Twenty five years later ...
Ungli pakad ke tune
Chalna sikhaya tha na
Dehleez oonchi hai ye, paar karaa de
He has to make some calls. He has to attend some calls. He has to make payments. He has to go to the airport to receive some guests. He has to give press notes. After all it is his daughters marriage. He has so much work to do. I need to discuss so many things with him for which I try to search for him in the whole haywire place of ours but he is out of sight and you know where do I find him. His hair carelessly tied with a band, clad in an apron he is all tears because of his effort to chop onions. I know what he is doing ... He is making Adya's favorite dish Rajma chawal and you know busy or not ... he will make sure that whatever she is doing ... he will make her eat with him. My husband is trying to gather and preserve all such little moments of happiness.
Adya, she is our daughter. Young, independent and feisty. For the world, She is Omkara Singh Oberoi's Daughter. For our family she is the next heir who will take care of all the business but as a mother I can very proudly say that she is much more than just being Adya Singh Oberoi. She is a good person. She has learnt many things. When she was a kid I used to take her to a dance class where she learnt Kathak. Going to school, she participated in many different activities but what surprised me was her newly developed interests when she went to college. She studied architecture and with that she did rifle shooting and mountaineering and many other adventure sports like river rafting and bungee jumping and scuba diving. She has always been an explorer, a wanderer ... a travel junkie.
You know when I was someone working blood, sweat and tears in the streets of Bareilly, I wanted to become someone like her, Someone who has the power and capacity to help those who cannot do anything for her. She is someone who can beat the pulp out of a man who eve teases a school girl, she is someone who can give all her food to a hungry old man, she is someone who works immensely hard for a purpose to educate under privileged women. Choosing architecture over family business was also her choice. She always said ... it is not about selling property, she wants to build homes for people. Apart from everything she has achieved or is working for ... she is too beautiful. Guys call her hot and girls just get jealous. Her hair, her eyes, her nose, her chin ... everything about her is beautiful.
The best way to describe it is that I felt everything holding her for the first time. I was scared of hurting her and scared of what the future held and her safety for all eternity but I get an extreme love and hopefulness I had never experienced. Mad for who I had been in my past. Hoping I could be my best for her future. Literally every emotion and thought negative and positive all wrapped up into one in a matter of a couple seconds.I honestly can't explain it. It's kind of clich to say love at first sight, but that doesn't even begin to cover it. I honestly was scared to even break her. I cried I didn't even want to hold her hand. I didn't want to hurt her. But the second I did, I didn't want to let her go. I went into super mode. Any time she cried I was up without even noticing. I'll never forget the look she gave me. A person can go on and on, but in all honest reality, you really can't explain that. You know I felt really frustrated and jealous when Om used to hold Adi or he used to make her laugh or talk to her but when we both lived with him I understood that even when I have immense power as a mother ... Adi needs her father too.
Immediately after she graduated from college marriage proposals were at our doorstep but we always sent them back. Om kept saying "Gauri ... isn't she too young? Until the day she herself came to us and talked about Sarthak. Sarthak is an English Professor who had worked with her during one of her teaching trips, she did not tell me much about him ... just that she likes him and wants to spend her life with him. He being the calm, collected, shy person did not exactly express it when even he had feelings for her and so I just told Adi to go and tell him whatever her heart said. That was the day she proposed him. She is a very kind and loyal person. Sarthak is a lucky man.
Today she is a young woman who can handle her life and take care of herself but once upon a time she was a little girl. The girl who had hair of the color of chocolate softened with buttermilk and a heart as big as a sunflower. She had a smile brighter than any star and was all the more adorable for it. Her family loved her with the power of a thousand suns and she flourished, intelligent and kind. Om danced with her making her stand on the dining table to crazy music, the sillier the better. He chased her with fingers that would turn her into a laughing little monster with one wiggle. He surrounded and protected her with love
I remember her baby days, my Mother In Law says that Adya was just like the other babies like her but I always thought differently ... because she is special ... she is my baby. For her happiness was simple. It was hugs with her mama and playing "let's pretend," it was a new story at bedtime and the trust that her papa and her mumma have life all taken care of. All she needed was food and sleep on time and lots of time spent with her mumma papa. She had easily made friends to play with, Mallika's daughter Ipshita and the two babies of our neighbors Sara and Ayaan. She loved to walk in the warm sand and splash in the beachwater. She did not care what the time is unless she was hungry. I wanted to learn from her how to be happy again, I wanted to see the world through her eyes. If you showed her a gold coin or a kitten and asked her to pick one, she'd take the silly cat every time. There's a simple wisdom there and I love it.
Adya slept through the day and that meant we had to stay awake through the night when she liked to play with her blanket. I used to let Om get some sleep after his hectic days at work and then he used to bathe her and dress her the next morning making sure that both Adi and her dad color coordinate whatever they are wearing. If Om wore blue, Adya wore blue. If Adya wore pink, Om wore pink and then after she ate her breakfast. Both of us used to catch on the required sleep. I had become a day sleeper.
One of the most interesting things in her life was her Papa's hair... she lost all her fascination with the world when she played her Papa's hair. She used to pull them, twist them and kiss them as well. Only she had the right to touch his hair so much ... then she would be back to one of her favorite games, trying to see how many of her fingers she can wedge into his mouth. She would bang her fists on his chest ... Blabber something ... try to take the buttons of his kurta in her mouth and then again pull his hair...
When it was about eating her food Adya bounced in her high chair like she was dancing to music only she could hear. Her head and arms went up and down while her face was a picture of concentration. The flavors in her mouth that we made her taste seemed to be causing her so much pleasure she could not be still, but at the same time eating was clearly a serious business. Unlike her siblings at the same age she never dropped something out of her mouth, scattered or threw food. Every piece was sacred and she ate all from the bowl in her intense way until finally it was empty. Her face would become dismayed and with diminutive hands she used to try to clasp the bowl, clapping her hands and squealing. After dessert she did it all over again, before being lifted out. Then she would plant cherry-pie kisses on her Papa's face. The fact being, she would only eat when her Papa fed her and both of them would toddle of too sketches... He would make sketches of Adya, someday he would draw her eyes ... someday her lips ... someday her whole self in her favorite onesie. With each sketched page she pointed to the colors ... With him she was learning about colors. So long as they got her into bed before he got exhausted and then she would spend time with her mumma.
Parenting is the one job you never quit. Every day is a new chance to get things right, to sow the seeds of love and confidence. We guide and nourish, allowing our children to develop into the people they were born to be. We help them find what they love, what their talents lead them to. And then, we let go. We watch in anxiety as they try out their "wings," yet are proud. We let them know that their home is still their home should they need it, and that their parents are still there just as before. They are our children for life and our love for them is eternal.
It is our honor to be her parent. When she came our world changed, filled with love for her, our precious child. It is for us to defend her, to care, to help her mature into who she was born to be - not a small version of myself, but her own self. It is my God given duty to protect her from harm, yet it is her right to take your own reigns and judge her own risks as soon as she is able. I pray that our care of her leaves her able to be autonomous, to have control of her own life, able to fully love and care for those blessed to share life with her. I hope so. Just know our love for her is eternal, that it will always be in the ether to comfort her heart should you ever have need. She is the internal light in our heart,
Once we were strangers exchanging glances, then the accidental newlyweds. In a few short years we held her and became a family. We brought three other angels into the world, new people to love and cherish four blessings to carry us forward in life. From then on we had a new role, to be stable and loving, to provide the platform from which they would spring - one day leaving us with an "empty nest." Now that times comes close, our children are tall and strong. Adya is getting married. But since we did it right they won't really leave our lives but stay close. Next is old age, grandchildren and time to slow our lives down to a pace where we can notice the little things, truly enjoy what each new day brings. Life has changed.
Edited by Cinnamon_Kisses - 7 years ago
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
