own son, almost. Almost, because, again, the relation is topped with a cherry which reads cousin. Water will flow through Ganges and Thames and Seine for that matter, and then there will always be real uncles and those pretentious ones, where I will fit in is anybody's guess. I wish the young man a great future, and I hope, some things of old time morality he will carry with him which I did hammer into him, even when he goes back into the fold of the family, or moves out into the wider world. I am very sure that he will remember all those ancient sounding values, which transcends time and countries, even if he forgets me. Anyways, who would be interested in being remembered as a forlorn, wretched figure. Another sad thing about the day which brings a noticeable feel of melancholy is the news of demise of Steve Jobs..All the money in the world can not save you, and your thoughts will always live beyond you are the two poignant messages of the day.
There are certain memory cues which we all hold so dear to our inner circles of thoughts for all our lives. Those are not very significant things, usually not the things which we anticipate that we will remember. For instance, I remember, the strange smell of new books I got at the start of the session, the collection of phantom comics, the feel of sunlight falling over me as I would climb on the rooftop to complete assignments in Kanpur during winter vacations in class fourth, or the story told by father of Androcles and the Lion, lying hurt after putting my foot into the wheels of the bicycle.
Will it matter now? no.It matters to no one and to me, it matters only a little more than it matters to anyone. Life goes on and will go on, I suppose this is one good thing about being an only child to the parents is that sooner or later you resign to the loneliness. I have a great length of extended family and have always been there for my cousins and their off-springs. But no matter what you do, you will always remain that, a distant cousin. I have spent half of my living days to struggle against that, being forced by my parents to supplement my lack of siblings with cousins. But I know, blood will always be thicker. The only blood which I share with any one in the living world,is my little daughter, apart from my parents, which is a lonely thought. My young nephew has gone to Germany, for his higher studies. I have always cherished the way he grew, like my own son, almost. Almost, because, again, the relation is topped with a cherry which reads cousin. Water will flow through Ganges and Thames and Seine for that matter, and then there will always be real uncles and those pretentious ones, where I will fit in is anybody's guess. I wish the young man a great future, and I hope, some things of old time morality he will carry with him which I did hammer into him, even when he goes back into the fold of the family, or moves out into the wider world. I am very sure that he will remember all those ancient sounding values, which transcends time and countries, even if he forgets me. Anyways, who would be interested in being remembered as a forlorn, wretched figure. Another sad thing about the day which brings a noticeable feel of melancholy is the news of demise of Steve Jobs..All the money in the world can not save you, and your thoughts will always live beyond you are the two poignant messages of the day.
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