Growing-Up

In a world not simple by any reckoning, time is the weirdest phenomenon. It is universally felt and effortlessly perceived. But it treads so softly that one doesn’t notice its passage in the daily grind.

Nearer sixty than fifty, it is inexcusable to maintain an illusion of youth. But I remember and experience my past so vividly and with such force that the day I joined college, was married, my children were born, do not feel to belong to last millennium. Ageing profile of a college mate whom I haven’t met in decades, occasionally viewed on a social-media platform, remind me of the incessant flow of time; so do events that put the adulthood of my kids in spotlight. Mirror then speaks the truth for a little while.

 

An obstetrics resident, friend of my wife who was studying pathology in the same college, held her in a tray resting on her extended forearms, as she exited the operating theatre to show me my daughter. ‘Oh! She is so small, is she fine!’ was the thought that came to my mind as I looked at the feebly crying child, covered in green sheets. ‘2.6 kgs, but she will soon gain weight,’ reassured the doctor.

And she did. I saw her next when I visited them on a long leave, after a couple of months. I couldn’t recognise her. She was a big, chubby baby now. And she was a happy child. She giggled incessantly. She would willingly go into the arms of anyone who played with her and would instantly start chuckling as if she found the new company endlessly amusing.

My wife joined me after she finished MD. ‘Your daughter is your carbon-copy,’ said my friends. ‘Pitruamukhi (resembling father) girls are fortunate in life,’ said the elders in the family. But she was always a mamma’s girl. For months she addressed me mamma. She would follow her mother every moment of the day, like chicks trailing the mother hen. I tried to lure her to my company by narrating her the stories she liked. But she wanted them only from mamma’s mouth.

She was fond of food. She never gave us a moment’s anxiety regarding her diet. Her favourite spot in the house was near the refrigerator. She would totter to it every now and then, throughout the day. And then bang the door of the fridge with one of her small hands, pointing to her mouth with the other, to tell us that she wanted something to eat.

She was not a noisy child and grew quieter after her brother was born. She did not seem to grudge him the attention of parents that was solely hers till then.

She joined her first school in Bangalore. I went to drop her there on the first day. It was her first big school. Large crowd of strange faces unnerved me. She was scared and held on to my hand tightly. I made her sit on the bench in the class room, put her bag by her side, reminded her once more that the lunchbox was in her bag and told her not to worry, ‘mummy will come soon to fetch you.’ I was consoling myself; my heart was in my mouth. I sneaked a look at her as I went out. She was looking at me with tear-filled eyes, but did not cry, neither made an attempt to follow me. I was miserable in the operation theatre the whole day.

She took to books like a duck to water, as soon as she learned to read and understand the written word. She would run to her books the moment she returned from school. She would eat lunch while reading the book held in her left hand. She had read innumerable – perhaps majority of – Enid Blyton within a couple of years, before going on to Roald Dahl. She would read a book she liked over and over again for months and some even for years. I remember Little Women, many Harry Potter novels, a number of Agatha Christie books perpetually scattered in her room.  (When she went to college these books gathered dust on my bookshelves for years. But she would not let me discard them. ‘You have thousands, can’t I keep a few hundred?’)

‘Don’t be scared of papa. At most he will beat you.’ I heard her telling her brother during one of my foul moods. I had the first confirmation of her defiant nature. We constantly bickered like siblings over petty matters – mostly about keeping the house in order. I relented ultimately and retreated with my obsession to my room. She usually respected the line-of-control; except when she needed the scissors or the stapler and had misplaced hers. I would then loose mine.

‘I want to study economics after school’. She informed us when she was in ninth standard. I was dumbfounded. Bright kids read science. Rest of the subjects were for sluggards. She was resolute. I spoke with friends and relatives in other professions; and changed my outdated views.

We were on a short holiday in Uttarakhand. She didn’t like the idea of her father driving the family on the narrow mountain roads. She sat on the edge of the seat throughout the ten-hour drive and was relentless in her tirade. She was scared of hills. She hated heights and the cold. She didn’t trust my driving. How could I be so callous as to endanger the lives of everyone in the family? She didn’t budge out of the guest house in Pithoragarh. She had her way – as was usual. I hired a driver for the remaining journey. Instantly she cheered up like the sun breaking through dark clouds on a dark rainy day.

She secured a seat in economics honours at one of the Delhi university colleges and went to live in a hostel, though we stayed not far from her college. She was looking for a wider sky to spread her wings. I soon learnt this when I saw her immensely happy in the hostel. She would visit us on a weekend only once in three-four weeks and seemed contended with the cramped room and the meagre facilities at the hostel.

After graduation she chose to pursue postgraduation in business management. She was now truly on her own. She changed jobs, she changed cities, she searched for flats, she furnished them, without once seeking our help. She drove me from Kanpur to Delhi in her car, that she drove exceedingly well. I sat like an old man, belted on the passenger’s seat and listened to her as she occasionally proffered pearls of highway-driving. I knew she is now grown.

The teeny-weeny squeaking blob of scrawny limbs and delicate neck, lying on a tray in doctor’s arms, is now a woman. She married – a boy of her choice – yesterday.