Kay

Tom Sawyer moments

Daughter Diaries, , , , , , ,

I have something called a Tom Sawyer moment. Amongst my childhood heroes, Tom Sawyer is one heck of a kick ass dude. His successes with Becky Thatcher aside, his ingenuity to get a group of friends whitewash the fence was jaw-dropping awesome as a kid. It remains jaw-dropping AWESOME as an adult with a paycheck.

For ages I have hankered for a Tom Sawyer moment in my life. A moment when what got handed out as a punishment morphs into something quite different. A happy time when a lofty proposition is made loftier and transformed into a fun happy time.

A few weeks ago after some insane amount of peering into monitors and hammering away at the keyboard, the missus sentenced me with the responsibility of taking care of the little miss. When it became clear that I perhaps would end up enjoying it all, she threw in another angle. There would be two other kids that might join in.

Without much ado, we got working. The girls had to first scamper around and collect as many dry leaves as could be found in the garden. Then for strewn flowers. It took them an effort but they had a whale of a time. After which, came the task of arranging it all for display.

 

flower

Their hands were a dark shade of brown. The colour of the soil with assorted grime that came about by heckling the wind and peddling joy. When playtime neared its end everyone was happy. The mommies were happy that their tasks were behind them. The morose gardener let loose a rare smile and a good word to the girls to see most of his cleaning done.

As for me, my Tom Sawyer moment had arrived. The girls have said they want to do it again and one of them put it in simple terms. “Uncle, I will share my lollipop with you”

Plus, the little miss was one proud bundle. ‘My daddy’ she said. The moments that stay in memory are the unannounced and silly times. They whizz by. Slow down, put out your hands and watch them fall into your life.

Life teaches everyday. If only we care to listen.

 

Tom sawyer 1

New runners for new tracks

Daughter Diaries, ,

‘Lets tickle the sky’ papa she says. I look up from the book that nestles in my hand. I smile. I wonder where she picked that up from. I put the book away and ask, ‘How do you do that?’ Am genuinely curious.

She doesn’t wait for me. She throws her three year old hands into the air and jiggles her tiny fingers looking up into the sky. I break into a smile and do the same. She smiles. We both laugh. She laughs because she is happy. I laugh with a singular knowledge that everything that needs to be accomplished in the world is done. For if you could tickle the sky, of all things, well, nothing else remains.

‘She jumps on a whim these days’, I tell the missus over a sepulchral coffee. “Tomorrow is her sports day. I hope you remember”, she says. Silence ensues. Her silence is her way of letting me know that I am not as involved as I ought to be.

“Of course”, I say. “Its on my calendar”. After a reasonably pronounced sip of chaste filter coffee, she adds, ‘well she has grown taller’. I want to say ‘I noticed’, but then bite my lip. Some lessons stay. I bite my lip harder. A mute testimony to my growing up.

The little miss doesn’t care about the silly thoughts that run aground our minds, as she jumps of the sofa with an alacrity of a Kangaroo. “Kang-a-loo” she yells. She still cant get the ‘r’. Landing a stingy meter short of the spot where the the settee begins. The missus gasps every time the little ‘Kanga-al-looo’ takes off.

The sports day arrives with nonchalant ease. I finish up as much of the work that I can. As early as I can and land up at the venue. With a nervous twitch of the finger I switch off the phone and look around to see where the little miss is and what all she is upto. From afar, I spot her. Playing with her friends. I smile. I climb on to what seems to be a ledge of sorts and strain my neck to get a better view.

Track

The teachers and staff at her school put up a stellar show. To handle one toddler is a sapping experience for me. To handle a hundred or so, must sure be an ask. But they do a super job. But as sapping it is, the fulfillment at the end of the day is an indescribably happy feeling. A sudden feeling of envy creeps out and weaves itself around the teachers. As they run, jump and lead the toddlers. Smiles hold steady sway over the December morning.

The little miss first is part of an aerobic dance. A dance that is imperfect in synchrony but is enough to set the hearts of all parents gathered there afire. The imperfection is a joy to behold. As wobbly hands and toddler legs balance slender torsos aiming to catch the beat of a catchy song. The little miss is right at the centre. We look at each other. Me and the missus. And smile. No words are spoken.

I rush to another part of the gallery. Whipping out the ipad to record her first performance before an audience. A joyous rush gets the heart to beat faster. I shoot a video. The aerobic dance is over as quickly as it began. So it seems. When you know that you wish for the event to linger for longer, you realise its tugged your heart. Today the gluttonous seeking of happiness remains unsatiated. For, soon its time to go home.

A few hours later. I call up my mom. I speak rather calmly. I try to. So I think. I tell her about the exploits of her grand daughter at her first sports day. A public performance. Plus, two races ‘won’. She speaks with joy. And has a volley of questions about the event. After hearing them all, she says, ‘its like yesterday that I came to YOUR first sports day. How time flies”. Silence engulfs the airwaves. She breaks the silence in a bit. “Do you have pictures?”

“I am uploading a video ma. You can stream it soon” I say. As a tiny trickle sits on the ledge of the eye, threatening to stream down my cheek. Its a wholesome melancholic mixture. Of missing. Of longing. Of celebration. Of hope. Of the future with the past in tow. Or maybe its about the past with the future etching its presence. She often tells us ‘Life is a relay’ with a straight face and sane voice. ‘Me and dad have run our part. The baton is in your hands now’.

I strike the upload button with vigour. Am sure as the video streams down from the cloud, it will make her day. Stuff from an unseen cloud will tickle the sky. Her sky.

There are new runners emerging in the family. New runners for new tracks.

—

Open palms

Daughter Diaries,

The little miss is under the weather. ‘Nothing serious’, the good doctor said as he wrote his medicines.   The weather itself has been overcast and hesitant. I don’t take to such stuff well. The hesitant overcast skies or the suffering miss.  Give me the piercing Sun or the pouring rain. Maybe even the angry winds. The indecisive in-betweens that are neither here nor there, aren’t nice. A strange low envelopes me and even my usual panacea, the good old coffee and conversation, doesn’t do much today.

I wonder how it is with you, but I have a habit. When the bad times strike as they often do, after doing all that I can do about them, I take a quick flight to into the past that brought a smile, via objects. Like a memento carelessly bought on the sidelines of a conference.  Or rereading a book and relishing the  careless scribble on the margins, far too much more than what the author and the publisher would have liked. That’s what I do usually. But today I reach for my phone and scan through some pictures.  Pictures evoke not just a memory but a range of emotions that are entrancing. An indescribable assortment of photographs inevitably triggers a spectrum of emotions.

The goat

In a few moments the screen of my phone fills up with pictures of the little miss. Pictures from various times. Like the time that she was a cuddly little thing. Or when she clambered on to the first car seat.  The first tentative touch of a goat. Then comes the picture of her open palms.  Ah, the open palms! That was some story.

The picture lingers on the screen. As the screen stays filled with her open palms, it inevitably stubs out the frown and a smile that seemed singularly impossible, sneaks onto the face. Almost like a Pavlovian auto response. My memory races to snatch those moments from nowhere and gives it a rebirth of sorts.

It was a while ago. I recall standing at the window, staring into the overcast skies, phone affixed to the ear. Struggling to listen keenly. My playtime with the little miss interrupted by a phone call from work, that I couldn’t ignore. The travails of work struck when the little miss and me were attempting to shade the big cat that we drew on the whiteboard.

The call sucked my attention and my eyes stayed affixed to the clouds and the phone firmly glued to my ear, as the conversation lingered. In a short while I hung up and continued staring into the clouds. A deep searching stare. Thinking about the just ended conversation. Searching for answers to questions that can’t be asked here, for there aren’t any convincing answers.

It was a shriek from the missus that shook me out of the sepulchral trance.

Now, imagine opening the familiar bread basket in a famished state, hoping to find finely buttered bread and instead finding a big thick black scorpion that was poised to sting you. Would you not let go of a scream? I would. That is the kind of scream that the missus unleashed.  It is a different matter though that vagaries of a wandering cockroach or a lazy crawl of a lizard for that matter, get the missus to have violent goosebumps that would cause you to think she was practising Kathakali. But this scream, even by her usual standards was something. Something was clearly amiss.

I rushed to find them frozen. She and the little miss. The missus standing. With hands covering her ears, eyes firmly shut, as she typically does when the extremes confront her. The little miss, frozen in surprise, looking at the missus. I looked at both of them, a lost traveller desperately seeking clues to the old road.

‘Look at her hand’ she says.

 Hands

I was on the phone for precisely two minutes and thirty three seconds. When I closed the call, the phone had announced that. Add another thirty seconds for that silly trance. But that was all it took for the little miss to train the whiteboard marker on to her palms. Both palms. With ambidextrous efficacy that would give Sourav Ganguly goosebumps.

In a fleeting set of seconds, there was a striking resolve to teach her some lessons. Enough was enough. Residual silliness from the call, plus the missus standing there with her striking classical pose all got me particularly wound up further. Heavy breaths announced anger’s grand arrival in me.

I had to raise my voice and speak about it all. ‘In a stern voice’, I reminded myself. After all, she has to know about the ill effects of these board markers. It was really going to hurt her as I would have to empty half a bottle of hand wash in scrubbing everything off.  Plus it was going to be intense effort.

As I was about to make my debut in launching a ‘stern voice’ at her, the little miss looked up at me, opened her palms, put on display the lavishness of the black whiteboard marker’s effectiveness,  topped it all with a smile dripping genuine happiness asked, ‘Pappa, Nice?’

If there was a better example of a magical transformation, it doesn’t exist.  The little devil dismissed my silly frown with two magical words. But no, its wrong to call it magic. A magician does tricks. This was no trick. This was no illusion.

My anger melted like a flake of snow, dismissed in careless abandon by a flame from the bonfire. My sermon on the ill effects of the board markers will have to wait for another time. I scooped up the little miss from the floor. She smiled, put her hands on proud display and asked yet again, ‘Pappa, Nice?’

‘Very nice’. I said. There was nothing else to say. There really was nothing else to say.

I looked up at the missus. Her hands were still on her ears. Her eyes stayed shut. For a couple of moments, silence got an accented presence in our house. This topic was sure to return.  That’s a story I’ll tell you some other time with some stiff coffee and if you promise to pass around the smiles for company.

‘Lets go’. I remember telling the little miss in a hoarse whisper.. Amidst laugher and giggles we ran to the bathroom where the hand wash awaited us with a bristling drip.

Ah! Memories. They lift the mood.