A letter to my nephews

Hey Anay, and Ishan,

I have no idea how old you will be before your mom’ll let you read this, but you’re going to turn 3 in less than 3 months. Since you may be reading this way into the future, let me paint you a picture about how things are today.

Well, here’s the list of things that are most likely to have changed: Your grand aunt thinks I look like Milind Soman, I actually look like Bappi Da, My bank balance is worth less than the bling on his thumbs, The website we use to search for stuff like the two names you just looked for is still called Google and not Skynet, there’s a plane that’s been missing for over a week and nobody has a clue about what’s happened to it, the britishers have left India but the Indian National Congress is still here, and I still have a full head of dark hair.

Here’s the list of things that probably wouldn’t have changed: There is a man called LK Advani who wants to be the Prime Minister, the Pakistani cricket team has a youngster who goes by the name of Shahid Afridi, Amitabh Bacchan is getting lifetime achievement awards at every Bollywood event, Deepika Padukone is hot, and I love you guys like crazy.

Here’s why I’m writing to you though…

You guys were in Bangalore for a very short while and we had loads of fun. You won’t remember this trip in a few years, but it is seared into my memory. You kids are the most amazing little creatures I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I’m not saying this because we share some genes, or because I love your mom. I genuinely mean it. You guys are geniuses. I learnt a bunch of stuff from you fellows which I hope you won’t forget as you grow up.
Some of us, adults, have forgotten these things and I’m casually drawing up a small list as a reminder for the present me, and future you.

The most important thing I learnt from the two of you is that laughing at oneself is therapeutic. You guys got yours heads tonsured while you were here, and despite being super careful, you’d bump into furniture and walls every once in a while. I’m sure these incidents hurt you a little, but if it happened while you were playing, you guys just laughed at yourselves and completely forgot about the pain. I mean, one second you looked like you were about to cry and the next second you’re giggling and running around. We’ve forgotten to do that as adults. Most of our problems would vanish or not seem like that big of a deal if only we learnt to laugh at ourselves.

A lot of problems we face as adults are because of unnecessary questions posed by the people around us, and more often than not, we don’t know how to deal with them; you do. The other day, Anay and I were playing catch and he randomly decided to start throwing the ball at the garage door. I asked him why he was doing that, and pat came the reply, “You tell me !”
I let it be and after a couple of bounces, you little troll-in-the-making, you turned to me and asked me the very same question I’d asked you a few seconds ago, albeit in a jumbled order. You looked at me and said, with a twinkle in your eye, “Nikki mama ! What I do?”
You already knew how to deal with adults.

We, adults, use hi-fi phrases like “When in doubt, disclose” and “Help shall be given to those who ask for it” but we never actually apply these things in our lives. You guys know exactly when things are about to get messy and you seek help from the closest adult who can deal with it. While most of us adults can deal with literal poo-poo, the metaphorical poo-poo that our life sometimes turns into is hard to deal with alone. We ought to take a leaf out of your books and ask for help when we need it.

There’s another small incident that took place a couple of weeks ago that I’ll never forget: Your mom agreed to let you guys have a gummy bear each and kept a jar open in front of you. You guys have really tiny hands that I could just eat btw. I digress. Anay was busy playing with a top that played “Ganganam Style” (Yes, you guys still like that), while Ishan put one little hand inside the jar and after three whole minutes of struggling, managed to pull out a yellow gummy bear. Now, Shaanu, no one told you what to do, but the first thing you did was give it to Anay. You kids know the value of love, family and blood. This isn’t something I’ve forgotten,but I hope you never do as well.

There’s one more commendable trait of yours that your mom finds irksome as of now. You guys know when you’ve had enough food. Trust me, us adults don’t. We stuff our faces at these things called parties, and buffets pretty often. We never know when to stop. If everyone listened to their body, like you guys do, obesity would cease to exist.

I could go on. There’s a whole bunch of things I’m yet to mention, but I think I’ve got the major lessons covered. I hope you guys get to read this when we’re on the same continent. There are so many hats that I’ve had to don so far, and many more to come. One of my favourites is, undoubtedly, the “Nikki mama” hat.

Yours forever,
Nikki Mama