Avik's Story

Oh my god! So this means parenting? This is what Taniya doing for the last four years! It’s mind-boggling, super challenging and yes, freaking exhausting. At first I must’ve done something wrong - I must’ve stumbled or hesitated to the point that my smallest one, Oishikaa blatantly refused to stay with me. She’d see me through her big round eyes from the safest lap of her granny, and must be pondering over the identity of this weird bearded guy, who was suddenly all upon her to take her to his lap and bribe with toys. She’s only eight months, but she’s got a solid personality. Gotta respect that - even though as a father, who was seeing his babies in months, I hated that. There was always a tinge of wonder mixed with concern, whenever I thought about my daughters and the way I’d behave in front of them, when they’d begin staying with me. It was a wonderful moment, when I saw them walking out slowly from plane, as if my two missing organs and parts of soul were found and r

She loved to smell random flowers, born out of neglect in Maidan, when we sat on grasses and looked at sky-crappers lurking ahead. She loved to hold my hand, sometimes my arm into her, while walking down cobble-stoned footpath in the heart of City of Joy. She loved to kiss my fingers, and then forehead, and then lips in god-forsaken odd places – in a patched backseat of faded yellow taxi, on a broken rikshaw drenched in sudden shower, sometimes in full public glare – a sneaking kiss. That was the best time of my life, but even at that happiness, I had this conviction that this’d not last forever. Sooner or later, she was destined to leave me to love some-other lucky one and to be loved thousand times more than I ever loved her. But in my wildest dream, I never thought that my own children would steal her from me. The prophecy was written on wall, but I was a naïve. I read the words, but not the sentence. I noticed the signs in bits, but not the bigger picture. An

I love to dream. Now, please don’t brouhaha about this, or have even a slightest impression that my dreams are in any way like that of great Martin Luther. My dreams are literally dreams – classic culminations of daily experiences through sub-conscious mind in sleep and are often weird, embarrassing, foggy and confused. And I remember most of my dreams. I thought of it a gift like that of a superhero, until one day my heart shrank inches after ‘discovering’ that most people dream and remember those dreams. Even dogs dream. I have few recurring themes, which cycle themselves throughout a sleep at night. And the weirdest and best of those is a world, where me and my ‘big’ daughter Vedantika are survivor turned fighters in an alien infected dystopian earth. Another often recurring theme is my village, which is modified and transformed into a town with modern transport and amenities, and then I fight to protect my family from brutal invaders, cloaked in black robes. Some

Vedantika is growing fast, and seriously we cannot keep pace with her growing. Specially, a dumb like me. That day, when I called her after reaching home – her first question was polite but firm. “Are you at home, papa? Can I video call you?” It took some good moments to precipitate her query into my crampy brain cells. She was of three years old, and she was seeking my permission for video call. It’s so odd that it’s kind of abusive to my understanding of my society and upbringing, where nobody cares for a permission. My avoidable defensive instinct instantly turned cautious - what was happening? Is she growing into something peculiar – something different? Other day, she told me that she missed me. She was with her favorite doll – a small stuffed animal DIY’ed by her mother from an old sock. We role-played a little through grainy video screen – I became the doctor and she was the worried caring mother for her little baby. I retorted that I missed her so much, and

It was a sunny day. The light reflected from the white house at neighborhood had brightened this house too; and the light fell on a face. A sleeping face, so serene that I could’ve watch it forever. Just watch; or maybe a gigantic wish to touch it. But I knew that was not to be done. The face was pretty and tranquil, and with that white light on it, it was a sort of a beautiful expensive art; but as I knew the owner of the face, she was no artist. She was a vandalist. If I dared to touch her face, or hair or even the water bottle while she was sleeping, she’d start a tantrum. Her morning usually started with a wrecked wiggle, which lasted for good thirty minutes and occasional whining, whose veracity was always difficult to establish. Our thumb rule – if no tears, then nothing to fear - she was probably faking it. But wait. Sometimes her tears flew down so easily and so believably that I wondered she must’ve trained her eyes. She’d be sitting on her blanket with water bott

F ar far away, in a small beautiful island nation surrounded by mighty ocean , there lived a small girl and her little baby. She named her baby as doll. It was not her best friend - her best friend was from her school, but it was her baby. She took her in arms when she was back from school, and fed her when the doll was hungry and comforted her when she was sad. Oneday the small girl came back from her school, and found the doll lying on the wooden floor. It was a clear afternoon. ‘What happened?’ She asked. Her head was little bent, as she leaned forward to her doll. ‘I’m ill. I fell down from bed, and now can’t get up’, the doll said. Her voice was melancholic. ‘Okay. I’ll help you’. The girl grabbed her raised hand, and then took her to bed. Then she kept her palm on her forehead to feel the temperature. It was hot. Her face grimaced. Her doll had fever, and nobody in this house did care for that. She had to do everything on her own. ‘You lie down here.