Pink candy

At first, there is nothing. Or probably a delicate haze, like being in a fog. Slowly, an outline emerges. Hey, this is interesting. As the fog lifts, by degrees, the form becomes clearer and excitement mounts. At some point, the form acquires recognition and gets a name. Quite suddenly, it is crystal clear, unmistakable, undeniable. It's a candy ! A pink one at that ! Aha, joy beams onto you as you reach out for the candy, eyes glittering, grin pasted and soft music cooing in the background. You are almost there, candy is just within reach, when a large hand appears out of nowhere and in one swift brutal unjust motion snatches it away from you.

The cruelty of the act takes a moment to register. At the same moment, you recognize the hairy monster that snatched the candy - it's your father ! The cruelty and the recognition converge rapidly onto a point and you yell out a cry, a deep piercing cry.

Your mom comes running in. "What happened dear, were you dreaming?". Amidst your tears, you manage to blurt out "candy". This irritates the mom. "First thing in the morning, you want a candy...go brush your teeth". Uff, she doesn't understand.  This makes you sob more. Mom softens a bit and takes you in her arms. Reassured, you say, "pink candy". "Not now...", she starts saying. There she goes again. You start crying again, but manage to say "Appa took my pink candy" (and that's your first full sentence of the day!). "Oh, your father took your pink candy in your dream?", mom summarises, cuddles you for comfort, and simultaneously calls out for the culprit.

The father, oblivious to his crime, walks in, sees you awake and chirps in "Good morning". You don't respond, and he finds two pairs of accusing eyes staring back at him with a penetrating gaze. "Where is the pink candy?", mom demands. "What pink candy?", he asks. Ouch, wrong question. Not only does he snatch away the candy, now he is what-pink-candying you. Indeed! You start crying. "The one you took from her", mom declares, with an increasing intensity in her voice. Before he could respond, she adds for his benefit, "...in her dreams".

"Aha", says the father, uncertainties cleared, and now on terra firma. "You know what the pink candy told me?". You stop crying and get mildly interested. "It told me that it will wait for a little girl". He then picks you up from your mom. Her job done, mom returns back to her chores. Dad continues, "Pink candy told me that it will wait for the little girl who brushes and showers first".

And thus, the task of preparing you for the day, which normally takes anywhere between 10-100 minutes, gets completed in record time.

Of course, when you are ready, the pink candy is ready too and waiting for you :)
  

Our time, our place

Overtime, a little ritual had evolved between Akshara and me. We found a cozy corner in the kitchen where we would snuggle up for a few minutes before beginning the rigors of the day. It involved the following steps: I will sit on the floor with knees bent. She will come running, climb on the knees, find her way to the lap, hug me and give a very warm smile. The whole thing was so natural and matter-of-fact that it had not even registered.

I happened to be away for a few days and hence the ritual had lapsed. I came back late in the night when Akshara had already slept. The next morning, I was sipping coffee when Akshara walked in, all sleepy eyed.  She saw me, gave a smile of recognition and without a word held her hand out in a very purposeful manner. I set the coffee aside and grasped those little fingers. She quietly led me to our corner.  I was pleasantly surprised as remembrance of our ritual dawned on me.

So, I sat down and bent the knees in the usual posture, this time consciously and with anticipation. It was only after seeing me sit that she relaxed and allowed a faint smile to adorn those lips. She had missed our ritual and was obviously waiting for it for the last days. So, she must be full of excitement. I fully expected her to come running and jump right in.

I was not prepared for what happened next. Is this how personalities evolve, or are you born with it? Here was an event that is evidently much looked for, you have missed it for a while, and here it is again. What do you do? She had wordlessly reminded me of our ritual, she had got me into the regular pattern, and now it was her turn. But she did not jump in. She did not even smile. What was going on here? She quietly turned around, her back to me, took the few small steps backwards and sat on my ankles. Slowly, so very slowly, she rested her head on my knees. There was no giggle, no smile, no words, no sound, no nothing. It was just us, and that moment. It lasted for several seconds, it lasted for several centuries.

When she decided it was enough, she got up as wordlessly as she had sat down, and started walking away, leaving me flummoxed. I was staring at her back dumbstruck when she turned and gave a its-between-us smile. Then she called out for her mummy.   

small things, big things

For some reason, Daivik’s backpack caught Akshara’s fancy and she insisted on carrying it. Convincing Daivik to let her carry the bag was not too difficult (“But she has to give it back to me, promise, appa?”).  So, Akshara sat on her seat with the bag on her lap. I was focusing on the road. Somewhere along the way she started whining. These whinings have a certain signature to them. Overtime one gains a deep understanding of these signatures and learns – through trial and error, mostly error - to interpret them. This whine was persistent, but low intense. Okay, so something is bothering her, but it is not alarming.  Has she removed her gloves again? Was she feeling a bit cold?  

“Akshara, are you feeling cold?”

 “No”.

“Shall I put your gloves back on?”

“No”.

“Is the belt too tight?”

“No”.

My repeated failures must have frustrated her. The intensity of the whine increased slightly, so very slightly. But the new signature said : this demands a solution.

“Have you dropped the bag?”, I asked. The mention of the bag triggered something and she notched up her whine quite perceptibly. Breakthrough! It’s something to do with the bag. I turned to her and asked, “Don’t you want the bag?”. “No”, she said again, and the whine became a proper cry.  The double negative momentarily confused me. But I sensed that I was closing in. “Shall I remove the bag”, I asked, reaching out for it. “No”, she said again and raised the cry up another notch. Tears started welling up. So, that’s not what she wants. 

My hands were almost on the bag when I noticed that the bag had flipped and the front smiley face was turned away from her. “Shall I turn the bag?”, I asked. Her eyes lit up immediately. “Yes”, she said, still crying. I did the simple task of flipping the bag, she could see the smiley again. Her eyes declared, yes, YES, that is exactly what I wanted.

In an instant, happiness poured into her whole being. And then out of her. Those little droplets of tears were still hanging in those twinkling eyes, the chillness of the winter had decorated her cheeks with a natural rouge, her bunny teeth were sparkling in the morning light, and she started laughing…peals and peals of laughter, marvelous glorious laughter.

Who would have thought that that single bag, that simple act, can release so much of happiness? Or, is it the other way round: simple acts, small things can be portals to a universe of happiness.  And that we, the non-children,  close those doors with alarming efficiency as we lose the child in us ?

Daughters are gentle

While sons are brats. Or so goes the conventional wisdom (applicable to daughters and sons in the age groups 0 to 10. Or is it 15 ? 20? 40?). Anyway, let me explain what happened today. But before that I’ll take a detour and introduce you to the most important problem in life. Which is, of course, finding the glasses in the morning. Now, if you, like me, are not a particularly morning person, you will understand when I define morning as that time lag between the eyes opening up and the brain opening up (never mind that on some days the latter never quite happens). So, getting up to a dazed vision and ploughing through the maze of thoughts before realizing that the daze of the vision is actually due to lack of glasses and from there for the next thought to dawn that the solution for this is to get the glasses on and from there to figure out where it was kept last and from there to actually get down to the task of finding the glasses (without the glasses on, of course)…uff, tough life. Fortunately for me, Daivik, the darling he is, has stepped in. He has taken upon himself the onerous task of finding the glasses and has bestowed upon himself the honorific title of ‘glass finder’ (he is also, by the way, my ‘coffee maker’, a privileged task that involves pushing a button)(he knows that privilege part). Since then, my life has become infinitely easier, and the mornings pleasantly bright and startlingly, well, clear.

Now cut to today. As usual the battle between the eyes opening and brains opening was on. Akshara, the gentle daughter, the early riser, had made sure that whatever little pleasure that exists in those extra five minutes in bed remains firmly in the realms of stuff that dreams are made of. I was stumbling my way out of the bed when I saw her walking in. Daivik came running past her with an excited tone. “Appa, appa, look, Akshara, look, she..”. He was choked, he could not complete the sentence. I thought something had happened to her. But through my glassless perspective, she seemed fine, she was approaching me with a typical toddler gait and as she came closer the brightness of her smile came into focus and indeed it started brightening up all the things around her. I smiled too, but Daivik tried again. “Appa, look, Akshara, look, she…”. She was still walking in, still smiling and as she closed in, she raised both her hands as if offering me something. That is when I saw what Daivik wanted me to see.  On each of her raised hands were my glasses, ex-glasses rather, neatly split into two pieces. With a full smile on, she was urging me to take the glasses.

Daivik found the words. “Appa, see, she broke your glasses”. I wanted to laugh, but this was serious matter. I looked at Akshara and told with a stern voice (I think), “Why did you break the glass?”. Perhaps she realized something was amiss and that she was in the center of it. She  lowered her gaze and very carefully placed the glasses on the edge of the bed and with the head down and eyes averted, waited. After a few seconds, she rolled her eyes up without moving the head and finding me still waiting for an answer immediately averted her eyes and very slowly, very purposefully, walked away. Daivik was still dumbfolded. A glass that was never broken in his lifetime was suddenly broken. “Appa, see, she broke your glasses”, he said again. And suddenly overwhelmed with an enormous amount of care, added “oh, how will you see again”.

a midnight walk

I remember a toy that I once saw in a design shop. It is a squirrel that has a ball attached to its mouth. The ball keeps rolling forwards and side wards while the squirrel follows it in a jumpy motion, in a futile attempt to catch something that is already there.

Akshara was like that little squirrel, trying to grab an invisible ball. One moment she was lying flat, the next she moved sidewards, the next moment she turned over, all the while her head remaining where it was. She was actually trying to find a suitable position to fall back to sleep. She had just woken up at midnight and was perhaps not comprehending the environment completely. I had the perfectly good intention of wanting to help her back to sleep but she mistook my approach as an invitation to play. All the associated genes got activated immediately as she sat up with a broad smile and sparkling eyes. No, no, no...NO, that's not what I mean, what I mean is this : go back to sleep. But those genes were already on.  I exhausted all my tricks to put her back to bed, but those genes stayed firmly on. She was showing no sign of sleeping, what to do ? Now, past midnight is not a particularly good time for patience to flow in abundance. In exasperation I said, okay, do what you want, and pretended to sleep. All the lights were off, everybody were asleep and Akshara suddenly had all the home to herself. All the freedom to herself. No one to tell her where to not go or what to not take (or break). But there was a conundrum. What to do with all this freedom ? She stood for a minute, looking around, as if considering her options. Then she decided to take a walk ! With the middle and ring fingers firmly in the mouth, looking all around the familiar scenes in the unfamiliar setting of perfect stillness and darkness, she wandered from room to room, back and forth...

After sometime I decided to join her in the walk and softly treaded behind her. She felt my presence, turned back and looked up. I gave my fingers and she grabbed them. We walked to her bed and I let her gently in. The next moment she was asleep !

some more pages

Some of you asked me why I'm not writing enough about Daivik's little sister, Akshara (18 months). No real reason, so here we go :

Continuing the theme of one day in the life equals one page of this mysterious book, here is a look-back on few more random pages, in no particular order.


***
It has been your favorite game  for a while now, lying on the floor, face-up and looking at things from a hundred and eighty degrees. Upside down lateral inversion is apparently funny. So you position yourself on the floor when I'm having dinner and call me out. I look down at you and smile. You flash your magic smile, now filled with five pearls, three in the top row and two below. You realize that I'm eating something and you want it too. You signify your intent by raising your arms. I offer you a rice waffle, admittedly not one of your favorite snack. I have no idea how a  rice waffle looks when viewed  upside down and turned 180 degree. But evidently you understand what it is. Without moving an inch from your position, you turn your head sideways firmly to tell no, this is not what I want and start protesting that you want something else.

***
It is dinner time. You are perched on top of your high chair. It is the only occasion when you can communicate with us at an equal height, without having to strain your neck. Your brother is, as usual, making a fuss with his plate. We trying to alternatively  cajole, convince, threat him to get the food down his throat. He is obviously not too keen  and out-of-the-blue says something very funny without quite intending it to be. Your mother and I burst into a spontaneous laughter and your brother, not quite understanding why we are laughing, nevertheless joins in. You are busy with your food, smudging and smearing it on your face, on the hairs, on your chair, on the table, everywhere. You are distracted by the sounds of the laughter, look up and look at each of us individually with questioning eyes. Then you pause, let out a smile and start laughing too.

***
Ever since you took your first steps, there has been no looking back to the days when your primary mode of transport was by using all four limbs. The switch was both abrupt and dramatic. Another lesson to learn from little children : how to effectively leave the past behind ! Now, one big advantage of walking on two legs instead of crawling on all four is that it leaves your hands free. So you can, for example, carry things.

You bring the spider-man mask of your brother and insist that I wear it. Do you even know what it is ?
I wear it and your father is transformed into something you don't recognize. Right away you take a step back. Instantaneously, your lips purse, your chin trembles and your eyes swell as you start to cry. I remove the mask, and as if by a switch, the cry transforms to a laugh. But then you want me to wear the mask again. I wear it and you step back and start crying again !

like a diamond in your eye

All moments are beautiful, but some are stunningly beautiful. Sometimes they catch us unawares or prop up unannounced in the most mundane of places. Like, in a shopping center.

Akshara was crying in her pram as we were going through the customary Saturday shopping. Perhaps she was sleepy. Now this is one aspect of  crying that I never quite understand. I mean, it makes sense to cry when you are hungry, you need food / milk, you cannot get it yourself, you need somebody to get it for you. You cry. But when you are sleepy, just sleep, why cry ?  Anyway, she was sleepy and she was crying. I did what most parents do in this situation, take the pram for a bit of pram-dancing on busy shopping aisles. She promptly folded her middle and ring fingers from the right hand and took them into her mouth. It is one of the unexplainable curiosities, her motif to announce I'm-going-to-sleep-now. In a few minutes she was asleep.

We entered a gleaming elevator. It was coated with glistening steel on one side, a full length mirror on another and full length glass on the two remaining sides. The floor was made of a reflecting marble. Little lights were strategically placed. As I pressed the button and turned around, the arc of my vision crossed through Akshara's face. A single drop of tear had accumulated in the corner of  one eye and had positioned itself smugly between the closed eyesand the nose bridge. It was a combination of the angle of my sight, the position of the lights, the rotation of the earth, the scheming of the planets,  the smile of the angels... as the arc of my vision crossed her face, this single drop absorbed and reflected all that fancy light. For a brief moment, it shone like a brilliant diamond.

It was a single moment, a singular moment. Atleast as long as it existed, that drop was definitely worth more  than that diamond.

Interpretations

For several days in a row, Daivik and me have been waving bye-bye to his little sister as we left home for the kindergarten.  For the first few days, Akshara did not react, then she started flashing her magic smile. One day suddenly, she waved back !

I thought, 'wow, she is learning associations'. There was a predictable pattern to the bye-bye ritual : it happened at more or less the same time, more or less the same place (door-step) and was always accompanied by a wave of the hand, a smile and a sing-song 'ta-ta-aaa'. So my reasoning was that she has managed to associate the events as a single entity and figured out that she had to imitate it.

Daivik had a different interpretation. "Appa, look", he said, "she knows my age". Her four fingered wave was apparently an answer to a question that was never asked, 'how old is Daivik'.

hoo-ha-hai

Picture this: A 8 month old is lying on her tummy, palms pressed on floor, arms straight, head up, in a classical bhujangasana pose, and surveying her domain. Her eyes come to rest on her father who was trying to watch her unobserved. She holds her gaze as their eyes lock. The moment continues to prolong and eventually reaches a criticality. It becomes obvious that something must happen. Somebody has to say something. The father gets excited. She is going to say her first proper word, of course, it is going to be 'appa'. As if reading his thoughts, she flashes a winning smile. The father moves to the edge of the seat. Aha, here it comes...he holds his breath...she says "hoo-ha-hai", and turns away to continue her survey.

There is of course no doubt that at some point of time in history, in the lineage of some language, spoken somewhere, this word relates to fatherhood. Question : When where and which is it ? 

a million stars

It was 2 in the morning when Akshara decided it was the right time to play. Thankfully, she did not disturb anyone but was comfortable playing by herself and making non-stop conversational sing song sounds. I woke up to these sounds and was just lying there, listening to their melody. Soon enough curiosity got the better of me. What exactly was she doing ? I looked into her bed...I had to get closer to the bed in that low light to get a better view. She was shuffling around her dolls and it looked like she was talking to them. Few moments later, probably feeling my presence, she turned around.  In that near-zero light, her eyes shone like a pair of light bulbs. From her perspective I probably appeared as a dark undifferentiated mass. I thought she might cry. However, she stopped her sounds and tried to focus better in order to deconvolve that silhouette. It was an amazing sight to watch. Her eyes appeared to literally zoom in on me as her pupils began to dilate more and more (and more) to collect extra photons. Those already enormous lit eyes became impossibly large and neon bright. As the photons traveled via the optic nerves and reached the brain, recognition dawned on her that the figure belonged to her father. Like an elaborate fountain suddenly springing to life, like a gorgeous butterfly spreading wings in the blink of an eye, like a thousand petaled lotus opening up at the whiff of dawn, she broke into a smile. It was but a little curve on those tiny lips, however its sheer brilliance was so dazzling that the whole room was enveloped with the effulgence of a million stars.

I looked outside. The stars did not try to compete. They were content to witness the moment, with a beaming smile of their own.  

a little daughter turns one !

Imagine reading an action packed fast paced thoroughly enjoyable page turner, with the twist that the pages cannot be turned at will. It is set to a 24 hour timer. We cannot do anything about it. We cannot go back to a specific page to re-read a particularly pleasing phrase, nor can we sneak up few pages ahead to break a mini-suspense. The book has to be appreciated at its pace, which in a way adds up to its appeal. Now, as this book completes one glorious chapter, impressions from random pages breeze across the memory lanes, in no particular sequence.

***
You are supposed to cry, to gasp in the first burst of oxygen. but your lips are zipped, your eyes are shut tight, your face is squirmed, all reflecting the tremendous journey you have just been through. The doctor has just - this very minute - taken you out of your cozy residence of the past months and brought you out into the world, into the chirping dawn outside. but your remain silent. He wraps you in a towel, takes you to a warmed up table, lays you down gently as i follow him helplessly. He gives a gentle practiced rub on your chest. The fluids in your tiny lungs gush out and there is now space for air. Aha, the oxygen rushes in as you let us hear your voice. No, it is not a piercing splitting cry, nor is it a whimper, somewhere in between..that cry ensures the lungs get their supply and your systems makes the magic switch to your first independence. The doctor smiles, looks at me and says, congratulations.

***
Your have two angles to watch the world. In the most common, most boring one,  you are lying on your bed and looking at the ceiling. Everybody is looking at you from such a great height, everything looks upside down, sort of one dimensional. There is no depth perception. And there is always that roof. Unchanging. Every once in a while, different faces get into the frame, make different sounds, and leave. Then there is that other view, when somebody holds you vertically. You get a better angle of vision, you can see things for what they are, at their right proportions and when they carry you around, at the right pace and distances. This view is definitely better than the other one ! Why then do they leave me down, to that boring ceiling. Today, for the first time, you decide to make this point clear. When they put you down, you protest...you open your mouth and let out a wail. Here they come running, they pick you up. You get back you preferred view. Wow, what a discovery ! You reward them with a smile.

***
They say canyons - as in the Grand Canyon - are formed not by the sheerness of force but by their persistence. This is something we need to learn from babies. The first time I noticed this was when you were trying to turn over by yourself. It was not a sudden thing but a very gradual result of weeks of effort where you were doing nothing else but that. Day in and day out, all your waking hours, you were trying to turn over. First on one side, you lift your one shoulder up as much as you can turn your whole body and try to turn over as much as you can, then you fall back, then you try again, and again, and again. The same process happened when you learnt to sit by yourself. And now when you are trying to take that first free step, it is the same intensity, same persistence...

***
You are playing by yourself and probably getting bored. You look around for some new toy and spot your sleeping brother. Your mind is made, the target is set. You move to him in a  focused crawl. You get over him and let your fingers play over and make little sounds. He does not move. You find his hairs. Hmmm, this looks interesting. You grab it in your little palms, exert a surprising force and pull it towards you. This definitely is funny ! You let out a laugh. Your big brother sits up with a start, rubs his eyes and starts to cry.

***
For a very long time, your singular readout for exploration of your environment is to grab the objects and put them in your mouth. One fine day, as you stand holding a little table you spot something interesting, grab it and  promptly bring it near the mouth. But then you stop and look around with those big brightly lit eyes until you spot me. Then you hold aloft the thing as if showing me and move it slowly to your mouth. I say slowly "no".  Very deliberately you keep it back and look at me with eyes drooling innocence, as if asking "i kept it back. is it okay now?"

pass the banana please

Consider the following points :
a) you are 11 months old
b) you cannot - yet - speak any of the adult words clearly
c) you really want that banana

What are the options ? You can, of course, cry. But that is a rather non-specific thing to do. It will bring either appa or amma, they might talk something to you, or lift you up, take you to another room or give you a toy. But that is not what you want... it is the banana you want, lying there, on that table, just out of reach.

There must be a better way to get that banana. You keep a smile poised, make random sounds, and wait. Sooner or later, somebody is bound to look at you. Aha, there, you see, Appa is looking at you. Now, right now, is the moment for that dazzling smile. Sure enough, he smiles back and says something. You stretch your hand, turn to right and look at the banana, then look back at him. Just to make sure the message is clear, you repeat this process five times, all the while keeping the smile intact and saying 'ha', 'hai' and 'humm'.

See, it works ! He picks the banana, peels it and ha ha, hands you a bite. Yummy.