HIDE AND SEEK!

CIRCA 2009.

She hides behind her mother and tells me "Dadi go and look for me downstairs, I am hiding". I go down looking for her, then come up again, look behind the sofas, the curtains, ask everyone around if they have seen Aaria and then find a giggling away to glory Aaria! "Found you," I exclaim very excitedly.

Then it is my turn to hide and Aaria tells me to go hide in the kitchen, then she counts up to ten says "Ready or not here I come," and comes looking for me in all the rooms, behind sofas, behind the curtains, and finally comes to the kitchen and triumphantly declares, " found you".

Oh! the delights of childhood and the delights of indulgent grand parents! Jharna and Anurag are quite flustered about this game of Hide and Seek." Please explain, what is this game? I don't get it", says Jharna.

I simply say "Generation gap, my dear, you won't understand!"

They will have to await their turn and the right time to play the games with rules made and broken, tears, screams of joy and total abandon of reason.

The problem is that all do not understand this game. It is rather difficult to grasp. To understand it there are a few conditions which are to be met. You have to have allowed your hair to grey, your wisdom to have blossomed with spending time on terra firma, finished spending time working for your living, got health insurance, spent time going into hospitals for health check ups, know all about cholesterol, blood pressure, healthy foods, eating fruit, importance of walking. Only when most of these conditions are met that  you understand the rules of the game!

COUNTING IN EARNEST!

The joy of seeing a little girl running from one end of the room to the other to express her happiness at seeing you arrive at her house is a sight worth a million dollars!

The time when your grandson tells you that because of what you taught him, he has done well in his exams! Priceless reward.

These are the benefits of having grown up to that age when even the local vegetable vendor calls you mummy! The modern form of calling you a mataji!! Oh my goodness this is  the dreaded age of all. But then I reason that this also has its perks. Allow the vegetable vendor to call you mummy and then go play hide and seek, with that little person who trusts that you still have the energy to run up and down the stairs, pick her up when she is tired, make the yummiest of food to be told very bluntly on your face, "You don't know how to make pancake, please learn it from boo"(bua,pishi, atya, paternal aunty).

The dialogues, the fights, the "go away dadi" said with full force, is met with an ungrudging," I love you Dadi" in some moments of rare consideration!

That is life. The moments spent with honest, true, caring grand children is reward for having greyed your hair in the sun!

CIRCA 2012.