Value people who stand up for you

IT was vacation time in school and a young mother was visiting her parents’ house with her three-year-old son. She was pampered by her parents and her son, too, was treated like a prince and indulged to the hilt. Her brother-bhabhi had a four-year-old son. The two cousins had fun playing together.

One morning, the old grandfather thought of taking his two grandsons to a park nearby. He held his pota (son’s son) by the hand and let his dohta (daughter’s son) perch on his shoulders. So, the trio set off for a walk towards the park. All the way, the dohta played with the scanty hair on the grandfather’s bald head. From his vantage point, he had an aerial view of everything around. The road on which they walked was broken and dotted with pebbles. There was a ditch on one side. The pota noticed it and was about to caution his dadu to tread carefully when from the corner of his eye he noticed his cousin, who was sitting comfortably on grandpa’s shoulders, frantically signalling to him to keep quiet.

The boy wondered why his cousin was stopping him from cautioning grandpa, but nevertheless he said, ‘Be careful, dadu. The road is broken. There is a ditch on the left side. Take each step firmly and carefully, lest you fall!’ While saying so, he held dadu’s hand tightly as if to ensure that grandpa wouldn’t fall.

The other grandson, who was watching the scene, said sourly, ‘Why did you have to tell the old man about the ditch?’ The pota said, ‘Because, I did not want him to fall!’ The boy atop grandpa’s shoulders said, ‘How boring you are! If nana had fallen into the ditch, his face would have been soiled with the muck! And we would have had a good laugh!’

This is an incident that my father once narrated. On the eve of Father’s Day, I remember him even more, as also the lessons he conveyed through these tiny anecdotes.

I doubt if all dohtas are as callous towards their nanas or if all potas are as kind towards their dadus as in the story, but the message is real. Let’s not confine the narrative to just dohtas, potas, nanas and dadas.

Sometimes, we are so blinded by attachment to those who come into our lives for a reason or a season that we neglect those who stand by us through thick and thin and constantly look out for us. Sometimes, we pamper the wrong people, even as they only make trouble for us.

Some people are just there as long as we can give them a piggy-back ride. If ever we need them, they simply disappear. They smile when we cry. We need to value those who stand up for us when we are not around and always have our back.