Pappablogs

They say that you don't have any control over your life, destiny has its own way of planning things for you. We were to see the example of this saying for ourselves very soon. It was January of 2016. We had started to think about extending our family. Around the end of the month, we got to know of tragic news. Himani s nanaji was diagnosed with cancer.  Nanaji was a self-made man who brought up his 5 children as a single parent ( naniji had demised when children were very young). And he doted on his grandchildren, especially girls. He was a living example of how daughters are to be celebrated and encouraged and not considered a liability. He ensured that all his children and grandchildren get educated and brought up well. He always stood like a rock behind his children in the ups and downs of life. His daughters also reciprocated the love equally and I have always admired the father-daughter relationship he had with his daughters. Nanaji s initial diagnosis was done in Bena...

Dear Dhaani, You are 2 years and 7 months today. Come next year, and you will start attending school. And thus will begin a new chapter in your life. The thing that i am going to write to you today about will not make much sense to you  in your initial years at the school, but i think it is important for you to understand this as you grow up. You my dear, like every other child on this planet are blessed to be born with an inherent connection with your inner self. This connection is what makes a child so special and innocent. This is what we adults miss in ourselves and other adults when we see you children being so pious and pristine. I believe there is one prime reason for this. As we grow up, we start focussing only on our outer world and forget the world inside of us, our inner world. Today i want to talk to you about these two worlds.  The outer world as you have already started noticing is the world which the god has created, and we humankind, have modifie...

My mother and father were my first teachers. I am grateful to be born to such kind, simple and empowering souls. They brought us 5 kids with aplomb in the limited resources we had. They taught us simple but powerful lessons in life through their actions. Today on teachers day, I am reminded of their main mantras which I will try to pass on to Dhaani. 1. Never Cheat or use unfair means -  It sounds so obvious thing to do. Everyone would teach their children not to cheat and use unfair means. But what is important is to practice and not to preach. During my childhood, I saw my parents practicing it. It only helped that we saw some others practicing the opposite. My father was a simpleton who never used unfair means in life. That other people and his close relatives used unfair means to take benefit out of him, is another story. He never reciprocated. We as children at times questions this one-sided goodness. But today I know that whatever you do in life, good or bad, always co...

Dear Dhaani, Its been almost two months since I wrote you a note. The last few months have kept us all busy with our travels.   One of the trips was your first international trip ( to Bali and Kualalumpur) .   I Will write about that trip in some other post of mine. In this post, I want to talk to you about a mantra which I have learnt from my parents, but keep forgetting every now and then. I want you to make it one of the basic mantras of your life. The mantra is - Love People, Use things. There, it is so simple. I tell you what beta, the most simple things in life are the most difficult to follow. Look at us adults, almost all of us learnt this same mantra in our childhood from our adults ( parents, teachers and elder siblings). We followed this till the time the adulthood and worldliness overtook our inherent geniuses. We were subjected to some newer concepts   such as : 1    1.        A bigger c...

Dear Dhaani, This picture is from a time when you could not walk on your own. You held Pappa s fingers and explore the beauty of this world. Your hands would encircle my finger and together we walked. We were very eager that time that you would soon start walking all by yourself. I still remember , how one day you covered your first 4 metres on your own two feet in our living room. Slowly, you became very confident of your walks and runs. Now, you run all over and we have to hold you from running. Let me confess this, I miss the times when you depended on me  to walk.  The joy of not letting you fall, the satisfaction of teaching you that it's okay to fall at times, the frolic of falling down with you ; are all etched in my memory. It  gives me immense joy  to see you becoming  independent by the day , but I love your little hands reaching out to me for support. That's a dillema always faced by us parents. We want our children to be totally capable ...

तुम मेरे मन के आंगन में लगे हुए हर इक पौधे को पानी दे जाती हो. बेटा जब तुम मुस्काती हो तुम ठंडी  के मौसम में छत्त पर ठिठुरे ठिठुरे से उत्साह को, सूरज की गर्मी  दे जाती हो बेटा जब तुम मुस्काती हो तुम ऑफिस से वापिस आये थोड़े से झल्लाए हुए अहम् को इक "सेवेंटीज का " गीत  सुनाती हो बेटा जब तुम मुस्काती हो तुम सोकर बिलकुल उठे उठे अलसाये से इस जीवन को इक कड़क चाय पिलाती हो बेटा जब तुम मुस्काती हो तुम पढ़ी लिखी इस महाज्ञानी दुनिया की बुद्धिमानी को "टेक इट इजी " का पाठ पढ़ाती हो बेटा जब तुम मुस्काती हो