Happy Birthday Princess!!!!

Hello Guddipoka,

You are almost a little over 13 and a half months now ... and this post is long due as i planned it for your birthday ... November 7th ... Yeah your age can now be said using the word "year" ... that's in some ways the most important milestone in one's life. The best part is ... you are so nonchalant about it.

I made something for your 1st year ... you may have seen the actual thing a few times by now already, but here's the video I shared with people to let them know you have now turned one.

The year of many firsts - Her first year in the world - in snapshots! - YouTube


What's different now that you are a year old? Let's see:

You can now drink cow's milk ... you don't like it much ... definitely not in a bottle ... maybe with chapatis soaked in it. You are quite a tough customer about drinking milk ... you just have it from your mom ... and nothing else.

We dont need to sterilize your utensils anymore ... you are more immune and less fragile ... and this exposure to lack of sterilization (or more germs, however you wish to look at it) is an attempt to increase your natural immunity. So we expect you to fall sick a little more often now ... but you are doing okay so far. Just some cough and cold ... and that's pretty much it.

You can stand on your own, but for some reason (I think it is because you have your mother's genes ;)) you are extremely cautious and as soon as we make you stand on your own, you just sit down and don't risk walking. Some might say you should walk by now ... but your mom and I are in no hurry for any of the milestones ... we believe everyone does it in their own time.

Here's a cute video of you standing ...

You crawl very fast and we find it pretty difficult to keep you from vandalizing the kitchen. Yeah! you do that a lot. Here's proof:

And you still dont have teeth ... following your mom's footsteps ... she got her first tooth when she was 15 months old ... beat that!!!

The most amazing thing is ... you have started kissing :) You kissed me first on a day when we went out shopping ... then you kissed me a few more times before you kissed your mom ... I was so happy about this :) and was making your mom jealous. But then one fine day you started to find "not kissing me" funny ... and you now only kiss your mom. :(

Now that you know what you are like around your first birthday ... let's see how your first birthday went.

To be honest we kept it pretty personal (as I like birthdays to be) ... you had Bordidi (My grand-mom and your Thammu's mom) visiting us ... her being 85 years old and having her birthday on the 10th of November, just 3 days away from yours, made her automatically the most important invitee for your birthday :)

We put up some balloons and streamers around the house ... it looked pretty colorful ... and you looked around in amazement ... got a little startled at the sound of bursting balloons but didn't cry .... overall you were more confused than amused with all of this to start with.

When we took you for your 6 month ceremony (to introduce you to regular food - namely "Rice") you hated the crowd and you still dont like a lot of strangers around you ... you have quite a drama routine when you see strangers ... includes profuse crying, and complete refusal to go to them, even when we say its okay ... quite embarrassing for us sometimes (in a nice way) .... but more than anything it is amusing. Every child has a phase of social anxiety ... yours is now ... so its all good :) So anyways ... we didn't invite anyone from outside the family. Who were here for your birthday? Bordidi, Chandradidi, Dangormama, Rezamama (came very late), Buamama (a surprise visit), Manisha Kaki, Vihaan and of course the four of us.

Your cake was my favorite flavor - Tiramisu, with a bumble bee on top ... that is because you love the song "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee ... ".

And you loved your first taste of cake ....

I want all your birthdays to be special ... but in a way slightly different from what everyone else does on their birthdays. But we'll talk about it some other time. 

Love you 

Baba 

After a long pause ...

Hey Mithi Mamma ...

It has been a long time that I have been here ... actually with all the new things up in life, the routine has been a little ... well too routiney (I am sure that's not a word, but you dont say any words yet anyway ... so we're good :))
Here's a little description of how you are now ... let's start with how you look today after an extremey tantrum-filled (or so I hear from your mother) hair-cut

So that's how you look ... more mischievous than ever ... and of course I love it :)
You make a lot of noise these days, and now that you can move about a bit (yeah you finally started crawling ... after you started standing up with support ... talk about routine :)) ... you are quite lovely to watch, crawling about, picking up a couple of plastic toys that you like to throw around ... and sometimes chasing an unsuspecting ant or any spec of dust on the floor or sometimes heading towards to our shoes kept at the extreme end of the hall - your playground.

I dont know if this is the best time, as everyday seems to be wonderful ... we're loving how you are becoming a wonderful person who is learning about the world around her and forming her own opinions of stuff and people.
You recognize the fan when asked and more than us who are alive around you, you recognize Dadu in the photograph. I think that is amazing  :)

More in time ... Love you

Baba

What I come home to ...

Here is a picture of what I come home and see. This is just the most beautiful thing in the world . After a full day's work this is the most calming thing ... I can't imagine how lucky I am to share my life with the most beautiful people in the world .

Fathers' Day

Hey Mithi,

I call you "Gugush Pupush" these days ... doesn't mean anything ... or maybe it does ... I think it just expresses the feeling I get when I hug you and you stroke your nose and forehead on my shoulder or chest ... whatever it is ... its lovely to call you that ... and when you acknowledge it with a smile, it just becomes priceless.

I am enjoying every bit of being your father and secretly love the fact that the first syllables you have started blabbering are "Ba ba ba ba ...". However stupid it is, something wants me to believe that these are not meaningless random sounds that you find interesting to repeat throughout the day with a lot of zeal ... but that's you calling me "Baba". Now being the reason-based thinker I am (or claim to be), this shall remain in my closet till you or your mom reads this :-)

But this Fathers' Day, I wanted to share with you some of my memories of my father ... the man I called "Baba".

I selected this photo as this is the playful way he would have looked at you.

I don't know if I can ever convey to you how much he would have loved you and how much he was capable of loving, no words would really be able to explain his heart and his deep love for people he cared about. There is an expression in English "Loving someone to a fault" ... that was the only way he knew to love. The problem was ... he knew that and hence to prevent himself from committing that "fault" he would be extra harsh to the people he loved ... mostly to your Tham and me.

You can ask your Titlididi how and what she remembers of him ... as she is the one grand-daughter he could meet and play with before he missed you by less than a year. She used to call him Dolphin Dadu as he told her stories about the freshwater Dolphins that swim about and sometimes jump out of the water in the Ganga. The stories fascinated her so much that she started calling him Dolphin Dadu. She would be a teacher and he would be her student and would act stupid and slow and she would laugh at him and scold him for not understanding ... but he could spend hours with her and keep making her feel like the teacher she wanted to be without a single moment's miss.

Anyways it's Fathers' Day and I really wanted to write about him, but didn't want to post it anywhere, because if people read, they would probably praise me ... and I don't want that ... I just want to write about him because I miss him, especially because I cannot share my fatherhood with the man that taught me what a father should be like. Then I realized, I could write to you ... this can be our little secret.

You know I pride myself with my ability to observe and my thirst for knowledge ... and if I really look back, this whole concept of observation came from Baba.

He would show me the onset of winter by waking me up in the morning to see the fog outside.
He would make me watch movies and through the movie he would tell me what wowed him about a particular scene, and why. He would explain to me how the scene could have been made ... and I would be wowed too.
When I started learning music, I wasn't good with rhythm, and he made me do the beats alongside a Sarod recital by Ustaad Amjad Ali Khan for a full 90 minutes. That one day made me get Rhythm in my reflexes and I never got it wrong, as he promised. That's why I cherish the black blood clot on my thigh, and didnt have regrets.
He taught me swimming at the age of 2 and a half, in the Ganga without tubes and stuff ... and that's one thing I still do better than most although I was never athletic.
He showed me how to read a book and make excerpts and notes that made me learn and remember stuff, that made a wonderful ready-reckoner just before exams.
He would get us cousins together and when we asked him to tell stories, he would ask us to think of stories ... he would say here's what I am starting with. Now what do you think happened after this? And we would imagine the next bit of the story and we would create a story together and not even know.
I liked detective stories and didn't much care for the fairy tales ... and he had one ready whenever I asked for one. And he didn't lie to me when I asked - did you read this? He would always say - no I just made it up :-) And trust me no two stories would be similar.
He would always pose questions like "Where did we really come from?" "Is there a God?" etc and I would wonder and then read up and try to make up my opinion. He always had his opinion and didn't refrain from letting me know what it was ... but always allowed me to debate, and mostly argue with him. That made me research more.


I could go on for another 33 years (time that I had him for), but I would draw the line here. Through you I wish to tell him - "Baba, I love you ... I wish I told you this in words while you were alive ... I know you knew this and my biggest treasure would be that in your last conscious day you said "Shubho aamake shob theke beshi bhalobashe" ... I really did Baba ... Just never said that to you in person. I am sorry for that. I know it was hard for you to be the father you were, I know you made many sacrifices just for me, I know you worried about me ... a lot, I know you wanted me to be the best and have the best. I also know that I had the most wonderful father in the world, the father that I would like to be someday. I promise you I will try my best. Happy Fathers' Day  Baba! Miss you."

And Mamma to you I promise I would be that father you need, I wont be your ATM or your unconditional support (especially when you are wrong), but I will be there for you whenever you need me. I would have unconditional love for you ... always. I would worry about you, but I wont tie you down, if its something constructive you plan to pursue. I would be your encouragement, and your strength and hopefully your hero ... At least I will try my best.

I love you...

Baba

I wish to take you here ...

Hello Darling,

I know I have a huge backlog to clear in terms of telling you stuff ... the thing is from the time I got you to Bangalore, I was so engrossed in spending time with you that I just couldn't manage enough time to sit and type ... you are just that wonderful to be with ... and you dont even talk yet ... for the last couple of weeks you have started blabbering ... 2-syllable sounds ... and just that is so amazing, I can hear it all day ...

Anyways ... Here's something I wanted to share with you ...

This is a video of Iceland ... this is so beautiful that I thought whenever you grow up you should see this ... I would like to take you and your mom and my mom there ... but you know how life plays out at times ... so while I would try my best to be with you when you are there ... if by any chance this doesn't happen, you will get to this place and just enjoy the sheer beauty of nature ... of course if you like this video as much as I do :)

So here is the link:

Midnight Sun

Love
Baba

While you were away

Mithi Mamma,

The time I spent at home without you girls was very difficult for me ... I had just got you and was not able to hold you and kiss you and play with you  ... not to mention the fact that your Maa and I havent been apart for this long since we met ... Ya ya we are a mushy couple and I hope you grow up to be a reasonably good hopeless romantic... I think that's the best :)

Anyways back to when you were away ... so your Maa, being the sweetheart she always is, made the beginnings of some of those days special by sending me a little snap of you ... so here is a quick run down the memory lane of those days.

Ei je tor ghumonto smily mamma

Ei je tor Mithi mamma ghumocche

Tumar wrapped mamma

Finally sleeping with her hands down ;-)

Tor mamma-r eita ki posture janina

Traffic police

Yay! Papa is coming

Papa I am one month old

For a change

Good night papa

Papa tumar chanar tupi choto hoye gecche

Tupi fit hoye gecche

Tor eskimo mamma

Tor bunny mamma

Mithi wrap ;-)

Happy?

Yay!!!

Ei je tomar shabji mamma

Amader potla ta

Dekho tumar mamma

Merry christmas

Pillow sharing

Eita diye chalao for now

Tumar intellectu​al mamma

Papa tada tadi chole esho

So here we are ... you are home now ... I get to see you, hold you, kiss you and play with you everyday ... You know you caught my year today and Maa clicked a pic on her phone (just like these ones) and posted it on Facebook (not sure if its still around when you are reading this). And I loved it so much that I shared it on my profile too as a self goal so that my friends could make fun of me :) I am so loving it ...

Here is the pic:

This is just the beginning baby ... the fun for life is just warming up :) Just dont pin all your fun in pulling my ear ... okay sweetheart?!

Love you