Happy Birthday!

It was raining cats and dogs, outside the hospital, when you were handed to me, seventeen years ago. I looked at you. You were not happy at having to leave the cosy comfort of your mother’s womb. In fact ,you seemed to be mightily angry. You were bawling your lungs out.

I was too numb and dumb to feel anything. I was a father! Of this tiny, almost weightless bundle, with tightly closed fists, tighter eyes, and an even tighter frown. I handed you to you mom. She smiled, happily, as she cuddled you. I shuffled out of the room.

Congratulations began to pour in faster than the rain. I smiled at those present. I mumbled my thanks. I shook every hand; I touched every pair of feet. I was still too dumbfounded to feel anything!

Three nights, and three days, I stayed in the hospital with you and you mom. I slept on the floor next your cradle, morbidly afraid that you would harm yourself in your sleep. I would get up and peek at you every now and then. Every time I would also lift your legs to check if you had “done sussu or potty.” I would clean you up. I was too dazed to feel anything.

Duty took me to Delhi. I came back to take you there after about a month. On that journey I and your mother took turns to hold you. You were supposed to be a bundle of joy but I was too concerned, throughout the journey, about how to disembark the train at Delhi, with all ,that luggage without hurting you. I did not feel anything else.

That night in Delhi, your mother put you in a small, colourful cot and placed it next to her bed side. “She will sleep there?” I asked. She nodded. I looked at you. You looked at me. You seemed so lonely in that cradle. I picked you up and placed you in the middle of the bed between the two of us.

You smiled! I swear you did.

We slept. Something happened. Tendrils grew out of you. Tendrils grew out of my heart too. In the darkness they entwined. Forever! I woke up next morning a real father, almost a month after you were born. I was in love with you, my dearest daughter. I felt everything. Tenderness, affection, possession, submission, surrender, delight and absolute bliss at having a daughter such as you! ( I was yet to know the tantrums that you were going to throw later on in life!)

Have a long, healthy, happy and successful life! I love you!