Growing with your child

“My friends are going to stay over with us for the week-end” she told me third time almost in a span of an hour. “Ya sure, I am not travelling this weekend so I can take you people around”, I offered to be a good host ..... she was somehow irritated. I was thoroughly confused now. “What happened?” I asked out of sheer frustration. “Are you going to be like this?” she asked looking at me from head to toe. “What do you mean?” “Are you going to move around in the house wearing shorts like this when my friends are around?” “Oh!”

Next day morning as I dressed up at 7’o clock in the morning, my wife asked me “where are you going so early on a Saturday?” “Nowhere”...... “Then why are you dressed up?” I was trying to avoid the answer but finally blurted out, ”Because Janhavi’s friends are going to stay with us today and tomorrow”...... my wife burst out laughing and rushed to tell this to my mother ...... I feel like a guest in my own house if I have to be fully clad! And next two days I exactly felt like that.....
Of late I am being groomed day in day out ..... “why are you wearing this shirt?” “why not?” “It does not go well with that trouser” ..... “Its ok I’m going to the office not for a ramp walk” “Thats right but you don’t have to be funny” .... I give up!

Even when I had just started dating my wife (I mean my girlfriend whom I married later) I don’t remember paying particular attention to my looks and throughout my life I have maintained a fairly mediocre dress sense. With this background it is little gruesome for me to be under observation of my daughter all the time ....
“What’s her problem? Off late why is she doing this to me?” I asked my wife “Am I so embarrassing to her or something?”. “No, on the contrary, you are her hero, thats why she is so particular about you”......... I was quite relieved when she said “Shah Rukh Khan has started looking older after he developed six pack Abs. You should never do that”......

Now-a-days my daughter has an opinion on everything “I think congress will win the Lok sabha elections this time around” .....”Why don’t they just shoot the fools who shoot the tigers” ..... “I don’t think Kites will do well on Box Office” ..... I have no issues with all this......... The problem is very simple ... I desperately try to hold her childhood as tightly as I can and it is slowly but surely slipping away.......... I cannot resist the temptation of pulling her cheeks ...while she is busy admiring her own looks in the mirror ....... I can get very sentimental when she walks away to school and can’t resist calling her by her pet name ..... fully knowing the consequences of this blunder!!

I don’t think you feel childhood is a gift when you are a child! It is only when you grow up you realize what a gift it was. You then almost wait for your child’s childhood and try to hold it as tightly as you can while the child is desperate to escape from it ..... the conflict is never really between a parent and a child ..... it is between a parent and an adult who is often misunderstood as a child!
As my daughter falls asleep every night, I slowly walk over to her, pull her cheeks, ruffle her hair ...... the only problem seems to be with my eyesight now-a-days – somehow sometimes- my eyes get moist – I think I need to be careful!!