Kaleidoscope

As I walked bare footed, my legs touching the wet sand of the beach, my hands automatically sprang up imitating the flying posture, embracing the sweetness of the air around me. In that moment, I felt like nothing could go wrong…and I closed my eyes and instantly remembered the first time I had this feeling…

I had gone to a fair with my dad for the first time…I was very scared as I had never seen such a crowd before. My dad sensed my fear and held my hands firmly and took me to a stall. It was a small stall filled with revolving paper wheels adhered to a wooden stick, each with a combination of different colours. They were all moving in their own axis due to the breeze….have never seen anything more beautiful than that till now….I still remember the sense of satisfaction on my dad’s face when he saw me….

The touch of a cold wisp of air brought me back to reality…I felt something wet flowing down my cheeks….I managed to sit on a rock nearby and led myself back to where I had left….

After I had satiated myself with those wonderful paper wheels…my dad clutched my hand and took me to another one. This was a bit different from the earlier one…few people standing…a kid leaning over something hidden under a cloth…they came out laughing and amused! After a few more kids, I was asked to do the same… As I raised the cloth, I saw a weird looking device sitting on a stool staring at my face...I was told to peek inside it through the small hole in front of me…and as I peeked inside…I found a whole new world there…. 

Colours…so many colours…Patterns…coming at me & disappearing all of a sudden…then everything changed into a new pattern….new colours!!! Oh so magnificent….!!! And then suddenly it stopped…I looked up at the man angrily…but my dad just laughed at me…

Something hard suddenly hit my leg…I looked up and saw a kid pointing at something and asking me to give it to him…I threw the ball at him...

And realized how I miss my childhood…how I miss my innocence…how I miss my dad…although I never tell him that….

Coming to Mumbai for my studies was not a difficult decision for me…I was going forward in life…but I never realized how difficult it must be for my dad to let go off me…but he did it anyway….

I never realized how my each demand in life was taking me away from him…but he fulfilled them anyway….

Parents may not be right always about us (specially to rebellious kids like me) but it does not take much to listen to them for a while… Because they do that for us anyway….That’s the curse of being a parent!!!

There are very few moments in life that define you….and the day that I saw the kaleidoscope (later came to know) with my dad….was one of them….

The colours of that small device showed me my whole life in 2 minutes…New comes after old fades away…but then new will always have a part of that oldness…

 Just like us…We will always be a part of our parent and even after they are long gone(God forbid)…they will always be a part of us…

With that thought in mind…I started walking towards the majestic body of water in front of me…the waves caressing my feet…leading to my destiny….