“Your hair has started to thin and has started to gray out as well!” says Jessica my hair stylist. I nod. I am not that surprised at my transition from jet black to salt ‘n’ pepper. The last twelve months has taught me a lot in life. “Married life” I say. She smiles at the words.
I am actually shocked that I said that. Rewind. I am sitting with my friends at a party, the mood is good. “Bachelor life is good” I murmur, nods everywhere. A friend smiles, “Kalyanam aagatey, ariyum” He says and gets up to go. “No, C’mon man it is just 10. Are you scared?” I guffaw. “Kaalam, elathinum utharam tharum mone Dinesha” (Time will answer you my friend) says my friend with a wry smile. He used to say that a lot. Whenever the pride in my voice would pop talking about things I believed cool (then), he used to say the same thing. Every time I used to laugh at it and remind myself that I could handle anything that life threw at me. Yet here I am 7 years later, at another crossroad. Now I know what exactly my friend meant.
In fact this post is the outcome of a very lengthy thought process, not some thing that people associate with me. I am a very impulsive person, and believed that I could not be very emotional for a long period of time. Married life did prove me wrong there. This my friends, Is a testimony of emotional rollercoaster that I have gone through. Excitement, Anger, Love, Sadness you name it, I can say been there!
March 6th, I came back from work. I see candles lit everywhere, a German chocolate cake. Did I miss something? She comes closer kisses me softly and wishes me a happy birthday. I was glad then that I had forgotten my birthday and not hers. The cake was a treat for my taste buds. She then gives me the B’day gift “I am pregnant”. The biggest gift ever, surely man. I am soaring. The idea of me becoming a father had not sunk in then. A week later the pregnancy blues kicked in. I had just cleaned up after my wife had thrown up the umpteenth time. No body warned me about the nuances when they wished us. I walked in hook line and sinker. It took months to get used to the temper tantrums. For once my life moved away from me. I was not the at the center stage. Here was something that I could not control.
A couple of months later, as I watched the blip on the screen my insides crutched, my ears became red hot and my eyes welled up. I saw my child’s heart beat. My life was no longer about me then. Every day since then I have tried to do things right. I freaking washed the home every week, did the dishes, started to cook and do things that I thought were not cool.
I realized how lonely life can be, when my wife had to go to her mothers house. The long hours meant that I had more to think. I would have been at some party whiling away my time, but now I am not. The news papers do their part in reminding me of the world that we live in. A man struggling to meet ends meet, a crook who enjoys the sheer pleasure of living. The face of a distraught lady trying to get to office on Monday morning who finds the wheels of her car stolen, the face of a distraught coworker who is denied yet another time. These are people who have done nothing wrong, yet they have been on the other side. Now there is a fear. The idea of being a father is sinking in.
I do not crib at my married life, but I seem to be overwhelmed by the responsibilities and choices that I am going to take in. What sort of father should I be? Should I be the father who calls his kid a champ every single time? Should I be a strict one? What sort of things should I teach my child? I do not have any answers right now. I have tried to live life by a set of principles. Most times I have let my intuition decide what’s right. But now I know that it will not just be intuition that drives me towards actions, there will be thoughts. I hope I continue to do things that are true to the principles I was taught and set an example. Now that should explain the grey!
I will not know if I was right but now I know that my friend was always right . “Time will give me the answer”.
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