To Tennis and Roger, with love..

What a match it was! Roger Federer at last won the epic final that lasted over four hours – his 7th Wimbledon Championship pursuit in which he had so much at stake. And he did it, - broke Pete Sampras’ record as the holder of maximum Grand Slam titles, became one of the few players to have won the French Open and the Wimbledon in the same season and of course regained the prized No. 1 spot. At the end of it all, he was smiling politely, no fuss, no tears – kissing the cup, perhaps the most coveted of all slams.



Of course, I haven't forgotten the other man in the game – the other gladiator as they called him. Andy Roddick with his spirit to fight on, to see his name up there in the list of winners, was so powerful with his serves and gave Federer, truly, a run for his money and claim to fame. Andy reminds me so much of those fierce fighters of the past. Michael Chang, the short little guy, with small eyes, but a big determination to make opponents feel that every penny they earned was well worth the effort! And forget not, the Spaniard, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and the lovely Monica Seles whose grit was responsible for some of the finest three-setters in women’s singles.

I loved the Sunday’s men’s finals for yet another reason – for the fine display of sportsmanship. Andy Roddick accepted defeat gracefully and Pete Sampras landed up at the Wimbledon after seven years, to watch and appreciate his record being broken.

Tennis is such a wonderful sport. Ask a die-hard fan like me. It isn’t a love affair just for the players but also for the millions who follow the game with such ardent devotion. Tennis is many things in one. It’s about ego, anger, tranquility, patience, sportsmanship, eccentricities, fashion, endorsements, victories, defeats, fame, obscurity, and records.

I was delighted to rediscover the joys of watching a good final yesterday night. I haven’t watched a tennis match in many, many months now, a sad fact – considering that as a girl of fifteen I used to follow the sport so closely. I have always been and still am a big of fan of Pete Sampras, but I should also admit that I used to have a very crush-like liking for the big serving Croatian player, Goran Ivanesevic. With him, what comes to mind is the changing looks of players and of course, their foul temper.

I used to like him with his clean-shaven face and one fine day, he sported a goatee in one of the matches. I really felt like running up to him and telling him, please take that nasty thing off your face! Somehow, the interest in him kind of fizzled out, particularly with his habit of spitting on court!! And yeah, I vaguely remember that he used to lose his temper quite too often!

Talking of emotions on court, we had the very sentimental Andre Agassi, who wept when he won. And as we speak of Agassi, I can immediately think of Steffi Graf, the usually cool player, who fumed after suffering a shocking first round loss in Wimbledon in 1994. The unconquerable defending champion, Graf, lost to Lori McNeil and left the court seething! After all, it isn’t so easy to accept defeat, particularly if you are the queen of the sport! And well, haven’t we heard much about John McEnroe’s temper tantrums?

On the other hand, Pete Sampras has been one of the cooler sorts. In many ways, I find Pete and Roger so similar. They hang on patiently, appear calm, even as matches grow challenging. At best, I have seen Sampras sticking out his tongue, which I assume he did to release the mounting tension! With Federer, I suppose he wipes his brows every now and then! In Sunday’s final, it is perhaps this stay-calm attitude, what I would call the Champion material that gave Federer the edge, despite the fact that Andy Roddick played a better game at many points in the match. Towards the end of the final set, one could see Andy getting worn out and close to giving up. Federer hung on and waited for that one point and it did arrive, finally!

Well, tennis is just not about emotions. What’s the sport without a word on the ever changing looks of players? Sometimes it is a pony tail and at others, it is a close cut – men or women. Andre Agassi and Boris Becker used to sport long hair once upon a time and then one day, Agassi arrived with his head fully shaved and Boris had a neat hair cut! And don’t I distantly remember seeing Martina Navratilova with long hair and then a boy cut? (or am I imagining it?;))

And without a trace of doubt, tennis is a showcase of fashion. The names almost flash immediately – Gabriela Sabatini, Mary Pierce, Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova – these ladies have remained fashion models in every way, prompting sports journalists to turn the sports page lead stories into poetic pieces!

Well, then, there is the darker side to the sport too. Promising stars who unfortunately faded away. Jennifer Capriati, Martina Hingis, Mark Phillippousis, and Monica Seles. Sometimes, life is indeed cruel and unfair.

From some of the finest moments to the heart-wrenching ones, the world of tennis indeed is a journey. A journey in which legends are born and records are created, records that are indeed meant to be broken. Yet, the history makers continue to remain history makers.

And dear Federer, you have just found your place in history. Rock on!

Jasmine memories

It is a quiet Friday morning. Sitting by the window in his bedroom, Sankaran watches the street bustling with activity. Men hurrying to work, children walking to school, and women, busy with their daily chores – some sending off their husbands and children, a few rushing to work themselves, some getting back from the temple. He also sees the old men and women warming up their feet for the day. Even as the world goes on with its life at a hectic pace, Sankaran has very little to do, at least that morning.

“Vasu..” he calls out, “Get me coffee.”

A retired man, sitting in a house that he has proudly called his own in the last 30 years, Sankaran lets his memories take charge – a sort of planned indulgence for the morning.

He recollects the story that saw its beginning almost four decades back.

The year was 1970. The start to Sankaran’s married life had been somewhat reel-life like. He had spotted Vasundhara in his family friend Swami’s wedding. The bride, Neela, was Swami’s classmate. Swami was about eight years younger to him and Sankaran’s mother hadn’t failed to remind him then that it was high time he got married as well. As was his practice in those days, Sankaran had simply kept mum. Marriage had never interested him, till of course he had landed his eyes on that young girl, who had fluttered around in Swami’s wedding.

When Sankaran saw Vasu, he had realized that he desperately wanted to live with the girl, only with her. It was as if some divine hand had pulled the strings of the so-long dormant bell inside his heart. Vasu was dressed in a mango-yellow, green-border silk saree that day. She had worn her thick black hair in a single plait that ran well below her waist, and had decorated it with dense strings of jasmine. Sankaran’s eyes had followed her wherever she went, as she laughed around with a bunch of people – whom he had presumed to be cousins or friends.

Within a week from the wedding, Sankaran had discovered that her name was Vasundara and that she was the daughter of a retired teacher in Triplicane. He had also found out that she was Swami and Neela’s classmate at the Presidency College, Chennai. Exactly a week from the day he had seen her, Sankaran’s mother had met Vasu’s parents, exchanged horoscopes and soon, he had visited her place, for the official girl-seeing.

Vasu’s dad had been exceptionally impressed with Sankaran. After all, he held a masters degree in Physics, a big thing in those days. Add to that, a cozy government job, and who wouldn’t have been impressed?

Sankaran could still remember how his mother had beamed, proud of her son’s choice, when Vasu came around with coffee and snacks. It seemed like she was quietly celebrating the fact that Sankaran’s refusal to marry all those days had indeed been for a good ending.

He had married his dream girl exactly a month from that day. During their first night together, he had been visibly nervous. When Vasu had stepped in, he had felt a strange feeling surge through his body. Her beauty had had that narcotic effect on him. Sankaran had slowly and hesitantly moved his hand to hold hers, but she had quickly withdrawn, looked at him straight and said, “I need time.”

All he had said in reply was, “ok, I understand.”

A voice interrupts Sankaran’s train of thoughts. It is Varshini, his first daughter. “Appa, Coffee.” Sankaran nods. Varshini looks around the room, glances her father’s way and quickly leaves.

Sankaran places the cup of coffee on the wooden table next to the bed. It is his wife’s writing desk – been one for years. A scratch pad is left open and pens and pencils lie scattered around. There is a picture of Vasu and him, smiling gently, feeling totally at ease, framed and placed at the right corner. There are few of Vasu’s books – books of her favorite authors – in the small rack above. He had got that designed for her for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The desk looks a typical writer’s desk. A reflection of his wife’s deepest love, her nature at the very core that she had tried to preserve over the years. After all, she had been a literature student.

Sankaran runs his fingers over the table, they tremble slightly and he breaks into a sweat. The house is quiet. The radio is not on. This is the time Vasu usually visits the temple. But, not that day.

Two weeks back, before leaving for the temple, Vasu had, as was the routine, placed the filter coffee for him in a duvrah tumbler on the table and turned. The next thing Sankaran had heard was a thud and she was on the floor. He had rushed to her side – and grabbed her into his arms. But, the life in her eyes had ebbed out and a glazed look had taken over, as he held her helplessly. Her lips had worn a vague smile and were slightly parted. Perhaps she had wanted to utter Shanka, for one last time.

It was a massive heart attack – the second one in six months.

Slowly, Sankaran gathers himself and walks back to the window.

His wife’s death was the biggest challenge that life had thrown at him. What was he to do - He still had not stopped calling her for coffee. The last few days had indeed been difficult. Her absence had been painful and he had found it almost impossible to cope.

As he absent mindedly sips the coffee, Sankaran recollects how women had always played a crucial role in his life. His dad had passed away when he was too young to even comprehend death; forget that, even distinguish between presence and absence. His mother had been his world, till he had seen Vasu. With his mother still alive and Vasu gone, he had come face to face with the harsh reality of the death of a dear one – try how much ever he could not accept it gracefully.

Sankaran recalls how Vasu was different. She had always enjoyed the company of men. Vasu’s best world had always featured them. In fact, she had agreed to their marriage for the sole reason that her father, her role model, was thoroughly impressed with Sankaran. What’s more – Swami had been her best friend. He had always visited the Sankarans at least twice a week, for their homes were just two streets apart.

Not just that, while Sankaran felt the proudest father after Varshini and Haasini’s birth, Vasu had insisted that she wanted a third child. “I need a son to prank around with,” she had said and her belief had come true. With Sashank, their lives, more importantly hers, had come a full circle.

Sankaran had always felt that his wife’s beauty had a particular boldness and her character, a certain firmness – one that would attract men. Her sharp eyes along with her graceful appearance had always remained a deadly combination.

It was that very boldness that had given her character a defiant touch – the woman who had said a no to his approach in the beginning.



Yet, Sankaran could never forget that one particular night, when they had sat in the balcony, gazing at stars, while Haasini and Varshini slept inside. It was that time he had popped a question.
“Vasu, I had wanted to ask you this when I came to see you at your house for the first time, but we never had the chance to speak.”

She had turned around, a little surprised,
“hmm..what is it?”

“What do you think about marriage?” he had asked matter-of-factly.

Vasu had taken his hand into hers, a rare gesture – and had told him – marriage was about boundless love, unquestioning faith, and accepting each other’s eccentricities as much as their lovable traits. “Marriage is you and me,” she had said.

Sankaran had found her soft nature so wonderful, so refreshingly different from her often bold self. He had even wished she stayed like that always. But, he had quickly dismissed that idea for it was these rare displays of her demure side that had made her real personality all the more beautiful.

Yet, she had transformed, through all those years of their being together. The reason, he had never been sure of. But, Sankaran could remember a few instances, when she had been as tender as she could get. The change had happened slowly in those in-between years of listening to Binaca Geet Mala huddled together(Khilte Hain Gul Yahaan had been their favourite, one that had sparked the first act of love between them), of secretly dancing together for “Unnidam Mayangugiren”(Vasu had taught the shy Sankaran to shake his leg), of becoming parents and feeling responsible for the lives of their children – and till her last day, Sankaran’s sweet gesture of buying jasmine strings for her almost every other day. (Jasmine and her husband’s move used to melt her each time and she had never failed to reveal that to Sankaran by looking straight into his eyes and beaming a divine smile.)



“Sankara..”, someone calls out. It is Swami. He gently puts a hand on Sankaran’s shoulder.
“How are you?”
Sankaran smiles and sighs. Nods.
“When are the kids leaving?”
“Varshini is going to be here for a week with her sons. Haasini is leaving tomorrow for Bangalore. Sashank has to get back to work on Monday. He is flying to Bombay on Sunday. Both of them have told me that they would visit me soon.”

Swami presses Sankaran’s hand.
“I have something for you.”

Swami hands over a white envelope with the words “For Mr.Sankaran” written in bright green ink. “It is from Karthi,” Swami informs him. “He left for the U.S. today morning.”

Sankaran is surprised.
Swami turns to leave. He stops near the door. “Sankara,” he hesitates, “any help please ask me.”

Sankaran raises his hand to acknowledge. He looks at the envelope. Karthikeyan had visited their house three days after Vasu’s death. Swami had introduced him as their – his and Vasu’s classmate at college.

He opens the envelope and finds a few pages clipped together. He immediately recognizes the handwriting. It is Vasu’s.

*****
30th March 2008
Mylapore, Chennai

Karthi,

It’s been 38 years. Yes, I have broken the promise. I asked Swami about you yesterday. I know you didn’t, all these years, which is why I have always been proud of you. You kept your word and that is one of the many reasons why I love the man you are. Wait a while till I tell you why am finally writing to you.

Don’t ironies rule our lives? Remember what our dear friend Swami had said on the day he had wedded our darling Neela? He was so sure that the next wedding would be ours – you and me – Karthikeyan weds Vasundara. Ah, those remained just words. The other irony – the poor fellow had said he would come to the marriage with his son. Those beautiful souls have been so unlucky. They haven’t had a kid and continue to be each other’s child. And the third irony, I have two men in my life – one who did not marry because of me and the other who married because of me.

Life is such a weird experience, you know, Karthi. It wants to keep us on our toes, keep guessing what’s going to come up next. It often tests our ability to stay balanced through happiness and sorrow. Of course, it is an altogether different point that happiness or sorrow is the creation of our mind – essentially a perspective. But, we being what we are, plain human beings, have evolved a boring pattern of seeing things. Something as simple as –when things go our way, we are happy, and when they don’t, we are just that- plain sad. So much so that, we don’t even take an effort look beyond a point and see what we can do to go ahead. But, I have learnt to change myself.

I gather from Swami that you teach Journalism in the U.S. You have lived your dream, haven’t you? But, why didn’t you marry, Karthi? I have to tell you what a beautiful experience it has been – to have a caring husband, to have lovely children. A family can make even the worst of challenges seem conquerable. I really wish you had married. But, knowing you, I understand you made up your mind. I remember the last conversation we had before my marriage. I am indeed delighted you have found your happiness in your profession.

I am sure you think – if you call me the man who doesn’t budge after he makes up his mind, what is she? You are right. After all, I was the one who adamantly made you promise that you wouldn’t ask a word about me to Swami. Looking back, I wonder today, if what I did was right. I mean, I did not breathe a word about this to Shanka. Have I betrayed him by holding back the ghosts of my past? But, what do I do? I was worried that it would lead to unrest in all our lives. Perhaps, I have been selfish too.

I should admit that there have been many times when I had wanted to share it all with him. But, I was afraid, very much, that I would lose the affection of a loving husband. Shanka is a gem, Karthi. He made me realize that you can definitely rediscover love in a new person. I don’t have an iota of regret that I agreed to this marriage. My life indeed feels so complete. We have two daughters and a son, who fill our lives with delight. And then, there are the grandchildren too. But, you never know how certain matters can turn the flow of life.

I am sure you will be happy for me, aren’t you? I am often plagued by guilt that I dramatically altered the course of your life. Pulled you into something that finally never materialized. I perhaps didn’t understand the workings of the society back then. I should have put as much heart into that as I had done in loving you – truly, madly, deeply. I never really understood back then what it meant to belong to an orthodox family, to be a daughter who never went against her father’s words, but still out of a stupid boldness chose to fall in love with a man of another caste.

But, what was I to do? During our days together, I didn’t even know when I fell in love. It just happened and when my dad objected, it was as if my whole world had come to an end. What an irony again, that the same marriage in which we spoke of our wedding, my husband decided that I would be his life partner. What strange patterns fate creates!

But as they say, all is for good. Of late, Shanka seems very worried and I am deeply troubled. Why? Because I have a weak heart – quite ironically, not mentally, but physically. I suffered my first attack (a mild one) a few months back and ever since Shanka has been broken. I know he is smiling for my sake, to keep me happy. I smile too, to make him happy. I am worried Karthi, as to what he would do after the eventual thing happens. No, I am not being pessimistic. It may happen anytime, that’s what the doctors say. But, I am insistent (adamant?) that I will carry out certain aspects of my daily routine even now – like my temple visits and some cooking.

Why I am writing to you is for this. I have a responsibility to complete. I need to tell Shanka everything, before it is too late, but in your presence. I want you to meet him, and I want to tell all that I have told you now to him, while you are there. I know I am asking for a costly help – an unreasonable thing to expect – asking you to come down all the way. But, if you can do it, I will be really happy. It’s been so long, Karthi. I want to see you.

You can write to me or call me or if you still don’t want to do these, at least keep Swami posted of your plans. My house address and phone no. are enclosed.

Love,
Vasu

****

Dear Mr.Sankaran,
Here’s what all that your wife wanted to tell you. I wish we had had a happier get together. I am terribly sorry for what happened to you and it was unfortunate that I had to meet you under these circumstances. I considered it an absolutely wrong time to reveal what Vasu wanted to share, when we met.

The truth is that I received her letter a day before I was scheduled to leave for India for a seminar. But, by the time I had landed in Chennai and tried your number, someone answered the call to give me the bad news. Destiny’s designs, they are so fuzzy. Aren’t they?

Sankaran, I really don’t know what’s running in your mind now. But, I need to tell you this – you are a nice man with a good heart. I gather Vasu was really happy being with you. You made her life truly beautiful.

I wish the days ahead are filled with peace for you, ones in which you go back again and again to those evergreen memories of your days together; ones that make you smile.

And here’s something that would unlock the gates to those memories. It belongs to you.

Regards,
Karthikeyan

****


Sankaran turns the paper and to it is clipped a rare colour photograph of Vasu – in the mango- yellow and green-border saree – taken during Swami’s wedding.

He holds the picture and as he watches, a tear trickles down and wets the photograph. He is perplexed. Should he feel guilty that he snatched Vasu away from the man she had loved? Or should he think why she considered him a stranger to not tell him something from her past? Was he that stiff? He did not know. But, all he knew was that Vasu had grown to love him, through the years.

He walks towards her photograph hanging on the wall and touches the jasmine string adorning it. “Vasu,” he mutters and breaks down, inconsolably.

Some reasons to smile

1) I got a book for a gift after a long time. Gift wrapped and with a card that read "wishing you more reading time!" (How much I need it!)

2) I picked up three notebooks and a set of 12 Staedtler color pens - stationery after ages!(Although it is over four days since I bought the stuff, a warmth fills me up when I look at them even now! Perhaps, it is the warmth of pure joy!)


3) I rediscovered (almost!) two songs from the movie Pavithra yesterday - "Azhagu Nilave" and "Uyirum Neeye" (Looped in Winamp! They melt me each time!)

4) I changed my blog template last week - something that gives me the hope of another new beginning. (Post more regularly?!)

5) I finally put up something of a post - the first one for this year! (Smile, smile! Honestly, I wish I could manage more. I will try!)

Memories of a free period

Remember those days in school? When it is the third hour (or period) after the morning prayers and your strict math teacher with her bossy spectacles and her equally bossy stature walks in and starts explaining algebra in a (well, again!) bossy voice? Ok, for me math was the terror - you replace it with a subject you used to dislike and the picture is pretty much the same!

But wait! The rest of my discussion isn’t going to be about the math teacher! Rather, I intend writing about another scene. Picture this: It's the third period, and you are digging through your bag for the math classwork notebook and textbook. But..but...Lo! A different teacher walks in, quite unexpectedly, and very well to your delight, instead of the numbers woman who rattles your brain! “Substitute teacher” yeah! And so, the moment the other teacher comes in, an irresistible smile escapes your lips! And then, you frantically try to cover it up – smart if you are that is. Or else, if you are one of those “cannot-hold-back emotions” types, you let out an uncontrollable giggle much to the annoyance of the substitute teacher, who would already be fuming at the thought of having to spend her “free hour” in a class filled with devils.

So, that being that, some of the human species that I just mentioned (ah umm, there were quite a few of them at every class that I was in and no, no, I wasn’t one among them!) - even if you had five of them in a class of forty doing that, it would have qualified as a cacophony capable of tilting luck out of favor for the entire class. Here’s how.



Things would have depended on which class you were in. Say you studied in class five. You would have immediately got a “stand up on the bench all of you” punishment and one of the first-benchers would have been sent off to the next section to fetch a wooden scale (After the entire class kept quiet, when asked for a scale!) – of course for receiving a punishing hit on the palm for everyone, including the seemingly innocent ones whose brains would have already started working on a scheduling program as to what to make of the free hour!

Or perhaps the annoyed teacher would have gone to the point of deciding on showering a rain of chalk pieces on the class, the talkative ones being the most targeted!

Here’s another case. Suppose you studied in class ten, and the substitute teacher happened to be a subject teacher, she would have, for all you know, chosen to do some “revision” when she would have earlier decided otherwise - perhaps to let you study for a test that afternoon. Fizzzz…and all your study plans would have gone down the drain!

And that gets me to the next point. Let's assume that the teacher somehow let the class do whatever it felt like. Can you even think of how many different courses of action that each of us would have decided, the moment we realized we had free time in hand? The playful *slash* care-a-damn *slash* branded-irresponsible *slash* cool-headed *slash* freaky and so on types amongst us, would have chosen to play those little games. Like what? Like these – turn to a fresh page of hopefully your rough-book and divide the page into four columns to play the famed “Name Place Animal Thing”. Ok, if you hadn’t been that organized to carry a rough book, it would have been the last page of some “ill-fated” subject notebook, in all probability a subject you hated or the subject of a teacher who was lenient enough to let things pass without examining the last few pages of your notebook during correction.

An associated game – book cricket! I wonder which genius of a child discovered (or invented?) this marvelous discovery (or invention?) of a game! Fetch a book, open a random page, and write down the last digit of the even-number page, which is your score!! I bet there are other versions of this game that have evolved in the thousand different schools across our country!

Probably, the height of delight for the playful young minds such as these would have been when the substitute teacher happened to be the Physical Training or the P.T. teacher. Such kids would have been only itching to run out of the class, after uttering the monotonous “good morning”!

Yeah, playful kids. But, what’s a class without those serious ones? After all, they are the balancing factor in any class! The true darlings of their god-fatherly, god-motherly teachers – the many apples of the school’s eye! And here’s what maybe the branded-geeky *slash* studious *slash* responsible *slash* intellectual and so on types amongst us would have chosen to do.

If we had been in one of those younger classes, we would have chosen to finish off some homework and free up some time. Mind you, no amount of coaxing from friends to play would have deterred these studious minds – even when it was the P.T teacher for a substitute! The literature or knowledge-thirsty ones would even have chosen to get permission to run up to the library and grab a book – literature or science or math or whatever appealed to our brains and devoured it during the period! I remember when I was in class seven, when I luckily got a free hour I spent the period reading through a few chapters of Alexandre Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers” which used to be the “non-detail” syllabus for our English Paper II. (Well, don’t even decide what types I am, there! I have played my share of those intelligent games too!)

But, yes, as we progressed to the higher classes, we probably were left with little or no choice but to sit and prepare for the endless list of tests that popped in front of us everyday, till we gave our board exams!



Yet, whatever type that we might have been, the very memory of a free period unlocks the gates to a treasure house of memories – of the innocent things that we once did, of the many tiny decisions that we took at the snap of a finger, and mind you, with so much ease, of the little nothings in life, and most importantly, of being what one truly was, of enjoying life, of delightfully indulging in whatever we did, with the least sense of guilt. Memories that perhaps become lessons as we work our way through the big adult world today.

Naughty, Naughty, Cutie!!!

Children - they seem to be the theme of this blog these days!!! 'That isn't surprising', you think, don't you? Well, actually it is pure coincidence that this is a kiddo-post too!!!

This blog space has been rusting, literally, thanks to the really tight routine. And of course my son, who is getting all naughty these days! I have left three stories hanging - they have been pleading for attention which, I haven't been able to give thus far. Nothing to regret, but I thought I will at least try and make a comeback to blogging with this sweet pic that a colleague had mailed me recently. It is the sweetest photograph I have seen in many years. Take a look!



Otherwise, hope all is well out there!! :)

Happy Birthday, Blog!

This comes a little late, but this dear blog of mine completed three years on the 1st of february 2008. The past year was not very happening as far as this blog is concerned. But I have realized that one is an avid blogger as long as she comes back to it to share something with passion. At different times, I have seen this blog as a friend, a lover or sometimes even as a daughter. It is a very sweet and different kind of relationship that I have cherished thus far.



I am glad I began blogging at a very important phase of my life. This blog has captured my moods and my ever changing landscape of writing in my various stages - as a post graduate student of journalism, a financial writer in Bombay, an engaged, to-be married woman, a homemaker, a working wife, and now a mother. And, "The Storyteller's Hut" has been a place where I have run into many a day, on a hot summer afternoon or on a rainy evening to tell all that was in my mind.

At this moment, I would like to thank all my visible readers and the silent ones who talk to me through mails and also those who don't talk, for each of their visits to this hut. I would like to say I have enjoyed your presence and look forward to it in the days to come.

I promise stories and some hot tea! :)

Cheers,
Anupama (Viswanathan) Krishnakumar

Many dreams and a promise

Come unto me my little one. I have been waiting for you all these days with anaemic fingers, tapping against each other like warring soldiers; and a breath weighed down with anticipation. How and what do I tell you, my son? Feeling proud has become a habit now. It is intoxicating, it really is, to silently watch you and then swell with pride – at all the things you do – the way you sleep, the way you roll your eyes, the way you smile, the way you hold on to me, the way you just remain what you are, a trait that many of us slowly start to lose as we move away from childhood.

I love holding your little fingers, the five pinkish petals of a tender rose from His garden. No, two little roses. I love running my hand over those soft creases on your hands and legs, the soft folds of flawless skin. I love drawing those neat curves, tracing my fingers over your tiny toes. I love calling you by various names – “Rolly Polly”, “Ingu Pingu”, “Softy Sweety”, “Lofty Softy”, “Chingu Mingu”, “Cutie Sweety” and “Kutty Kanna”. Kutty Kanna, your momma wants to tell you so many things. She just doesn’t know where to begin.

My little boy, there is so much to see in this world and so much to enjoy in life. Trust me, one lifetime isn’t enough! You know what all we can do – so many things. I will just offer you a glimpse of the world we can create for ourselves. These are flights of fantasy that I am making, with the wings of imagination. Very soon, this will be reality, for, you are the key. As you start to toddle, I will share your pride, I will offer you a hug when you walk into me. And soon, we will hold hands and walk together. We will rub noses, share surprise hugs, and exchange tender kisses on our cheeks. We will play little games that you will always win. We will recite nursery rhymes together, when we eat, when we lie down on the bed and whenever we seem to find the time; I will seat you on my lap and we will check out the big rhymes book that Papa has got for you.

And then, we will fly bright, chirpy kites that kiss the blue sky and speak to the sun. We will colour our lives with your red and my green and their many shades. We will discover new colours, explore the big palette and dab on. We will strangle fears to death and burn to ashes, the many negative feelings. We will nurture positive thoughts and build mental toughness. We will laugh our hearts out over the silliest of jokes. We will never miss a light moment and will try not to let a dull one seep in, as much as we can. We will pillow-fight. We will tease your Papa about his snoring. I am sure there will be times when you guys will gang up together. Your Papa is drawing up his own plans for you! And my best guess is that it is a world of games, gizmos, cars, dogs and movies!

For now, I will get going with what I have to share. When you get a little bigger, we will read out favourite passages from the books we read. We will grab sunshine with our hands; we will dance in the rain and waltz together on a moonlit night. We will star gaze on a clear night and go for a quiet jog on a pleasant morning. All the same, my dear, we are humans and we are here to defy the ideal. Let’s admit it. We will have our share of petty fights, and then apologize and embrace each other, only getting closer each time.

What’s more, we will exchange a secret sparkle between our eyes when you get your girl home. My boy, I am here to watch you grow and I will stay by your side, through the crests and troughs of your life. Remember, the silent pride will reside within me, no matter how old you are. I will walk down with you as long as my legs can carry on and then I will hold back and watch, as you advance in age and in your life.



You have come into my world and given it an altogether new meaning. And what do I have but my love and a promise to give in return? I want to make each day of your life special, in some little way and make you feel that this life is truly worth living and that, is this mom’s promise to you.

As I say all this, how much of it do you understand, I wonder! You look at me and beam a toothless smile that melts me to nothingness. You will, my dear, you will very soon understand – the many dreams and a promise of a proud mother.