Papa...!

She was a tiny coiled up bundle as they brought her in. Huddled up in the arms of the nurse, eyes fast shut, ears clipped to her cheeks…lips barely moving and barely any motion… He held out his arms, trembling with anxiousness, or was it sheer joy at seeing his dreams take shape…as the warm folded creature was put in his inexperienced hands, he struggled to hold her comfortably and then his worst fears came true…annoyed and perplexed as he was, he could do little when the small devil started crying at the top of her voice…among all this confusion he had turned to look at her, his wife…and one smile restored the quiet…no, the child had not stopped yelling, it was the calmness within, a sudden tranquility submerged the foaming seas within him, as if the inner turmoil was fathomed by a giant wave which engulfed the turbulences as it lashed against the shores in full strength…

His daughter, his world… and one day, he realized it was time she went to school…interviews later, he got her an admission in a convent school. He went to drop her in the school bus when it pulled in…all excited to sent her to read…the bus had taken a turn towards their home, when he felt hollow within…how could he let her go out in that world then…how would she manage, cocooned that she had been all these years in his very arms…he wanted to stop the bus as it moved…and his eyes welled up with tears…when he turned back to see those eyes again…as if by Nature’s design, on came a gush of breeze and ruffled his hair…as he brushed away his worries along tweaking his chin, his worry had transformed to a reassured smile…she would be back that evening…it was Ok!

Everyday she would come home from school, and tell him tales of what had been…he knew all his friends and teachers by heart; God, how much did she speak…he often asked her… “What does mamma give you for Tiffin!!!?”And she would grin but still complain and sulk… “Ok! I wont tell you…” she would say, “I’ll tell mamma…!!!” and he had always known…barely a minute would pass when she would start to chatter off again… :)

Then one day, school was done and college begun…he had loved those days…he would come home to find her there each day…college had smaller working hours…and he would have tea with his little one in the balcony among the greens and again listen to all the chatter… “She hasn’t grown up…” he had thought…

She had been a good kid, a good student and a darling of her teachers…never had he got a complain…she once fudged his signature though, but she had promptly come and told him, he quickly added… he stood there and laughed to himself…he giggled standing lost in thought in that crowded platform…aloof from the world around…as his little one chattered on the phone with her ma…and there he stood…as if in a trance…

He was shaken out of his dream by the screeching hoot of the train as it pulled in…he hurriedly collected himself, hushed her to her seat and put her luggage in place, with the hands that once held the whole of her, he stroked her hair and asked not to run around and to keep calling…all done he went out to wait for the train to take her away for another year… perhaps… But, she again came up to the door…and chattered till the train signaled yellow…or did she twitter…he heard her as she spoke of things…absorbed thoroughly as his soul flew elsewhere …then the train started to move and she waved him a bbyee…he had turned before he could see her leave…eyes welling with tears again…and he headed home…where his soul lay…