Gabbu Singh Diaries 1 | An unforgettable week with my sweetheart…

By the time our annual vacation was coming to an end, everyone in the group was sad for different reasons. One common reason was an end to one of the most exotic holidays we all have ever had during our week’s stay in Spain and the other prominent reason being the start of the same monotony at office all over again. My wife was a little more worried as she was resuming her work after a 5 month break, worried not just about with the anxiety pangs of her new job but more so with the fact that how will his beloved son do without her in the day time or for that matter how will she do without her darling son during the day. She was also concerned about the fact that in the first week of her job her not-so efficient albeit carefree hubby will be donning the hat of being a full time care taker of her son. So when others were trying to come to terms with work related challenges ahead for the new year, I was bracing myself for an altogether new and a unique challenge of being the sole full time care taker of my 18 months old son, Avyaan.

So as the eventful Monday neared, her anxiety rose exponentially and her questions to me started becoming all the more irritating. ‘ Will you be able to properly drop and pick him up from his nursery’ (No, I will book a cab for the toddler and let him manage on his own). ‘Will you be able to feed him his meals properly?’ (No, I will eat his cereals and baby food and keep him starving). ‘Will you be able to sing all his lullabies and make him sleep properly’ (No, I will give him some sedative and let the dose do the needful). I so wished to reinstate the fact that he is my son too but I refrained from getting into any such vicious discussion and curtly kept on replying with a ‘polite yes’. But expectedly she was not so convinced with my answers and kept on feeling that I am not too concerned or geared up for the challenge ahead. To be honest, I was not at all thinking about the week ahead, I was just trying to keep myself as blank as possible with a mind-set to tackle things as they come. As this how I have dealt with most of the key events of my life.

Not only was she worried about the week ahead, Delhi (read in laws )was in a state of numbness, Chhattisgarh (read parents) was breathing heavily too. As if their darling son/grandson is all of a sudden going to get into some not so safe custody. So for me to perform and survive in such a not so comfortable, hostile and discouraging environment wasn't an easy task. But then I was more concerned about managing my darling bwoy well, then fretting this unanimous lack of confidence in my abilities J.

So the day finally arrived and the day started a bit early too, as Mrs had to leave early for her first day at office. She left early but not before shedding a bucket full of tears, probably double of what she would have shed on her ‘bidai’ night, so much for the pain of going away from her son for the first time for this long. I too got ready by the time she left with an intent to keep my entire focus on the man of the hour. So the task ahead included feeding him a bowl of milk/cereal, getting him ready by putting on 6 layers of clothing as prescribed by her mother, getting his baby bag all decked up for his nursery and leave at least 20 minutes in advance so as to reach his nursery well in time. To make matters a bit more interesting Avyaan chose to lighten himself up minutes before leaving the house, so I had to do the 6 level undressing, cleaning up the mess and changing his nappies and dressing him up all over again. So if feeding, dressing and other stuff weren't some task in themselves, this was probably an added twister of the morning. Anyways, we eventually left for his nursery and he had no clue as to where was he heading to. Her mom kept on texting incessantly that ‘when you leave him there stay back for some time, he might cry and would want to come back, don’t just leave him there and rush back…’, I choose to ignore all of it and replied to none of those messages. After all, I was the boss now!

We reached there on time and when we entered the nursery Avyaan got visibly disturbed and started crying inconsolably. It was a tough moment, all the more tough when you have to leave him there crying and being all by himself. The staff there advised me to leave immediately and not to worry at all. I abide d and came out with a heavy heart, it wasn't a good feeling. But by the time I came out, I had 6 missed calls and 8 new messages on my cell, no points for guessing whose no. was it. I called her up and she did all the  talking for next 10 minutes, ‘So did he cry’ – Yes | ‘Did he cry a lot’ – Yes | ‘ You came out immediately’ – Yes | ‘ Can you hear him crying now too’ – Yes | ‘Can you peep in and see if he is fine’ – No | and so on…. I decided to stay outside and stroll around for the entire duration of his nearly 2 hour session and her texts kept on coming all this while. I went in by the end of 2 hours to see Avyaan standing at the door still crying hard and probably waiting for his dad or mom to come and take him home. And this was all the more gut wrenching. I asked the care taker how was his day today, to which she said, he kept on crying for the most part but that’s normal, things should improve in days to come and he will be alright. He jumped on to me and hugged me hard, probably as he has never done before, I could imagine how uncomfortable and disturbed he was with this sudden change in his life. We came back home and he was normal pretty soon. In between there were calls from Avyaan’s mom to know about everything that happened in these 2 hours and probably a lot more too. There were calls from Delhi too, to know about the grandson’s well being. And not to forget, in between I attended some official meetings too, over the phone wandering on the desolated streets of London, outside my son’s nursery, after all I was not on leave J.

Back home, act II - It was the time to cook, cook for Avyaan, cook for myself. So I cooked for both of us,  patiently invested 50 odd minutes to feed him his bowl of vegetable khichdi and then sang him his lullaby clinging him on to my chest and making him fall asleep in about 20 odd minutes. So where cooking for him and feeding him were quite an important milestones achieved, making him asleep was probably the icing on the cake J. He slept well for over two hours and that helped me to complete lot of my office work and answer lot of calls from around the world, giving minute by minute updates about the monster’s day so far. He woke up fresh, full of energy and engaged himself in his own world thereafter, I once again held fort and successfully fed him his portion of rice pudding to complete my last important task of the day J. The mommy dear arrived soon and reunited with Avyaan as if they were meeting after ages. I was told to once again narrate the entire day as it happened ( probably the innumerable calls and the texts during the day were all about discussing PM Modi’s plans for a cleaner India). I repeated the entire string of events as it happened, with a hope of getting some accolade for my supposedly brilliant job during the day, but that was not to be.

The rest of the week continued in the same vein, Avyaan’s crying in the nursery gradually decreased and he settled through as the week ended. The two and half  hours stroll around his nursery and office meetings on the roads of London continued. The cooking, feeding and sleeping efforts went on as diligently as did Mrs’ frequent calls and texts. I kept on expecting some token of appreciation from some corner or the other but Delhi and Chhattisgarh attributed this seamless and rather successful week to Avyaan’s character and him being such a hassle free child and his mommy dear brushed aside any such demand by saying  ‘you have not done anything extraordinary, this was expected out of you being his dad’ and ‘this is what I have been doing for months, have you ever applauded me for the same’. I neither had an answer for this backlash nor had the energy to indulge in an argument to rightfully claim my piece of appreciation. All I had after this eventful week was a great sense of joy, contentment and pride in the way we (dad son duo) have both collectively dealt through this rather challenging week. And for me this excitement and thrill was probably the same as it was when he was born on a sunny Sunday morning J. This indeed was an unforgettable week for me which not only brought me a tad more closer to him but even taught me a lot of things.

And for all the greed for some applause, I would say the confidence that all my friends bestowed on me by pinging me over the office communicator or over the phone throughout the week and asking ‘ How is Avyaan  doing’ or ‘What is there for lunch today’ or ‘ Has he slept’ and so on has been the real dose of encouragement and praise to get me going so well J.

A week seemed to be a long time but salute to Avyaan’s mom who has been doing this for months, my mom who has been doing it for years and all the moms in the world who have been doing this for ages!. You all rock. Thank You J

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