Happy Birthday Nonie

Winston Churchill had famously remarked, the only thing worse than his progeny inheriting his looks would be if it inherited his wife’s intellect!

I was also beset by such fears. My face, my habitus, my inertia, my Nirvana like calm, absent drive/focus/perseverance/tenacity; I would have none of it- in my offspring.

But I vainly prayed that somethings I wanted passed unchanged. My love for a soulful story, exquisite penmanship, the love for the printed word. 

Empathy, for what is a pretty picture without a heart. 

A strong sense of right and wrong.

22 years down, the surprises don’t cease.

From the little girl who saw her sister’s Gold Medal from school and quietly said, i want one too! She just sat at the table with her books….and got one the next year…..and the story continued till she declared she had to do well in her 12th Boards- not for self aggrandisement but as a tribute to her teachers and school. I argued, it’s easier said than done, but her will prevailed. With her topping not just the school but the city too, also being declared the top one percent of India, eligible for a full scholarship to pursue pure Sciences anywhere in India.

We were keen for her to follow the family tradition of Medicine, so I coaxed her to forget the school syllabus and concentrate on the Medical Entrance exams. No amount of pleading, cajoling, shouting, screaming would get her to concentrate on the MCQs. Undeterred in her stand that she had to give her school her best shot.

When she got into medical school too I was so happy to be proved wrong once again.

I prepared her for college and hostel, for the regionalisms would encounter. I warned, the locals are very clannish, there is no room for an outsider. She smiled and….was crowned Miss Freshers’!

And smiled some more….and was anointed the General Secretary of the college, sharing the honour of being the only lady GS of a medical college with another girl from TNMC that year.

She behoves people and the universe to write a different story for her!

I was petrified of being the mom of a bimbo whose definition of Literature starts with Snapchat stories and ends with the WhatsApp forwards.

She sweetly blogged herself into my heart and those of several others and I am sure she will stand as tall as Rega Jha and Twinkle Khanna.

I dreaded passing on my olde world visage which is based on the premise that a Professor must look like an absent-minded Professor with the image of Einstein’s hair leaping into mind.

She is a lissome lass equally at home in a Hermes scarf as Shorts from Colaba Causeway.

I loved the way she carried her long tresses carefully braided and dangling way beyond her stylish mini, and how she coordinates her smart bob with her Tribes’ Kurta.

I had just prayed that she inherit the right haploid but Heredity, Environment, and the stars aligned, and some mutations misaligned- we got a perfect picture- never mind the lighting and the exposure!

God bless you, our poppet !