Saturday, January 18, 2014

A brief glimpse of parenthood...

That day I was on my way to my hometown Morigaon. I rode a bus. One young lady in her mid thirties took the seat next to me. She was accompanied by 2 kids of which one was an infant and another one was of around 3 years. Just after the bus started moving, the younger one started troubling her. In no time the little one was provided an infant feeding bottle. The mother came well prepared I suppose... He became calm, but evidently it was becoming troublesome for her to manage both the kids in the moving bus.

After some silent moments, she hesitantly asked me pointing towards the elder one,

"Can you please hold her for sometime?"

I was not in a position to say 'no'...

She said to her daughter,

"Aijani, Tumi uncle'r usarat jua"
(Aijani, go to uncle..)

It was too cute  to see the child climb onto my lap within moments even before I could say anything... :-):-)

For initial 10-15 minutes she kept me busy asking various questions... After that the real scene began, I mean, she started to fall asleep... For me, it was for the first time that I was travelling a public vehicle with a sleeping kid on my lap. I had to manipulate my arms around her to hold her properly so that her head doesn't collide with the window glasses. In one sense I was facing trouble managing her posture, but in another sense I was gradually becoming protective for the child. I had the feeling as if she was my own daughter !!!

Usually I myself fall asleep during any journey when I have to travel alone, but they day I couldn't sleep even for a moment. At the end of the journey, I felt pain on my forearm owing to constant inexperienced handling of a sleeping child for around 1½ hours.. But the pleasure was far far more than all those pains...

The child was in deep sleep on my lap even after the bus stopped.. I got off the bus still holding her... Seeing her innocent happy face, I felt like the child should never be disturbed... But I had to... Our destinations were not the same !!!

At last I woke her up, made her sit on a bench in a nearby shop, lightly pecked her both cheeks and headed towards my clinic. Her mother didn't utter even a single word, but by her gracious smile she silently conveyed me "Thank you..."

You know, though I have not become a father till now, this incident made me feel the pleasure and responsibility of being a parent. Side by side it also made me realise once again the plight of the parents in bringing up their children.

That day I helped the lady a bit, that too on her request... But provided there was no helping hand, then also she would have somehow managed the same. She is a mother, and anyway she rode the bus well prepared to face any situation for the welfare of her kids !!!

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