No kidding

A while back, when I had posted something about, how having kids soon grows onto become the mission statement of every adults life, one of the comments was about, how wrong it was, as a philosophy. The lady had mentioned that, no person, however close they may be, should ever be the reason or purpose of anyone else. It wasn’t as blunt, but the message was more towards, how one should always have their own passion, independent of anyone. Of course, caring for your family, friends, kids all those are given. But we should all have a purpose or passion that we should strive to achieve to our full potential was the message she wanted to convey. Highly idealistic it may sound. But on an emotionally charged environment of a family setup, where the word bonding takes literal and figurative meaning, it is highly unlikely to think of anything beyond kids, till some point of time, after some point of time, I guess. I never knew, when I began to care so much about junior and when did, every single cough or shiver of him, starts to send me into a tizzy. I never knew I could love someone so much !! It’s not a scale of measure or anything. But irrespective of how much ever stressed out and depressed I am on the way from office, one look at him and if he is normal and playing, I tend to get stabilized sooner. My mom and wife can read my face well and despite their best effort to cheer me up, I knew that they are responding to me. But junior, just by being himself, he lifts me up effortlessly. 2 hours of travel weariness, goes off in a poof and mind begins to feel the real meaning of relaxation after a heck of the day.
When he fell sick, with no solid food intake for days together, the wheels of the house, all gave up together. Felt as if everything was crumbling or were at stand still. Mind stopped working and no one was able to think clearly. Be it the apartment driver or our next door neighbor everyone wore a worried look and there was an never ending list of suggestions and recommendations, medicine wise and for other options as well. The driver told us that, he has prayed at St.Anthony’s church to bring us three days for prayer after junior gets well. He went and spoke to the nearby mosque and made arrangements for early morning visit. Apparently, there is a belief that, if those who visit the mosque for early morning prayer, breathe on you, it would cure all illness. He called us up at 5 in the morning to remind and we took junior to the mosque. There was a huge queue and majority of them were non-muslim. Anyone doubting the concept of India and its divergence should be asked to make a visit to these places of worship. The neighbor folks, who literally brings up junior as their own kid, had taken some vows to their native temple on prayer offerings. After seeing such un-adulterated love, you can never feel alone or depressed. Probably all those good wishes and with those good Samaritans around, their positive vibes themselves lifted up junior I guess. He became better, if not fully back to his sprightly best.
I often used to dread what kind of a world, I would be leaving my kid in. It doesn’t look that bad after all when there is so much of love available in abundance, unconditionally. Whenever I see something dreadful and frightening, probably I need to remind myself that those are not the only things and as long as there is compassion, there is still a fighting chance for survival.