Morning Walk - Precursor

We all know that having elders in the house is a blessing. They guide us and help us in so many ways.
Be it giving proper rites (sanskar) to our kids, or comforting us when we are facing hard times, or guiding us when we feel really lost (or are actually lost but have a working cellphone). But you know what works best for me? They kick the bad habits out of us, and keep kicking :D

Since I have been out of my hometown for so many years, I had somewhat forgotten this blessing, but my last visit gave me a refresher.

Actually, Dad goes for morning walk every day to Lohia Park with his friends; so during my last visit to Lucknow, I asked him to take me with him the next morning. You get it where this is heading, don't you :)

I also said "Papa, no matter what excuse I mention in the morning, please ignore that". This was around 11:30 PM, and after that he went to sleep. However, I couldn't fall asleep as quickly as I do on regular days.

In order to be sufficiently motivated, I decided to watch a few motivational videos on YouTube and before I realized, it was 2 in the morning!

"That's enough motivation........... for day after tomorrow" I told myself and went to sleep.

5:45 AM - "Bittu utho". Probably I heard Papa's voice but he got only "zzzz..." in response.

6:00 AM - "Ye Vividh Bharti ki vigyapan prasaran seva ka Lucknow kendra hai (ये विविध भारती की विज्ञापन प्रसारण सेवा का लखनऊ केंद्र है)". Did I ever mention that my Dad still likes to listen to All India Radio. He has kept old radios in different rooms including bathrooms, and switches them ON as per his convenience. These are those really old quadragenarian radios from Philips, Murphy Munna (yeah, that too), that are either "very loud and filled with clear sound" or "very loud and filled with only static noise". So, the sound did kick my sweet sweet sleep pretty hard. However, being Piku's papa, my inner self did squirm, but my body didn't react.

6:10 AM - "I am going to prepare tea. Get up."
"Papa, I slept very late at night; I will not be able to go today for morning walk".

5 minutes later - "Do you want to drink green tea? Otherwise I will prepare regular one" he asked again
Me - "Papa, I don't like green tea, and I didn't sleep timely. Can we skip today...zzzzz"

2 more minutes passed - "It is almost ready"
Me - "Pappaa... pleeeease "

Few more minutes later - "Do you want sugarfree or regular sugar?"
Me - ""mmffff.... grumpphhh..."

... and few more minutes - "Bittoooo..."
Me (getting up and rushing to washroom) - "I will have rusk with that"!!!

A different kind of Diwali

This Diwali was different than others in few interesting ways.

The biggest differentiator was - of course -Aadya! It was her first Diwali after all; but that wasn't the difference I was talking about.

We started with regular routine; i.e. started "discussing" about cleaning our home almost a month before Diwali. We talked about lots of cleaning activities like taking out winter wear, getting rid of cobwebs, discarding old items. This was our most detailed planning ever; but that wasn't also the difference I was talking about.

We got so absorbed in planning that we missed out the "doing" part completely.

The only activity that happened was - taking down curtains. Mind you, taking curtains down is different than washing them and then putting them back on. 

However, that still wasn't the difference I was talking about.

We bought everything at the last moment, and some items even at the "lastest" moment (like crackers on the evening of Diwali itself); but that's not at all different. It is my normal routine.

Diwali evening started as usual; we started with important tasks first, i.e. taking selfies, ensuring camera & mobiles had sufficient space and charge, and then proceeded to lesser important tasks like pooja-path.

However, I decided to do something different this time. Instead of playing crackers in our balcony like previous years, I decided to go downstairs in the park. However.... yeah you guessed it right, this wasn't the difference I was talking about.

We had been there for almost half an hour or so, when I heard a loud noise coming from somewhere. Of course, who pays attention to any noise on eve of Diwali; so I decided to keep ignoring it.

Once we ran out of crackers, we decided to visit the temple within the society before going back to our flat. It was then when I saw that the noise was coming from water falling from 4th floor of the building. Since we stay on 5th, I mentioned to wifey "looks like someone is wasting lots of water" and walked away.

When we reached back to our floor after spending few minutes in the temple, I saw residents of our adjacent flat standing in front of lift to greet us. "We have been calling you for so long, why didn't you answer", they said.

It was then when I noticed that they had floor wipers in their hands and were standing in ankle deep water.

Moment of realization - they weren't actually there to greet us (damn).

It turned out that one of the valves on water pipe had broken on our floor and water found its way inside our flats (that's why I didn't see water coming from 5th floor earlier).

So, our rest of Diwali eve was spent mopping water out of the apartment.
Yes, this Diwali was different indeed.

Aadya!

Remember the "Nanhi Pari" I told you about earlier? She has a name now - Aadya! She has many other names as well but we will save that for some other time.

Aadya turned 6 months recently and I wanted to share few things that will make you go aww for her. 

Without much ado, here are those things:

- Whenever she is in my or her mother's arms, and needs a burp; she starts looking down, silently, with a really serious face. She doesn't look back up until she feels better.

- When I pick her up after I come back from office, she treats me in a very special way. She brings her face closer to my face, and rubs her nose against mine 4-5 times. But, she does that only once. Blink and you miss it.

- When it's time to sleep during night, she would turn either side, pull up a small blanket and cover her eyes and go to sleep. It is really adorable to see a baby this small do that! 

- If she gets up early in the morning and I am still asleep (which happens everyday), she would try to reach out and slightly touch my face.

- Most of the times, I wake up to a pair of big puppy eyes looking affectionately towards me... that's one of those baby looks that melt your heart. Probably, that's how kids started getting called Sunshine :)

Mere Ghar Aayi...

Friends, as most of you already know that we've been blessed with a baby girl recently; and that explains the title - मेरे घर आई एक नन्ही परी|

But that isn't all. With the little baby, came many other things like sweet (& sour) remembrances of Piku's infancy days; i.e. mere ghar aayi yaadon ki potli, toothless smile, sleepless nights, line of diapers, frequent visits to paediatrician etc etc.

Since I claim myself to be a man of planning, I had already thought about these (please don't say thinking and planning are different). However, what I didn't think of - li'll princess also brought a big brother in the house; I mean - Piku is a big brother now.

Mind you, me & Ankita did think about issues that occur with single child who becomes an elder sibling. Issues like Piku feeling neglected, becoming rude, feeling dejected; but we definitely did not think about the positive effects of him becoming a big brother. Who plans for good things anyway; we only worry about failures :)

When Piku first heard that he has got a little baby sister, he was slightly disappointed. Why? Because he was expecting 3 brothers like Huey, Dewey and Louie from Ducktales; but was delighted when he saw the "chhoti behan".

Can you guess what was his first sentence after he saw the little baby? He said "She is too small; can I watch TV now?". And I thought " That's my boy! Wait, what? Did he just ask for TV. That's truly my boy!!!"

And since then he has been showing remarkable capabilities that he has inherited from his Mom - he has been taking excellent care of the baby. He knows where the supplies are kept; when are they running out; when it's too cold for the baby; when she is hungry and .... best of all...  he can tell when the little baby needs a diaper change!!! Forget me; sometimes Piku beats his mother at this. Even if we don't want to, he would challenge us to look at the baby's diaper and win every single time!

... and that brings us back to title of this post with a new meaning - मेरे घर आई......... एक नन्ही आया!!!