Son
in Love
Richa
Jha
My
son, aged two and a half years, is in love. As with adults in love,
he can't think beyond his paramour, (ABC) towing the clichéd
drill of eat-sleep-breathe 'her' (at least we know he's straight!).
You may have heard of people doing crazy things in love, but none
as incredible as a toddler waking up bright-eyed upon a certain
name being whispered into his ears. That's at 6 in the morning.
Five days a week. For an indefatigable tot who hits the bed at midnight,
it is a remarkable feat.
His
teacher at the new play-school (she is the object of his affection
and attention) has done strange things to him, albeit with noble
intentions. But in a mother's overworked mind, such sublime intents
do not register. At another time and place, in an uncivilised world,
we could have exhorted the Supreme Power to intervene in this voodoo
web, the jaadoo tona, but not here.
(Readers,
you remain cautioned. You may find traces of Bollywood and Star
Plus in this paragraph.) My son, who knew no other set of arms that
hugged him, or laps that rested him, fingers that cut out shapes
for him, a voice that sang along with him, legs that danced with
him, or a face that read out to him, has now sold his soul to the
D. Pardon me for my obnoxious parallels, but when a mother's heart
bleeds, it also spews venom. (End of paragraph.)
The
day we took him to his new school (horror of all
horrors, according to my son, it is ABC's ghaur -house in our mother
tongue), I expected him to holler. After all, new faces, unfamiliar
surroundings, so I went prepared to spend a good three hours there.
But something just happened to him as he stepped in. Entranced,
he walked straight into her--yes yes, her arms, and that's it. He
didn't look back then, he hasn't looked back since! The amused hubby
detected that trickle down my cheeks.
To
my chagrin, it appeared as if this mother has stopped playing any
meaningful 'developmental' role in her child's life. And clearly
under ABC's spell, everything that he had 'learnt' in his life time,
was now getting so surreptitiously attributed to her! So it is she
who's taught him all the nursery rhymes, the colours, the shapes,
the good mornings, the politeness, everything. My son, in a little
less than a fortnight, sold out, completely? I was inconsolable.
“Oh comm'n. Grow up! ABC is just his teacher. We've all had our
fair share of crushes on teachers…and beside, this is just the beginning.
…”, The Hubby tried to help the other day.
“What
do you mean?”
“Wait till one day he starts walking in with his girlfriends, or
the daughter with her boys!”
“Oh, that should be alright. I'll be a liberal mom. Just you wait
and see”.
“Seeing you like this, I have my doubts! What happens the day he
meets the right girl? Twenty, thirty years from now? His world will
revolve around her, don't you think? Who knows, we may become creatures
they'll try and avoid like plague, and…?”
“Stop. Such things will not happen with us”.
“Then, for such things not to happen later, you'll have to learn
to accept now that your child has stepped into the outside world”,
that was The Hubby at his cerebral best. He made sense.
And that is when he dropped the M-word.
“Purely as an exercise, can you now imagine how my mother, or father,
would have felt the day I walked in home with you, and announced
you to them? You know, out of the blue, they realise that you, not
they, are my meaning to live, the reason to rebel ”.
“But that's not true. You are, you still are, very much theirs”,
I protested.
“So you see…?”, The Hubby smiled back.
BOOM!
Suddenly, all this carefully nurtured illusion about being indispensable
to your child's existence lay shattered, yet, it also reinforced
my faith in the parent-child bonding. No girlfriend, boyfriend,
wife, husband, friend can ever possibly replace the parents, can
they?
So too, for the ABCs of the world. That is reason enough for me
to smile! All is not lost, then.
