A prayer for Swapneel and his brothers – Part II

Swapneel is growing up – day-by-day, hour-by-hour – like a bundle of pure energy. The earliest riser among us, his voice – full of strange melody and chaos – wakes us up every morning. His never-ending questions, his tremendous effort to climb the stairs or push my laptop bag around the room, his eyes and face always bursting with curiosity and enthusiasm, reminds me every day how our learning curve starts stagnating as we ‘grow up’. The incredible speed at which he is learning and picking up things everyday – from replicating complex sentences to doing acrobatic jings – leave me with awe and admiration.

As parents, we could only hope he continues to bloom in his own way and in his own pace, guided by nature and instincts, and not particularly moulded by our thoughts, norms, or ways of life. Though I’m not a believer in any way, yet, seeing him grow up day-by-day almost like a flower, I sometimes feel like bowing down before God –whosoever he or she may be – in gratitude; my mind filled with those beautiful words of Rabindranath Tagore: ‘Every child brings with him the message that God is not yet tired of man’.

Sometimes I also think about the world in which he is growing up: what kind of a world will it be? Though our generation were probably luckier than many previous ones (destroyed by war, poverty, conflicts of identity), there is absolutely no guarantee that we are moving towards a better world. Yet, no matter what awaits Swapneel and his generation, I believe they would have the strength and the conviction to shape it the way they want it to be.