Father of two daughters

A bat came to visit me last night. I was half asleep when I was awakened by the whirring sound of wings in a dimly lit room. The television was the only source of light. The comedy on the television had started to lull me into bored dizziness when my senses were suddenly heightened by this sound. I squinted to find something moving above in the space between the ceiling and the mosquito–net. The house I currently live in is an old bungalow dating to the British India which has been done up multiple times in the past to make it breath-taking to look at but barely liveable. It has high wooden ceiling which drip during monsoon, but certainly do not allow the entry of bats on a regular basis. I wondered how this creature of the night got inside. I did not get much time to worry about. The bat was flying in the room in an oval orbit, with the centre around two feet above my head. I was safe inside the mosquito net, but it was flying irritatingly close to my head. It was making f...

“What is the name of the monkey that performs magic?” “Um. I don’t know. Wanded monkey?” “It is Hairy Potter,” replied the younger one mirthfully. The young girls were caught in the Corona pandemic at their grandparents’ house while I was stuck at my duty station. Long phone conversations with my wife and the children had become a routine affair. During one such conversation, the younger one started asking me a lot of riddles. Whenever I spoke with the girls, we talked about their daily routine which was completely different from what it would have been had they been attending school. I frequently made suggestions about how they could be nudged towards studies while not compromising with the fun that they were having. Invariably, I would end up irritating my wife who would say that she was doing the best that she could, and any alteration in their routine would only be possible if I were present.   And yet, she did take plenty of my suggestions. It is to her credit t...

   “Corona is such a nice thing!” chirped the younger one.                 After the children’s final examinations, we had taken a very short break to go to Manali – a place where we enjoyed to the fullest. I came back to my workplace while the children accompanied their mother to their grandparents. Just before the school was to reopen, however, we got the news about extension of the opening date due to the Corona pandemic. The situation had elicited this strange and irregular response from the younger child.                 And they had good reason to rejoice. They had their cousin, grandparents, uncle, aunt and mother together with them in a large three storied house, complete with a rooftop garden, and their grandmother’s on demand delicacies.            ...

                “Good morning! Good morning! How are you? Just fine!”                 Long time ago, we had bought a doll for Shaivi which sang to these lines when it was picked up. She was very fond of it. However, these or similar words come out of my mouth, and not the doll’s, on the morning of every school day.                 The response is typical. Complete silence.                 My wife gets up a few minutes before me, and gets busy for the kitchen. Even I can cook, but my culinary skills are limited and my daughters have very specific demands for their lunch. Hence it has been decided that whenever my wife is around, the responsibility to prepare and pack lunch falls on...

  “I want to go swimming,” declared my younger daughter.                 I have been known for pushing my daughters towards sports and physical activities. It was a hot summer day when swimming was the only option for activity. The swimming pool was barely a hundred meters from my house. Yet, the statement filled me with a sense of guilty pain.                 Shaivi had been suffering from a severe form of seasonal allergy in her eyes. She was on heavy medications, which gave her much relief. However, her previous visits to the swimming pool had greatly aggravated her suffering, and we were scared for her vision.                 And yet she stood, her swimming costume in her hand, even as her elder sister came out fully dressed in swimming costume ...

            “Let’s just go home” sobbed my daughter. It was the third or fourth day at the new school – her sixth school till date - and my wife had gone to pick up our elder daughter. But instead of the beaming angelic face of Aadya that my wife was used to seeing at the end of a long day, she saw a vision of a long-faced girl who was fighting her tears. Enquiries elicited the above reply before she burst into tears. My wife spent another half minute in trying to figure out what was wrong without much success, and then took the young lady to the car parked in full June sun. After a few minutes, with the AC turned on and the school a few hundred meters away came the story, punctuated with sobs and tears. She had been caned by her teacher. Since she was a late admission, she was not aware that her geography teacher had given lots of homework. She was one of thirty odd students who did not submit her homework, and they were a...

            I vividly remember the day when my younger one went to pre-school.             It was five years ago. She was two. We had been preparing her mentally for the concept of school – a place where there would be no mummy or papa, or even nanaji (grandfather), but where she would still have a lot of fun. My elder one had contributed to the process by telling about the fun she had with her teachers and friends. She was somewhat convinced, but was still apprehensive.             The school was the ground floor of a neighbouring building. The walls were colourful and had a lot of cartoon characters – that surely was a good omen. The teacher was friendly, and talked very sweetly. She did not use her pet name, but called her Shaivi. This was a sign that she was being treated like a big girl – a girl ready to go to ...