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 ?

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.

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.

Friendship

When I entered the kindergarten to pick up Daivik, I was greeted by the following sight : Josephine was engrossed with wooden building blocks and Kuby was watching her work intently. Daivik, with a long face, was standing at a distance and looking at them. 
As soon as he saw me, his eyes welled up and he said ‘appa, Kuby is not my friends anymore’. I looked at Kuby, who confirmed the fact, adding for good measure ‘he will never be my friends again’. This broke the dam and Daivik burst into tears, somehow managing to tell me amidst sobs, ‘see, I told you’. Josephine, not to be outdone, started rattling the names of all her friends, not including Daivik, bringing about a fresh wave of tears. I turned to Kuby and asked, ‘why is Daivik not your friend’. Kuby reported that Daivik destroyed the wooden house Josephine was building. By the time I turned back to Daivik, he was ready with an answer. ‘It was an accident’, he said, adding rather paradoxically, ‘it will not happen again’. ‘Can you say that to Kuby?’, I asked. So Daivik went to Kuby and repeated it, stressing the will-not-happen-again part. Kuby started smiling and they held hands for a moment. Josephine, watching the show, started the names again, this time including Daivik. And, just like that, everybody were smiling, everybody friends again. Daivik included me in this joy. “Appa, see”, he said, this time amidst peals of laughter “we are friends again”.

How simple !