The Mystery of The Missing Shoe..

“The title may be reminiscent of some old Enid Blyton classic but honestly, I don’t really know how to tell you this story, the way you experienced it or the way we as your parents witnessed the entire episode. It would have been so much better if I had shot a video of your expressions the time when you found your lost treasure but I guess we were so lost at the look of sheer exuberance on your face that we just stood there reveling in your joy. ”

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Dear Riddhie,

Of all habits that you have picked up over last few weeks perhaps the one that we as your parents have been particularly appreciative of, has been your NOT wanting to move around barefoot at all. You bring us your shoes to put them on your feet any time that you are let down from the bed and every time that we plan going out of the house, you are up and ready, dressed or not, with your shoes in your hands, wanting us to help you wear them.  

Though your mother ensured you had multiple pair of footwear to go along, at this moment you are particularly fond of one pair of white and pink sneakers that I had got for you. Maybe you like the shade or perhaps it is some comfort factor but the moment you are asked to go get your shoes, you always return with the same pair.

But as it happened, on one of the weekends when we decided to go out for regular grocery shopping your mom could not locate one of the shoes from your favorite pair. She searched for it in all possible places but still could not trace it. After a long but wasteful hunt she came to the conclusion that it perhaps somehow got mixed with the trash and was thrown out accidently. It was quite a possibility since you loved to rummage through the waste bin and shelves and old newspapers and often mixed your stuff with random things. It was however, difficult explaining the situation to you. You kept bringing us the single shoe that was left and kept pestering us to help you wear it even if you had a different pair on.

We tried looking for a similar pair in the market but I guess as it had to be, an exact same pair could not be sought. And so, every time that we decided to go out some place you would come around carrying the single shoe and look at it with your brown puppy eyes and make whining sounds and your mom would turn the house upside down all over again in a vain attempt to look for the missing shoe.

It seemed that no other pair was good enough for you. We kept taking that single shoe away from your hand and you kept bringing it back to us, putting it over the tables and in your toys and everywhere that you thought was special. Finally, your mom and I decided to take it and throw it away as well and just as we were about to do it, your mom suggested that she would just put it in your clothes cabinet and we could throw it with other things before we moved out of the house for good.

And I guess you should be thankful to her since as she went and opened your cabinet and there, to her surprise, she found the other missing shoe neatly tucked between layers of your clothes. We realized that you were so fond of your shoes that you actually had taken one and kept it safe and tucked it in with your clothes. Maybe you had done it knowingly or perhaps as part of your regular play routine, we couldn’t say. But the moment your mom brought the other shoe out, united the two and brought the pair to you, your eyes sparkled bright and you let out such a cry of delight and heart melting smile that we stood transfixed to our place.

I am sure by the time you read this, most of such little things would have lost their meaning. A piece of candy might not bring you the same cheer as it brings you now but nonetheless I would want you to learn and understand how to segregate between pleasure and happiness. A smile often lasts longer than a laughter so let this little story be a reminder to you that while it is important to seek and pursue things that make you laugh, a lasting smile can only come from the contentment that you feel inside and at times while the former can be easily achieved by spending some money, the latter often requires pushing yourself to your limits and testing yourself time and again. I hope you would know what I intend here, for if you can understand this, I am sure I would see you smiling when you come around and see me now.

 

Love,

Dad.

PS: Just for the records, here is a picture of your first favorite pair of shoes…

Swap The Parents…

“Every generation comes with its own frame of reference that is often interpreted as radically improper to the one before it. Defiance is an old tool that changes hands every generation and I am sure the script would be no different when you grow up…”

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Dear Riddhie,

Looking back at the incident which I am going to narrate now, I would be surprised if you do not grow up to be as brash and rebellious as I had once been. But let me tell you something, swimming against the current slows you down, it also tires you and most often you find yourself being dragged against your will. However, what is important, is to know where you want to be when you get out of the water. Anyway I shall save the lecture for another time and begin narrating the first chapter of your new found free-will with this letter of mine.

It was the Sunday of January 22, 2012 when we stepped out of the house to do our weekly grocery shopping and run a few errands. Your mother dressed you up prim and proper and ensured you were warm enough and well fed. Our destination wasn't really far from the house and before you knew it we arrived at the mall. Like always, you were generally excited with all the lights and glitz and people around and kept throwing smiles at unsuspecting people and we kept hearing random 'awwwwwws' every now and then.

Your mom wanted to check out some clothes and accessories outlet and seeing you all at ease, we decided to take our chances and stepped inside that relatively crowded place. The first 20 minutes went by fantastic - you kept smiling and spent time looking at the display of colors and fabric around and kept to yourself. Your mom in the meantime found a few things she liked and kept trying stuff on as I sat with you outside the try rooms.

However, as time passed, you began running out of patience. You started with low whining and within minutes were crying at the top of your voice. First you wanted to be released from the stroller and just as I did that, you wanted to be out of the store at top speed. The next couple of minutes we spent playing the game of getting you back into the store. I kept running after you to pick you up just as you would step out of the store and carry you back inside and you kept slithering out of my arms to rush outside just as eagerly.

This would have worked fine for some more time if your mom hadn't decided to wrap up her shopping and call me in to check the final selection and of course to pay for the things, which meant that you had to be confined back to your stroller and this certainly did not go too well with you. I am sure everyone in the store had a story to tell when they got a dose of your full vigor, all volume, speaker blasting shrill screams for letting you out of the stroller straps. With no other option to save us further embarrassment, we conceded to your behavior and let you free again. It was a matter of seconds that you made it clear that you did not like it inside and were all ready to run outside again. I am sure by the time we paid up and picked up our bags and stepped out everyone else inside was already praying for us to leave.

The moment we were out, you wanted to take a walk on your own. You shrugged my hand away, pushed your mother's fingers aside and started walking ahead of us, half crying, half irritated, stomping your feet, throwing your arms around and showing us your anger in all possible ways you could express.

Not only this sudden swing in your mood took us by surprise, we were equally shocked to see you wanting to follow your own instinct. However, we were in for a bigger surprise a little later in the day. On our way back I had to make a quick stop at a store to check some travel luggage and having experienced your displeasure on being put in the stroller we decided to just carry you in our arms. As we entered the store and put you down, you decided to run away again.

Your mom asked me to go ahead while she kept an eye over you but you had other ideas. Across the aisle where we stood there stood another couple checking out wares in a show window. You left your mom's hand and walked up to this other couple and started tugging at the trousers of the guy there. Needless to mention that these people were startled as well, but one look at you and they decided to play along a bit. The guy held your hand and you possibly gave her the best of your smiles and then to our sheer shock turned around and waved at us and started saying 'Ta-Ta, Ta-Ta' (your synonym for a bye).

This entire scene perhaps lasted about two minutes. You were unwilling to come back to us and eagerly wanted to go away with your chosen set of new parents. As your mom stepped by to pick you up (Yeah, though tempted, we still did not let you go) you started crying at the top of your voice again. To a bystander, we would have appeared as two 'bachchaa chors' attempting to steal someone else's child.

We did not waste any more time after that and packed you up in the car and drove home immediately. That night as you fell asleep by my side, I kept playing the events of the day gone by in my head and wondered at what would have led you to behave the way you did. I guess more than the shock it was also heart breaking that one of these days you would actually walk ahead, do a 'Ta-Ta-Ta' and move out and then your mom or I won't be able to run after you to pick you up and bring you back.

Well, until that happens...(sigh)...I would savor all I can and enjoy every moment and every new trick that you pick up including all such days where you decide to test our parenting skills.

Love,

Dad.

Driven To The Edge

“The trouble with children is that they are not returnable !!!” - Fyodor Dostoyevski

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Dear Riddhie,

Let me begin by asserting that I do not completely share the sentiments of the quote above but nonetheless over this last week you have been testing our patience so much that I can very well understand what Mr. Fyodor would have gone through when he made the above statement.

I have spoken in detail in my last few letters about how you have been picking up new ‘skills’ and want tear every corner down as soon as you wake up in the morning, but these last couple of days have been really exceptional. I believe you are growing up to be a little brat and for once we as your parents are really clueless about how to contain you and restore some bit of sanity in our lives. 

To top that, your being a little unwell over the week and becoming exceptionally moody is not really helping the cause very much. Despite several reminders, snatching things from your hands and cleaning up the floor multiple times a day, you still manage to lay your hands on some sort of a confection to put in your mouth. It’s been a tiresome week altogether running after you trying to hold onto things that you love throwing to the ground and watching over you so that you don’t trip over something or hurt yourself while trying to slide from the bed or the sofa or anywhere else that you can climb on.

It is surprising as suddenly you are no longer interested in your toys and either want to play with the dishwasher or fiddle with the keyboards of our laptops or simply want to chew on the remote of the TV. Well, I am sure you would agree now that none of this is really an acceptable code of conduct and not something that we could have allowed you to get away with. However, as I key this in, you continue to share your disagreement with us on the subject and have been raising the pitch, frequency and decibels of your protest by varying your tone of shrieking, howling and crying.

Well, young lady I am sure we shall have our confrontations on other subjects (your choice of clothes and my assessment of your friends or pushing you to achieve better goals for yourself perhaps) in years to come and maybe I shall not always be as conceding and submissive as I am to your mischief now but let me tell you this, that I shall never allow you to turn complete rogue and being a total rebellion will never really work on me no matter how big or small our bone of contention might be.

Maybe for now, I concede my total submission to you and accept that I let you get away with all your hoodlum behavior passing it as a cute trick you picked up but you shall learn in days to come, that my sensibilities will press me to take a less softer stand on your antics and you will gradually have to learn to be a little less reckless and more disciplined.

However, as that happens I don’t want you to forget that I love you just as much and that you shall always be my little angel. Let this letter be a reminder to you for all those times when you would want to tell me to mind my own business and would hate me for pushing the limits on you. Till then, let me continue smiling at the way you have been holding onto the sheets and slinging down the bed often landing down on the carpet with a ‘thud’.

Love,

Dad.

38 Stories Re-Visited

“The best thing about future is that it comes one day at a time” - Abraham Lincoln

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Dear Riddhie,

Let me begin by wishing you a very Happy New Year 2012.

It is about 20 minutes to go before the date on the calendar changes in this part of the world and as I key this in, you are already asleep in your bed, tucked in comfortably after a relatively harder day for both you and us as your parents. 

This last day of 2011 began with you waking up in the wee hours of the morning with a not so pleasant health condition. Perhaps it was something that you picked up and stuffed in your mouth yesterday that possibly gave you a minor stomach infection or perhaps a plain seasonal thing but you had both your mom and me awake since 2 am this morning worrying and fretting about you until earlier in the day. We spent this entire day indoors spending time with you and seeing that you get back in shape hale and hearty to welcome the year ahead. I hope that the day tomorrow dawns upon us with your bright sunshine smile and continues in the same light.

As I look back upon the year that passed us by, I reflect upon the 38 different stories (not counting this one) I could key in during this year 2011. I did write an account of how I saw the year gone by from my perspective in a separate post on my blog (Read Here, if you feel like) but this one is just about summing it up for you.

If January was about me reveling in my re-discovering simple joys in life and basking in the glory of perpetual wonder that you are to me, it was also the month of you experiencing the first tremor of your life and while I could not account for much except for my love for bikes and you in the month of February, I kind of did well during the next few weeks when I wrote one of my finest letters to you. Over the course of next few days I wrote in an account of how you developed a tender fondness for your fingers and your first experience at the big fat Indian wedding as well as your first Holi. During this time I guess we, as your parents saw you with same wonder as you saw the world with your big brown eyes.

The next two months saw me make use of my spare time overseas to make short accounts of your special moments (when India won the World Cup) and your newly acquired likes and habits (Ek Onkaar, Table Licking, Getting Hands On). By June I was pining for you and waiting to be back from my overseas trip however, I had a heartbreak of sorts once I returned and saw you after a gap of five weeks. You had totally forgotten me and no matter how much I tried winning you back with your bouncing babbles, you just would not stop crying.

 

The month of July saw me make frantic efforts to get your passports and visas done and almost everything that I wrote during that month could be posted only by August which saw me record as many as nine stories from that period. We began with a nice evening dip in a water park and then there were accounts of your embassy adventure and your first trip overseas followed by your experiences here in the US.

As time moved along, we celebrated your first birthday in our own little way here. I got you your first birthday present and I guess this would be one thing that you would see as long as I live :) We also recorded you taking your first steps and saw you pick new habits and traits over time. There were changes in your sleeping pattern and then as you gained better control of your motor functions, the world became your playground and we began seeing an altogether different version of you. This new Riddhie as I know right now is a restless child unwilling to sit at one place and forever up to a mischief.

Well, needless to say but, I am loving every moment of fatherhood thus far and all your antics and tricks that you have picked up till date. I can safely say that 2011 overall had been a good year and I just hope that the coming year treats us just as good, if not better.

So, here’s wishing you a very Happy New Year 2012 again. Hope that we keep making strides forward together and you continue filling colors in my rainbows.

Love,

Dad.

PS: Collage below was done by your Mom :)

Mission Impossible: The Baby Protocol

Two days, two movie buffs, one multiplex and one restless baby – Mission Accomplished: The new baby protocol established…

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Dear Riddhie,

 

I am sure over a period of time you would have realized that I am a little more than an average cinema patron and movies do make up for a very large part of my entertainment. I guess I inherited this love for motion pictures from your grandfather and maybe some of it would rub on to you as well. I can’t tell for sure as of now, but let’s see if this is the case to be. For now, let me tell you about your initial few movies with the focus mainly on the experience yesterday and today.

 

Let me begin with some history here. Your mom and I had gone to watch Salman Khan starrer ‘Dabangg’ when she was carrying you (a little over 8 months then) and the next movie that we could watch in a theater after Dabangg was ‘Delhi Belly’ and that was when you were already over 7 months old. In fact we followed it back to back with Mr. Bachchan’s ‘Buddha hoga tera baap’, the same day. I wouldn’t say that this was the right cinema for you to open your movie watching innings but nonetheless that’s how you were initiated. 

 

The next few months were mostly spent travelling, adjusting to life in US and watching you grow from a gentle infant to a tornado toddler and it wasn’t until Christmas 2011 that we could plan another movie together. We zeroed on ‘Mission Impossible IV – The Ghost Protocol’ and made to the theater with you in our lap.

 

I guess the occasion was right and I perhaps could not have timed or planned it better. Since it was Christmas, most of the seats in the theater were empty which meant that you could have an entire row to yourself to walk, crawl and play around if you wanted to.

I must admit that you were intrigued by the large screen and the sound system and (to my surprise actually) sat on your mother’s lap looking intently at what was going on for first half hour. However, as the time progressed you wanted to get down and move about a bit and since we were the only ones sitting in an entire block of seats, we let you down. I got up and sat next to you on the flight of stairs in a corner and we perhaps spent the next 30 – 40 minutes like that.

 

We could keep you busy with your little snacks and milk at random but I guess it was almost time when your patience ran out. Just about the moment when desert storm kicked in on Tom Cruise (watch the movie and you will know) you got absolutely restless and threw off your cookies and milk bottle as far as you could and began crying. The slow sniffle transformed into loud screams and eventually a Dolby level bawl. Within seconds, you made it clear to us that it isn’t the ghost protocol but the baby’s code of conduct which matters.

Thus, began our own little mission impossible. We rocked you, I let you throw my mobile a few times, your mom kept bribing you with some candy and nuts and I took you for a little walk along the stairs as well. But all this could just about last until the final action sequence and eventually your mom did make the sacrifice and picked you up and walked out of the theater to help you settle in. I joined her a few minutes later and as I key this in, I still do not know how the film ended. (Maybe I shall watch it with you again some time) Maybe we were asking too much from you. You are still about 14 months and 3 weeks old and this is perhaps as reasonable a 14 month old can be. 

However, we did not let the matter rest here. Having seen a fair success with you on MI IV (well we could together almost watch 80 – 90 % of the total length of the movie) we decided to push our luck again. The movie this time was the 3D version of Farhan Akhtar’s Don II. As I thought, there were limited people in the audience and the theater again was largely empty and we could find ourselves an entire row empty again. But then as it turned out, you probably liked Tom Cruise better than our Shah Rukh Khan and you were at your restless best within first 15 minutes itself. You wanted to snatch the 3D glasses and wanted to move about just everywhere.

This time around, however your mom decided to battle it out. I guess her confidence was augmented by the fact that it was all Indian population inside the theater and she kind of presumed that the Indian ‘Chalta Hai’ attitude was globally applicable. She took you to the farthest secluded corner and let you move about, as you pleased. You did not let her keep her glasses on for more than a minute at any given time and I am guessing she kind of watched the fuzzed 2D version of a 3D rendition. By the time it was intermission, your mom was nearing her breakpoint. I stepped in when you became almost too violent for her to handle.

I guess I could grab your attention and settle you down for a little while but it wasn’t long before you wanted to be free again. Your mom tried bribing you with some fruit loops but then I guess little children can be greedy pigs once in a while. You stuffed a handful in your mouth and before we realized you were choking on a piece right in the theater. Your mom thumped you on the back and you were settled after puking all over me. While this entire thing lasted only a few seconds, I could smell the stink on my jacket even hours later. Funnily enough, you were all calm and ready to sleep just as about the movie was ending.

I am sure in years to come there would be instances when you would drag us to a movie that you would want to watch and then there perhaps would be a time when you would want to go and catch a movie and not want me or your mom to tag along. I generally would not want to dissuade you from cinema for everyone needs their share of imagination and a break from reality. I would however, want you to self-regulate what you watch for it does affect the way you think and dream.

So, maybe from the time that the moving silver screen starts making sense to you till the time that you are grown up enough to know what you should be watching, I promise to be your man to pick those movies for you. Hope we enjoy them together and carry on our little film club.

 

Love,

Dad.