After a long time and i had to be reminded

Dear Son,
 Its has probably been years since i wrote to u. Please accept my apologies as i sincerely regret it. There was so much i wanted to document but i guess the effort always evaded me. But here i am today and that is thanks to you Dadaji who has insisted that i maintain a diary for you, on an everyday basis, recording something you have done on that day. He promises this will be great help to you when you grown up and in your growing up.

I wanted to do the same but could not. here i"m trying again and hope it will last this time. You are three years and seven months old now. You have joined school, intact its your third school. Your first school was in Berhampur, where you went only for 2 days. that was called "Mother's Care
". It belonged to a Punjabi Sikh couple who had long migrated to the city and had a successful business. The school was the wife's idea since her kids had grown up and gone their way. It used to take us 45 mins to get to the school from our residence in Chatrapur, and you were not even 2 yrs old by then. And you would stay there only if i stood outside your class the whole time.

Anyway, Nitin got transferred to Bhubaneswar and we shifted to a new city, new house, new school for u. We stayed in the guest house for 2 months as we could not get the house we wanted allotted to us (some powerful ministers and officers were also trying hard to get it). But ur daddy succeeded and we got our Bhubaneswar bungalow. It was painful leaving Chatrapur, specially our staff there. Infact Tikki and Praful stayed with us for almost 3 months but ultimately had to go back. Getting you to let go Praful, your Bira, was the toughest. With him around, you did not even need me.

As earlier, here also we had an army of servants just for u. You always had at least two attendants. But, unfortunately, we did not like their handling of you, how much ever we tried to tell then, and ultimately most of them were thrown out. Now after one and half year, you are all by yourself, except for one attendant in the evening (your Subhash bhaiya). Proud of you. This is what i like about you, you have a natural talent to cope up with situations and never complain. You are the most understanding young man.

You joined a pre school, Hello Kids, while we were staying in the guest house. Initially you were all right with it but i don't really know what happened and you started refusing to go to school. Being liberal parents, we never forced you, except for a few times when i thought that maybe you are not going because we are not being firm with you and you might be taking advantage. But i was so wrong and i will explain that later. I had put you in that school at the recommendation of your Namrita aunty, as she had sent her daughter Mehr to that school for summer camp and they thought very highly of it. after confirming with the teacher and the owner of the school that i do not want you to be pushed to learn anything, so no tests, no homework and exams at all, we had got you admission there. But i guess they did not tell me everything about their curriculum clearly because soon you started getting homework, then your test schedule started coming and then there were final exams. For the record, i never made you do any of that. i told the teacher you would not be coming for the tests and exams as i did not approve of a 2 yr old being subjected to this thinking and that the concept of homework was ridiculous since i was sending you to school to develop your social skills and make friends and enjoy not to make you a factory worker (so to speak). She couldn't really refute my arguments and hence you got a nice little certificate of merit from the school.

catching up

Dear Kabir

It was 6th of Nov 2012, and karvachuth was being celebrated across India, mostly North India. I had not kept the fast, as you know how anti ritualistic both me and your father are, but i did dress up in my most beautiful gold and deep maroon Kanchivaram saree and your father took us out for dinner to Oberoi Trident.

By now you are 3 yrs and 7 months old and you order for yourself. Though you cannot read you make a huge show of choosing from the menu, which is always held upside down, and always order french fries or chicken (just chicken, not any specific dish and we elaborate further for the ease of the waiter) with lemon Ice tea and i have to add without the ice for u (just for the winters). You are just adorable with your perfect table manners and your absolute gentlemanly behavior. Trust me, i'm only wishing there. In reality u cannot sit still for more than 5 sec. The cutlery is always clattering on the plates and the water is spilling and one moment you want to sit on the baby chair and next moment you want to be taken down and run about. Thats why we always have an attendant only for you.

As always you were off with your Reddy bhaiya after you had finished your bun with butter and your grandfather called on your fathers mobile. He wanted to speak to u but you could not be made to do that which he understood. To make up i told him of all your recent activities including your joining dance classes with your friend Yuvraj. He was very proud of you and suggested to me that i should maintain a diary of yours and note down everyday everything you did on that day. A small exercise he wanted to entrust me with and not his son but he also added that its not a compulsion, just a suggestion as he thought it would help you a lot in your future when you would read it, to understand yourself. That is the greatness of your grandfather, to inspire people to do good. It immediately reminded me of this blog which i had started for the same purpose and i was once again overcome with guilt for not keeping up with my own wishes. Just then you came and did the most amazing thing, which reminded me how important it is to document and preserve these moments because they are so you and will always remind all of us what was your thought process when you were growing up and what made you what you will be as a grown up man, our future.

While playing you had bumped into Sehaj and Rehat, two sardar kids, much elder to you and the only way you could describe them was what you wanted to share with me....so you came running to me and announced at the top of your voice "mumma yahan pe na tine bade yuvraj hai" (mumma there are big yuvraj here)...