Here's Looking At You Kid...

In the beginning it was difficult to believe. As a kid, as a teenager even (and don't tell anyone, sometimes, even now), I was always the sort who lacked confidence, the sort who was so self-conscious that most of her conversations happened in her head. But here was this boy, who refused to get offended by my feeble attempts at being social, and worse perhaps, refused to let anybody else around us be offended by it too. For the first time in my life I began having friends, having a "group" of own, and slowly, in fits and starts the confidence seeped in.

I have never quite gotten over the wonder of those years, definitely never over that small boy who wouldn't take no for an answer. I have never actually had the opportunity to get over it because he never changed, never became someone I didn't know, or worse, someone I knew a long time back. I forget to reply to his mails, we don't talk much anymore, sometimes, I don't even have his changing cell numbers on me, but we don't drift apart. Maybe because he doesn't lose patience. Maybe because I know he won't. I really don't know why. I don't think I'll ever know it too...I just know he is special, and that he is one of a kind.

Your mother now, she is a livewire if ever there was one. From the way she always, ALWAYS managed to come late to class, rushing in like a whirlwind, her hair all over her face, cutting the teacher's rebuke short with a flurry of excuses and apologies, to how she insisted on having her tiffin after the very first class was over, from the way she never shied off from blowing someone to smithereens over any seeming injustice to her fierce sense of independence-- she was always the firebrand. She still is. I have spent days with her being cynical, being weepy, laughing like crazy, sulking in fits, being angry, being happy, sharing secrets, crushes, jokes, joys and hurt. She can be brusque, oh yes, she can really give it to you, as I am sure you'll find out when you start growing up and trying her patience, but she can also put you together when you are nursing a hurt, or even a cold-- put your topsy-turvy mind in place with inane jokes, her loud laughter and her huge grin. I bet you won't be able to get over that. Ever.

This evening when I called her to wish her on new year, I was a little taken aback. She sounded like she was sleeping. But then she became her usual self. Well, almost. Her voice was a laboured whisper, the strain of the operation has hardly subsided, but she told me all about you, told me how you have been howling a lot, how you've become red in the face with the effort, how you are so fair...

...Your dad had much the same things to say. But I wasn't really listening to him. I was listening to the joy in his voice, the slight bewilderment, and the surprise in it...I can't tell you how happy it made me to talk to them both...

I don't know which of them you look like, and I'll be honest with you, I particularly don't care. But if there's one thing I can wish for you, it's for you to have a heart like your father and grit like your mom. Life will give you the rest.

And from me, love always and forever. You are a part of two people who are very, very special to me.

Welcome to this world, kid...

(To Sunny and Gruff's daughter, who came in to our lives today)