Entry to Fatherhood

                                                     

They say by the time you understand your father was right you already have a son who thinks you are wrong. I don't know how true this will be. Well it sounded very strange that I have become a father. It took me time to adjust to both being called a father and also feel like a father. Unlike popular opinion I didn't have instant bonding with my kids.There were no tears welled up when I saw my son for the first time and held him in my hand. You can think of it as abnormal but for me it takes time to bond. When he was a day old I had to take him from the hospital ward to a floor below to a pediatrician to get him his first vaccination. Those 2-3 minutes when I was carrying him I started to change a bit. I was really nervous while holding him. One wrong move and I may cause damage to my then unnamed child. He was covered in clothes and winter clothing. But to add to the agony the doctor told me to unwrap him as we need to give him injection on his shoulder. Ohh that sight!! He was so small when I removed the winter clothing. Those tiny limbs and incessant cries. I got scared for a moment. Again I had to carry him for checking his weight. It was such a tense moment for me that one wrong grip and I might end up breaking or dislocating the bones of my son.Those 5 minutes were eternity to me. But they added a spark of bond between us which will grow to unlimited affection and care. I became comfortable holding my child and the barriers of hesitation, discomfort and trepidation were broken.

Now my son is 6 months old and it will not be me or my wife solely who will shape his personality. It will also be the society, the neighborhood, the media and the dear ones who will mold him. Keeping the discussion of his personality aside and lets see how much fatherhood changes a person. My whole life I was the youngest in my family who was the most taken care of. I used to be the one who had the liberty to be careless, to forget things, to fail(not always) and to be irresponsible sometimes. Nowadays it seems a long drawn struggle to have kids but back in the 80s and mid 90s it was normal in an Indian household to have 4-5 kids. The DINKS culture(Double Income and No kids) was not the "in" thing then. It means you could be the youngest one and not the only one in your family. You had the liberty of having siblings. More kids may bring abject poverty to a house but you never feel that.

The elders treat their younger one like kids and take care of them and prevent them from the might of parents in bad times. I was grown up in this kind of atmosphere where my sisters used to feed food to me from their plates if I was hungry. The absence of wealth somehow always unites people. But when you are in that time you don't feel the poverty. Only in hindsight you realize what struggle it must be for your father to feed a family of 6 with a meager salary.Yours and your father's generation is only separated by inflation. One of my seniors once told me now my daughter is a teenager and big enough to spend on her own, we are like ATMs for her. If I remember me or my sisters were not raised with "greed and grow" culture. My parents never had to bribe me to study. When you study in a school with fees of Rs 15 pm you don't have to apply rocket science to think of your family income. To a certain extent and at the risk of generalization and tad glorification my generation had a full idea of what money was and how hard it is to earn when you are seeing single earning parents.

This is not a struggle story of my generation. The above context was set to explain the conflict today's parents are undergoing and will be into. When I myself will order cold coffee twice a week or eat outside every weekend or a casual burger every other day how will my kid will understand the value of earning or saving? In the garb of giving a comfortable life to my kid I will end up spoiling him and by the time I realize he will be in his teenage and treating me and my wife like ATMs. This is only the financial aspect of parenting and I always feel financial problems are the easiest problem and blessing in disguise. As those problems will motivate you to yearn for more. Bigger problems of parenting which still give me chills upon contemplating are shaping his personality, teaching him etiquette, public presentation, becoming the best version of myself.

This is a 24X7 job and you can't relax. The notion I will be true to myself and behave who I am will not work. if you wake up at 12PM you are not entitled to scold your kid for waking up late. If you are inebriated every weekend your kid will not think twice before having his first drink at a tender age. Yes, tender age. When you are laughing your ass off on obscene jokes watching your favorite stand up comic you can't preach to your kid to have morals and discourage obscenities. If you do that one day or another he will call out your hypocrisy. You can't call your friends and be abusive in front of him. Kids just follow us. These are just some of the trivial things that came on top of my mind as I started to think of parenting. When I look back I feel so good how wonderful my parents were that I never felt the compulsion to resort to abuse to stamp my authority in a discussion or on a person. I never had to go mad about making money to attain happiness. Though parents never come up with a manual that this is how kids should be raised, they definitely provide a good ecosystem. Things just rub to you.

My parents never had to preach me good values or good code of conduct or behaving with women nicely. They lived those teachings. They imbibed in them. I only needed to follow their behavior. I had to just be their replica. They never taught me to read Ramayan or Mahabharat or watch spiritual shows to attain sanskaras. It was just that good content was being telecasted when I used to watch TV or read books or comics. Their actions spoke louder than their words. I don't know if I will be a parent like them or I can be a good parent. But one thing is certain that fatherhood or parenthood changes a person completely. I will make an earnest attempt to replicate my parents or if there is some other way in raising a good child I will do my best to follow that.

Office Friends

Sometimes we work to pay our bills sometimes we work because we love to

Sometimes we work to prove our self to others, sometimes situations arises so we have to

In this beautiful journey ,colleagues come and go and make the ride interesting

Sometime they learn from us sometime we learn from them else our mind would be rusting

To chirp more we used to wait for the mail of sweets at my desk,

the heart used to get lighter by those gossips at coffee table,

The smile in the face of ever working housekeeping staff gave us a lot of strength,

Magic was woven as friends were made effortlessly at TT table

We danced together during the festive mood of garba day,

We pulled each other's legs for the ill-fitting kurta on ethnic day

All woke up early to prepare the delicacies,

the day got better with delicious food at potluck

How we enjoyed the extended lunch,

how we developed memories with funny incidents at Starbucks

All these memories make the office a place we wait Monday for,

A place we learn, we earn, we grow, it is not a desk with a laptop but much more

Welcome to the little baby

In the middle of a winter February day,
After lots of dreams and tons of pray,

Comes the moment that gives everybody a big joy,
It took longer than usual, but such was the God's ploy,

Amidst the silent life of didi and jiju, was added some rhythm,
After years of wait a beautiful angel has come

Tears of joy rolled downed the cheeks,
On seeing the bundle of joy who made us wait for weeks,

There is some magic in the month of February,
Another doll has arrived to give Aanya and Sara some company,

The jubilation of didi and Jiju can never be estimated,
Unless you have experienced a feeling long awaited,

In the new home of didi and Jiju, the little Goddess will enter,
No matter how busy we may be, but you will always be at the center,

A father who rides on bike and cars will become a horse for you,
Because your cuteness will entice us to keep loving you.

Your mama has only this much to write for you,
But the love and affection will never finish for you.

Warmth of Love

Love is not a painting on a lifeless canvas that fades away,
It is a priceless elixir of life, which you long to stay

Cometh the troubled time and let it bring all it can,
The bonding with my love will show why it all began

Its not about creased bed sheets, taste of the lips or the shapely navel,
A peck on the forehead, a tea prepared with affection, a slight wink can also do because its not always external

Fun sides are often less spoken and not discussed much,
Those parts are heavily subsided and not narrated as such,

The mini battles of who is dumber are rejoiced a lot,
The moments of frivolous banters and constant nagging can never be bought

Success of the relation is not defined by the years of stay;
It is measured by the memorable moments we created on the way

Love that bloomed into marriage is like a bud of nursery,
It can only blossomed into a flower if the boy and the girl can long for each other even on their 50th anniversary,

Touch

Every second person who smiles at you,

Every other person who keeps looking at you,

But the special one can be found without doing much,

Because only the most special one has the magical touch

In our youth we are always at the crossroads of choosing the right one

But God always have a special plan for each and every one

Some are pleasant in talks and some are good with looks,

Some are brilliant in sports and some are drowned in books

Education has confused our brains while judging the wrong and right because there is a lot we assume,

The materialistic pursuits have put us in wrong pedestal when it comes to fight for whom

A Kundali or a software or tinder is not needed to find whom we need to clutch,

A simple handshake or a light hug is enough to find the Godly sign of magical touch

The soft caress on the cheeks or the gentle tap on the shoulders,

Suffering is a very tiny word; the current flows when two love bodies connect can move even big boulders

The music of love is on a completely a different frequency and can be perfectly heard only between the bonded lovers,

When the attracted bodies moves in a rhythmic way and engages in a cosmic dance it is never vulgar

To an onlooker it may seem the bodies are connected and lying together,

But in reality the souls are united with the creator and with each other

The physical body is mere pawn of the soul and is present to take its directions

Only the purity of the souls drives the deep connection; the happy faces of lovers are mere reflections

Till one is alive one should relish what one has as there are many to whom God has not given much,

But to the lost souls who are yet to meet the right one, it pays to remember God has still given the magical touch

I Saw Her

She was never meant to bump in to my life,
I never knew what destiny planned for me, but I saw her

It was an excruciating pain to come to her city,
She came to the station searching for me, before she could see me I saw her

In my worst state where I could not bear myself,
She was happy enough to be with me, beautifully she hid her pains but I saw her

Rains bring glory and jubilation to her life,
She was dancing as if no one was watching but I saw her,

She was as tough as rock and was a pillar to her family,
A vulnerable side was always there. She tried to conceal it but I saw her

Cooking was her hobby and her medium of expressing love,
She might have thought all those pearls of sweat might go unnoticed but I saw her

Whatever my likes are, whatever I watch, eat, read or enjoy, it automatically became her choice,
That pile of minor adjustments throughout the time she was thinking they are overlooked but I saw her

If love is a medium of imbibing two souls into one, she was the one who had both, My soul was lost in her, and to identify myself I SAW HER

Friendship with Sagar

There were no hopes to raise, there were no foes to face,
There were no ropes to climb, there were no friends to chime

A dull life style was to be upgraded by a duller lifestyle,
A step was taken to start a journey of 500 miles,

First day started with excitement and trepidation, I met a quiet guy and he became an acquaintance,
Didn't I ever realize that a real brother was found, the bonding had all the ingredients of permanence

You rarely meet, you rarely greet but you know when it really matters you have a friend indeed
You don't need bear hugs, you don't need teary farewells, but you know there is someone who pays heed

Neither is it gayish, nor is it boyish and never it is ostentatious display of affection,
But it does come out inadvertently in the praise of a nonexistent talent, by showing presence in the most important occasion

Some people learn from you, some people lecture you too often, only person who teaches you without you realizing is your real friend,
Now I don't know where the border of friend starts and where does it end, you are my brother, my family, let’s call you briend,

Very few people I learned a lot without conversing a lot, you can be huge still be a charming pot,
You can be smiling but still be assertive, you can be smiling but still be hiding a lot, NO YOU CANNOT

Much I have blabbered, still there is plenty of things to say, The couplets are scantily written and there is plenty of things to convey

I believe our friendship is here to stay, and I still have good memories from my briend,
This all I can write as of now and with this this poem comes to an end.

From Part time poet, full time reader, life time friend