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The Child and the Adult

It was amusing, the two of them together, asking to take pictures at every corner of the street, at every sight they felt was interesting or eye catching, that they did not want to erase from their memory and wanted to show proudly to their friends and family when they went back home. They would wear their sun glasses and stand prominently next to their object of interest and smile. The 38 degree weather had clearly exhausted them, but when it came to photos, there was no stopping them. 

The frustration and helpless in my friend was even funnier, him trying to coax the two older women to stop taking pictures, to move them along so that they could move onto the next destination.

"Mummy, why do you want to take so many pictures?", he would implore.

"Chottu, it is very pretty know?", his mum would respond sheepishly.

He would grit his teeth. She would keep the ipad. And the whole process would start 10 minutes later. 

And I would just laugh.

Sometimes we forget that our parents were, at one time, children too. The very first time I had this thought was when I came across an old photo of me as a toddler, naked, in the arms of my mother. She was in a pale blue sari, with old fashioned humongous spectacles that rested on the bridge of her nose. Though what really caught my eyes was that youth and innocence in her face. She was just a girl. In her early twenties, fresh out of school and forced into the responsibility of a family and kids, I wondered how she did it. She had nothing, no preparation to do something that my generation with all the books, apps, youtube videos and parenting sessions still are too scared to undertake. When I looked at that picture, I wondered what went through her head, the fears, the worries and the insecurities she had. She probably knew that being a parent called for her to put away herself, the joys of her youth to appear as a responsible adult and role model to her kids.

When we eventually grew up, she relaxed and slowly started to remove the mask that had hidden that imperfection that perhaps every parent tries to hide for the sake of their kids. The woman that emerged would crack childish jokes, laze around, zone out, come up with irrational justifications for watching TV that mirrored what I used to say as a kid for the same purpose, spend a lot of time gossiping with her friends and rebel against her husband's iron rules. She loved to take photos like every other girl today and was very sensitive about not showing that gap between her teeth in the pictures.

Half the time, I would grit my teeth. The remaining half, I would just laugh.



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