“This post is about Shaurya’s recent interaction with my Dad - his Nana Ji. I remember as children, we were all a little intimidated by his personality. It was such a welcome change to see his fondness for Shaurya and the way Shaurya hung around him during the course of their stay…”
I guess, in a typical Indian family setup and specially if you consider a decade or two ago, children automatically had a tendency to have a greater affiliation for the mother than the father. The mother in the family was the one who would attend to all your needs and took care of you and acted like a natural sponge – soaking in your anger and pain at times and oozing out love for you whenever you wanted some. The father on the other hand was the natural head of the family, the maker of all rules and preserver of decorum and order in the house. He would be the one you would naturally be scared of and usually refrained from making needless chit-chat or opening up too freely about your day to day routine.
Me and my siblings always adhered to certain rules when it came to our Dad. The implicit unstated norms were not to disturb him when he was saying his prayers, having his food or watching his daily news on TV. We would normally avoid any and all conversation at these ‘zoned’ times and would wait for him to be free.
It was the week of Shaurya’s fourth birthday and the first time that my parents came over to stay with us after Shaurya came into our lives.
As soon as Shaurya met his ‘Nana Ji’, he took a sudden liking for him and then probably did all what I could not even think of doing in my dreams even to this date. My little angel was just too willing to share all his toys with him and be around him all the time he could. So when his dear Nana Ji sat down for his one hour long prayers and ‘Paath Session’, Shaurya would sit right next to him and keep doing his colouring work or scribble on his white board.
When his Nana Ji sat in the Sun with his newspaper, Shaurya would sit next to him and talk endlessly. He would accompany him to the dining table and would sit next to him and go on with his stories. I was expecting my Dad to come up with his standard ‘No talking while eating’ message for Shaurya but to my surprise he was unusually patient with Shaurya. My hero would go on and on and talk to him about his coloring books and toys and school and probably everything under the Sun that he could think of while his Nana Ji tried to juggle his attention between his stories and the news channels on TV,
So Nana ji became Shaurya’s best friend and his confidante. Whenever we went out Shaurya would not leave his Nana Ji’s hand and would walk alongside. He started calling him ‘Dadda’ (as we call him daddy) and then Nana Ji was soon shortened to ‘Nanz’.
On one of the days, I drove my parents around for a short sight-seeing tour and we went to Humayun’s tomb. Shaurya had great fun with his ‘Nanz’ and did not let go of his hand at all. Even on his birthday he behaved like his ‘Nanz’ shadow and would even stand the way he did.
Now Shaurya had recently been talking about wanting to meet his favorite Kusum Maasi and his cousin Saanya and kept asking his ‘Nanz’ to take him to Canada to see them. So, for once we thought that this was the basic reason behind his new found love and that the main motive was a trip to Canada. But once his Nana, Nani went back to Chandigarh, I realized that there was no selfish desire behind all the attention he was showering on his Nana Ji. He kept missing them as much once they went back and wanted to speak to his ‘Nanz’ and narrate all his stories to him.
I had read a quote from Sam Levinson which said “The reason that grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy”. I am not sure if that exactly is the case here but I am sure I agree more with Victor Hugo’s saying that “There can be fathers who do not love their children but there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson”. Just hope that Shaurya gets to spend more quality time with his ‘Nanz’ and that he cherishes these fond memories for a lifetime.
