Our recent family trip to Dehradun has been pending for about 20 years – just about as long as monkey has even been a concept. Ever since the fellow and I knew we were going to be parents, the idea has always been to take the offspring to Dun “one day” to show them all the places near and dear to our hearts, places we went to school or college, hung out, met each other, acknowledged each other as “that person”, and more.
Part of that planned agenda has also always been to
introduce the monkey to our people. These are people who have always been – in
our childhoods, and still – more than family to us. These are people who, especially
in the case of the fellow, often filled in for “real” families when they have
fallen short of the expected levels of care and affection. These are people who – regardless of the gap
between visits or calls – still make us feel exactly the same level of intimacy
and comfort whenever the next encounter happens.
Monkey has heard of these places and people from practically
the day it was born, and finally, on the 22nd of January, it had the
chance to actually be there. Now, the thing one needs to know about my
offspring is that she is not, in any way, an extroverted, outgoing, hugely
social child who fits in and becomes a part of any circle you drop her in. Au
contraire, she is a shy, reticent child, who takes time to open up, usually
sits by quietly in bigger social situations, and doesn’t just suddenly “gel”.
So, when my shy, reticent child is laughing uproariously at
the antics of total strangers, telling them how all the tales heard in her
childhood are finally materializing as names begin to match faces, and calling people
she JUST met “dadi”, you know some major magic has gone down. Monkey is a
morning creature, and hardly eats anything post sunset, or bothers to be sociable.
This child of mine ate about three times normal of a meal, and stayed up
yakking and laughing till about 11!
A long time ago, I had taken some friends of mine from Pune to visit Dun with me. They had accused me, well, one of them had, of becoming a totally different person there. This time I noticed it myself. My Hindi changes, becoming the theth UP Hindi with the typical northie lehja, my “aap”s flow naturally and effortlessly, the namaste aunty/uncles fall from my lips unnoticed even by me, and the bhaiyyas automatically become bhaiji. I feel like I become truly myself the moment I breathe in that pine and eucalyptus laced air. I have always attributed this transformation to a kind of regression, a going back, to the shareef, tameezdar, UP girl I used to be, oh such a very, very long time ago.
This time, I also saw the same transformation in my child. This
threw me a bit, given that this child is a pure urban, Punekar/kolkattan with
no history of the Tehzeeb and no cause for any regression or throwback, since
she has never lived this life. The best explanation I can come up with is of
the “meme”. Not the internet phenomenon – although that also derives its name
from the original – but the original evolutionary biology concept of the
meme/gene where memes are bits and cluster of knowledge that seem to pass on
from generation to generation, without conscious teaching or transmission, a
bit like genes pass on biological information.
This kept happening during the entire stay. Uncle and Aunty
soon became chacha-chachi, people she met for the first time, for very short
times, people who were uncles and aunts to me/D just automatically became dadu/dida
and all of this came so naturally, so organically, that any outsider would be
forgiven for thinking that she had known these people all her life! From asking
for more food, to demanding gajak, to making chacha take her to eat the bhutia
version of the momo instead of the Nepali version she is used to – my reticent
and retiring child suddenly bloomed into this clan creature I had only ever encountered
in D’s extended clan.
My morning bird goes to sleep – still – by 8pm, and no
calamity, no force in the universe can wake her or force her to socialize after
that. Many a “I shall tell my grandchildren” story has originated from people
trying to be nice to her or even looking at her funny (in her estimation) –
after sunset. This child of mine, actually sprang up out of bed, from deep
sleep, got dressed, went out with us, and ate out and socialized for hours,
simply because chachi wanted to spend more time with her?!
Six days felt like the blink of an eye – and all the care and “apnapan” one felt is inexpressible. The “Ye to humara bohot accha beta hai” was expected and appreciated, sure, given that this family was one of the prime reasons D is still alive. The bonus was the “hun main uska saga chacha” angrily and vehemently when I mentioned that he was no less than her own uncle, or the “camera rakh kaam kar” monkey got, while serving as my assistant in the ladies program on the 24th, or the “arey ye bitiya to badi pyari hai, ise rakh ke ja do mahina mere paas”!
Coming back laden with kilos of homemade achaar (because I happened to mention I like this one), and gajak (because we all like it and monkey had never eaten it before) and a piercing sense of loss, monkey tells me she feels closer to these people than she does to some “legit” family. It is sure, then, that this immense love I feel, every time I set foot in that town; the closeness and immediate intimacy and warmth I become enveloped by, these strangers who just accidentally become so much – this is not a me-only phenomenon. After all, D found this – his found family – one of the multiple ones he has, quite by as much of a twist of fate, accident of circumstances in the first place.
