Like a Child in the Rain

It’s by pure chance that I stumbled upon an old diary at my mother's place. Amma informed me that she was planning some renovation in my family house and that many displaced things will now have to find some storage space in 'my old room'; I have to free up some additional space by moving a few of my obsolete, useless, stove away stuff OUT !
 
 I have always dreaded this moment ever since I first left home to work and then when I was supposedly married away. Let me admit this, I am by nature extremely possessive about my things - be it my clothes, books, souvenirs or gifts collected over a long time, greeting cards, my relationships, my dreams etc etc. Over a period of time and in the interest of world peace, I have trained myself to endure the pain of parting with some of them at certain critical junctures in life.
 
 'My old room' was a touchy topic anyways so I started in a grumpy mood to clear the ‘mess’. What I had not prepared for was the unexpected delight that the next few hours would give me when little little things from the past started to tumble out of my shelves and bed-side tables and from even under my mattress - well, don't get any ideas now; I had this habit of storing posters of my teenage icons under the mattress as I wasn't permitted to put them on the wall for reasons known to my parents then, some of which I appreciate now!  
 
 I felt like an archeologist unearthing precious forgotten history from an excavation site. One by one, the buried treasures resurfaced.

With Amma - sweet memories

The cache included old photographs, letters & cards from ex-friends, a verse penned by my grandmother herself and gifted to me during her last years, childhood diaries, scribbles and poems, the one and only card that M ever gave me during our betrothed phase, the white kurta which I bought from Bangalore for him and we thought is lost forever, photographs from my school and college days and of my initial days in Chennai, Gibran’s love letters, Vivekananda’s speeches, Tagore’s plays and poems, Palgrave’s Golden Treasury….I can go on and on about each one of these relics and what it meant to me. In the interest of brevity and how utterly non relevant it can be for anyone else, let me just be content to bask in them and save it up for later.
 
My intensely passionate tryst with rain started many years ago. Here’s sharing with the world, my modest first attempt at poetry when I was ten or eleven, which I recovered from the old diary I mentioned at the start, from amongst the reclaimed relics. So here goes…

Like a Child in the Rain

This hasn't happened for a long time,
Me sitting awake in bed
With the bed lights on, at midnight
Something deep inside me, wanting freedom,
The freedom of being an innocent little girl once again

I can hear the rain showering heavily outside
They make me yearn;
To feel the cool droplets stream down me
But, they say I'm grown up now
Not a little child anymore, to play in the rain.

That small girl in me is still there
That burning desire too is still in me
But I am grown up now.
And a thousand faces around me, I look
When that little girl alone stares at me from inside

And then she hopes hopelessly
"Better not to have grown, shedding my childish desires".

My dreams are under your wings

Last night 9 year old Naina revealed some of her hidden desires in life to her mother.

N: amma, you know what…. I have decided what I want to become when I grow up

G: really, what do you want to be?

N: I want to become a Bollywood actress !

Gauri was quite taken aback ..first she wanted to blurt out laughing and then she suddenly wanted to shout and then cry …..not knowing what would have been a better way to respond to her lil daughter's declaration, she tried to maintain her calm fighting the myriad thoughts that flashed through her mind in those few seconds between her response to young Naina

G : Why is that ?

N : I think they are really coool

G: What do you mean by cool?

N : Oh, that means they do lots of fun things, hangout in places like beaches, shopping malls etc with their friends and they DO NOT go out with their parents

Such a direct blow, the parent in Gauri was shattered, wouldn’t she possibly be her lil girl's best friend and not so much a motherly influence when she is a bit older? Swallowing her injured pride, Gauri decided to reason out and discourage Naina from such fanciful dreamy ambitions.

G: But you know what ..I don’t think actresses are so cool, they don’t always do the things that they want to do, in fact they rarely do anything that they really want to do ..they only do what the directors tell them to do.. so it is not so much fun really. Besides, people only like the way they look and they always talk horrible things behind their back,..actually most people think actresses are dumb

Naina didn't quite like her mother's opinion, maybe a little challenged but she tried to defend her understanding

N : Dumb ? does it mean not intelligent. So is Katrina Kaif dumb ? What about Vidya Balan – isn’t she intelligent ?

G: I don’t think Katrina Kaif is intelligent . Nor is Vidya Balan…Yes..dumb means not intelligent ..and that isn’t cool, right?

Naina's face fell. Gauri thought she was starting to partially win her battle of prejudices but soon discovered that young Naina wasn’t to be deterred, where there is a will there surely is some way!!

N : Ok , do you think then I can be an actress and a writer too. Writers are intelligent, right ?

Well, that’s what is called a boomerang coming from the offspring of parents who are passionate about literature!

G : I don’t think so dear, its not so easy to be all that , Actresses normally don’t become writers. You have to really work very very hard for that..

N : See .. for that all you need to do is go to bollywood, that is in Mumbai ..amma, do people other than actors stay in Bollywood ? Can I go to Bollywood ? Don’t you think I can act well, see like this ..

Naina donned some unusual facial expressions, fluttering her eyes and snapping her lil fingers in the air across her face like a celluloid diva.

That’s it, Gauri couldn’t take it anymore………..she was slogging her life only for this kid to become an actress of all the choices in the world! She did not mind so much when Naina as a 4 year old had declared that she wanted to join the circus, neither did she get uncomfortable when her lil girl wanted to be a teacher when she was 7 years fully knowing that her husband who hails from a family of teachers will not particularly appreciate adding one more teacher to his fold having had an overdose of them already in his life.

Certainly this is not what Gauri wanted from her only child. It is probably true that she did not do or become all those things that her own parents wanted for her many years ago !! But isn’t this too senseless an aspiration that Naina has opted for, even to offer any kind of poetic justice????

Gathering her wits but still unsure how to tackle it, Gauri whined inside while trying to tactically approach the situation and avoid an offensive.

G: You are only 9 years, too young to really know what you want to do later in life, so we will talk about this later. It is not necessary that you know at this point what you are really good at and what you want to become in life later. You must concentrate on your studies and on any arts or sports etc which you can learn now and this will help you decide later what is best for you..

N: But amma, my teacher has told us that if children dream of something, parents must help them achieve them. Do not spoil my dreams, for my dreams are under your wings. Its not only engineers or managers like you who do well in life, even artists, writers, sportsmen and actors become successful. So you and acha have to help me reach my dreams ……

Naina's words reminded Gauri of a few famous lines from her favorite Irish poet, WB Yeats - “But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”

G : Yes , when the time comes we will talk and we will help you also. Now do what you must to build your foundation. Let’s switch off the lights now and go to sleep, tomorrow you have to go to the summer camp and amma has to go to office.

Kissing her goodnight, Gauri retired to her bed trying to chase slumber but Naina's profound words continued to tuck at her heart strings, ‘Do not spoil my dreams, for my dreams are under your wings’ ... She knew Naina may brush this current fascination to become an actress under the carpet in some time once she fancies something else but Gauri also realised this was only a beginning of testing times for her as a mother....this was nothing but a premature curtain raiser of more inevitable conversations to come when her daughter shall soon step into the enigma of teenage in a couple of years from now !