The Childhood memories . . .

Dr Raj Kailash Mohan

Memories from childhood are especially remembered when more than one of your family elders keep repeating those incidents for longer time. That is the case for me. My grandmother – Pappu Paatti, who reared us up kept telling about Kailash’s birth. I was 2 years or to be two years precisely, when my mom conceived Kailash. I began talking in at a very early stage. And so, I was sent to school before I was two years completely! Telling the sex of foetus was not a crime in early 1990s. So, after a certain stage of pregnancy, we knew it was a boy. But even before that, I had “ordered” for a “thambipappa Delivery” from my mother and had made up my mind that it was going to be “thambipappa”! I began drafting rules. Thambipappa should call me gaanukka (akka is must!). I would be taking care of him and all those things. Every evening after school, I used to come straight to my mom who would be sitting tired on that red velvet sofa in the hall and would talk to her growing tummy inside which thambipappa was there. The regular conversation was

“umm...

Umm…

Shari...

What next?

Maathhenn Poo (No I won’t!).” and would run away to play. When asked for, I would complain that “thambipappa had been asking me ‘gaanukka gaanukka shall we play’ but I told ‘maathhenn po’”. My granny’s biggest doubt was ‘I ordered a baby boy to play with but why had I not accepted the baby’s call to play with him!’ Well, it is funny, isn’t it?

Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to teach me what life is. Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to teach me how to cook. Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to make me self-dependant. Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to fight with. Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to push me to greater heights of achievements. Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to fulfil my dreams of becoming a doctor. Maybe I needed ‘thambipappa’ to teach me everything but live in his absence. Maybe I needed ‘thambipappa’ to know how love will be. Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to show jealousy. Maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ to share my nasty sides. Or, maybe I needed a ‘thambipappa’ and his untimely death to become strong and discharging his duties too, as a son to the family and as a citizen to the country and as a human to the world.