I turned 44 some days back but for you I turned 4 this year!
And there’s a very Rheya- kind of reason for it – it just so happened that you decided to pick a pair of number 4 candles for me. We got to the restaurant and before I could cut the cake, you were showing off the candles to your friends when one of the 4s dropped in the gap between the sofas – never to be retrieved. So, I cut a cake that was declaring me to be four again. Since then, whenever there is mention of my age, that’s what you end up talking about. “Remember, you are four years old now?”
We had a nice and busy summer this year. We went camping with all your classmates and their families. It ended up being a pleasant experience. We had to leave the same day as your summer concert so while you were busy in school preparing for this concert for months, your mom and I were busy doing a lot of shopping and preparations for the camping trip for an even longer time. Researching, buying testing out all kinds of camping kit that I never thought I would be into in this lifetime.
Camping turned out to be real good fun and I think it ranks amongst the most favourite of your holiday experiences so far. Your friends and you played day in and day out, running into each other’s tents, sharing meals and playing all sorts of games. In the evenings, we sat around a bon fire and while the parents chatted, all of you children had roasted marshmallows, ran around with flashlights on your foreheads and were just living up with merriment in the air.
One of your everlasting fun memories is of all of the girls taking turns to ‘try out’ our little portable toilet behind our car. 3 months later, you still remember the exact details of who started it all and how many times each of the girls ‘went’ on it. It was a big laughing point then and you still find it very funny, with some measure of pride in that it was our kit that was the star attraction.
That weekend was Tilly’s birthday and they had arranged for an entertainer to come along the second day of our stay. I missed out some part of the fun as I had to work for a bit but everyone enjoyed it a lot, making some more great memories.
The same day, all of us walked over to Corfe castle. Seemed like just a leisurely walk at that time but that’s the kind of stuff that usually makes fond memories. We sat in a pub and after our lunch all you girls sat doing some art work at a separate table. Slowly like a flock of sparrows, all of you started singing, just an impromptu repeat performance of your concert songs from a couple of days back. All of you, just doing your colouring, drawing and singing in unison. It was a scene that defines the phrase ‘just having fun’ in fictional books and innumerable movies but yet that day I witnessed it for the very first time ‘for real’ (one of your favourite phrases). There were some bikers and other families around who were just as mesmer-mused (a combination of mesmerised and amused - I just made it up and posted on urban dictionary ) as all of us parents.
Not only was it a first camping experience for us, it was by far the longest time your mom and I got to spend in the company of non-Indian families. There was a lot of bonhomie and good times were had. If anyone, I would have been the one who felt most awkward in myself in not being able to open up to the group as a whole. But I think I still did well by my personal standards in that I had good discussions with most of the parents individually or as a family.
Dear daughter,
You have been 6 for a few months now and gradually its sinking in – you are growing up. As in really coming to be a person who is fully observant, impressionable, capable of forming and holding an opinion based on whatever you are told and made to believe. There have been times when you mention having heard a version of something that is clearly not correct but often too complicated for a 6 year old. Like you came back one day when someone had told you that “your parents can never understand you“
And I wondered, what would be the better option- to just tell you that it’s not true and to leave it for further growing up to sort it out in good time or to try and explain the whole point then and there?
I am still surprised at every new phrase or big word that you throw in to your conversations. Just recently you said something like “so what if we forgot? It’s not the end of the world that we forgot”.
Your mom and I exchanged glances with a slight smile, wondering how our own little world is big enough now to comprehend an ‘end of the world’ scenario at this age?
Being around a rapidly growing little person also means I am often jostling with my own thoughts on my responsibilities towards your growing up needs. Should I be extra vigilant of what you get to see, hear and witness – lest it leave an impression that is hard to shake off for the rest of your life?
But on the contrary isn’t that what is supposed to happen anyway – you going through your own life and getting enough sensibility from us to know the right from wrong?
After all, you don’t need to be a copy of me or your mom. Just one of me is enough torture for this world !
In reality, come what may, you will be a person of your own shape and dimensions, moulded by the experiences in your life. The care from me and rest of your family could be the framework, a structure that could provide you with the inner strength to deal with all challenges that come your way.
The inherent insecurity that drove me to write to a future version of you was that in case you lost me and had no clue of how I was as a person. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where that insecurity came in me from. You are now already at an age that you would remember my existence and hopefully the conversations we have.
I am already having real discussions with you in real life. We talk about attitudes and happiness, what you like and what I like. Needless to say, these are discussions suited to a 6 year you and not necessarily profound life lessons at face value. But I do hope that in time to come they do tell you enough about me. They definitely tell me a lot about you and the macro growing up that you have been going through while we’ve been going through our day to day lives.
More on these later.
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