Walking down the memory lane, I see a young girl, anticipation brimming her two big eyes as the clock showed 5:30 in the evening, the time when she would hear her papa's footsteps trudging urgently up the stairs.
Putting all her homework aside, proud of completing it in scheduled time yet again, she searched for a new place to hide in their small home.
She played the whole sequence of actions in her mind again & again and laughed and clapped happily to herself.
She loved her papa. This love was different. She thought if there was one person who could be perfect, it was him.If he said something, it was more of a psalm than a statement. She adored him since when she did not even know what “to adore” meant.
Then…she grew up.
Now, when he, as usual, returned from work at 5:30, a couple of things had changed. Firstly, a new fancy and huge apartment took p[lace of their relatively poor home and secondly, she knew what “to adore” meant and certainly had changed preferences.
Life was its mechanical self where human emotions do not lubricate the wagon to move forward but only increase friction to develop heat among relationships.
This small girl, now big, was me.
And then came one day when my mother’s friend, with her 8 month old girlie, visited us.
It poured heavily and God was in no mood to relent his decision for the less privileged.
The baby grew restless as the minutes converted into hours and she still had no sight of her father.
Then, fighting the winds and the water, he arrived. That was the moment when I bade them goodbye that made me ponder- When did I grow up?? Why did I grow up??
We waited outside our apartment for him to arrive. At the first sight of his, she threw an electric smile. And when they, her mother holding her, sat pillion to her father, she grew so ecstatic that she jumped on her lil space that she stood on and beat his helmet while chuckling a perfect baby laugh.
All he had to do was take her in his arms and she clung on to him as if making up for the time when she missed him and he wasn’t there…
I saw all this & could think of only one thing while their vehicle paced out of my vision- What if she grows up and realizes that she WAS once her daddy’s lil girl…??
The thought left a vacuum in me...
