Happy Birthday Papa!! Thinking about your birthday made me very nostalgic. Birthdays were always such an event! Especially if it were Suchi's or mine (Dhiraj was always so undemanding). We used to shop a month before for a new outfit. We probably drove ma crazy. Plan where to go out to dine. Make sure we have a cake from Monginis that evening (Black Forest was our favourite - YUMMY!). All dressed up, we would wait for you to get home from work and then drive to one of our favourite restaurants (Akarshan or Vishwabharat) for dinner. I used to be super excited about restaurant food back then! On the drive back home, Suchi would nudge me, prompting me to ask you to take us to the Arcade. I would beg you to take us there - please papa, please papa..and then just as the fork came up - one way leading home and the other to the arcade, you would swerve toward the arcade! We would yell with excitement!
Where are those days?? My independence in life has robbed me of that nervous excitement. We know that we are free to do what we want, when we want. As an adolescent, all I wanted to do was to be completely independent, earn my own money, not have to ask dad or mom for anything. Am sure all kids feel the same way. Now that I have what I wanted, there is nothing more I crave than going back to being blissfully ignorant (no cash flow worries, no making sure bills are paid on time, not a care in the world)!! Does this mean I don't want responsibility? I don't think so. I believe I know that this is how life is meant to progress. We are meant to lose that innocence. Parents are satisfied that they have done the right thing only when they see their children take up new responsibilities and rise up to every challenge. But occasionally, the child deep inside us surfaces.
One thing I know though - the next time that I come to India, Papa - you will need to take me to the same restaurants and the same arcade. Let's attempt to re-create those absolutely exhilarating moments :-) Love you.
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Kondhe:
Last night when we were cutting cake at home at midnight we all missed you. Suchi was waiting, Valli periamma was also there, Dhiraj was nodding off,Vijay had come with his big flowery bough which he calls bouquet - and his birthday falls on July 4 too - God's way of telling us you are with us always!
Kondhe I can't think of how it will be when Suchi also leaves us!
And to think there perhaps will come a time when we both will be together alone - old, and grey, is dreadful. You children are the lights of our lives.
Love you kondhe
mom
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