There are some things, in themselves inconsequential, that your children have said or done, which remain fresh in your mind years later as if drawn there with indelible ink. I want those tiny bits from the past to be documented somewhere — my blog, where else? — so I can refresh my memory when eventually it starts failing me.

They are not only for me, but also for my children whose hearts it might gladden when they read it in some future when I am not around to regale them with their own antics as I do often enough. Some of the things the children themselves are not aware of, naturally so because they were too little at the time it happened to form memories. Other things they have simply forgotten.

For example, the First Born cannot possibly remember his ‘dancing’ days from the time he was but nine months old, and self-taught to boot, because those were times when there was no television or cable.

One warm warm afternoon in September while at Ferozepur Cantonment, we were seated in garden chairs in the verandah waiting for the L&M to come home for lunch. I still remember the tall tree that stood to our right and the meager shadow it cast on the pocket-sized lawn in front of us, the way all of this was shielded from the path beyond by the green hedge of henna plants.

The First Born, holding on to the back of the chair he was on, started bouncing up and down, wiggling his butt too for good measure. There was no music playing. Of course one cannot rule out the music that was playing in his baby head. Anyways, seeing him thus engaged, I smiled. Are you dancing, I asked him. He looked at me sideways, and seeing me smiling, repeated his action. Not a big talker — the ‘ABC book‘ would come later — he had let his actions speak rather than words.

Of course, there was no looking back after that. All we had to do was say — or not, for that matter for who needed parents to prompt an activity they loved? — ‘dance’ and he bounced and wiggled for all he was worth. My little dancer. 🙂

© Shail Mohan 2020