Dear Kids

Dear Kids,

It is the first time your father is considering an option to write an open letter to you guys. Probably, because I want everyone else to know what I think of you, before even you start appreciating it.

I don't want to start with the usual parental rhetoric - "You kids are my life..." and so on. For me, you two kids signify the eternal victory of the beauty of life over the inevitable oblivion of death. A year and half before you both were born, I lost my father. I have seen how the inevitable necessity, yet a personal evil, known as Death, ripped a piece of my life I used to celebrate as a father-child relationship. Till the day you were born, there was a definite vacuum in my life. But you kids filled up that vacuum so completely, as if it never existed in the first place. I got back my coveted father-child relationship, but with inverted set of equations.

With each passing day, I am preserving more of the soul of my father - his beliefs, his ideologies, his way of doing things, his laughter, everything that is precious to me. The physical body which I called as 'Baba', was a mere arrangement of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and other elements, that was predestined to disintegrate one fine day. By lighting his funeral pyre, I did my last duty towards that physical body, in assisting towards its ultimate disintegration to native chemical elements. But, the abstract memories and the qualities that defined him are something that cannot be destroyed or disintegrated. As you kids grow up, it is my pleasure to instill those values in you, so that you become competent enough to play your part in this divine cycle of birth-death-creation-annhilation.

Like every father, I too have a small expectation from my kids. As they say - "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", my expectation from both of you is quite sophisticated, considering the way, the world believes in simplicity of thoughts.

I want you to enjoy this temporary, yet beautiful life, exactly the same way you enjoy playing with me. Yes, you push my hand with all the might exerted by your tiny hands, get tired in the process, start crying and then try again & again. This is exactly how life is. It is perfectly okay to fail, even after giving your best. It is perfectly acceptable to cry hard after a failure. The real charm lies in not giving up the fight and trying once again. By playing these rudimentary infant level games with both of you, nowadays I am also learning the art of resilience & persistence. Even though the world might see you as powerless tiny infants, but for me, you both signify the victory of that resilient feeling of being alive, even as life and death run parallel to each other, every single moment. The little secret of enjoying this life is keeping that infant alive in you, without letting it bogged down by the quagmire of success & failure. As your grandfather used to say - "Regardless of success or failure, you are still my kid." Today, I am in that position to say the same words to you kids as well. You would always be my kids irrespective of how the world evaluates and judges both of you, based on its own set of standards & protocols.

That all being said, I hereby welcome both of you to this beautiful life, as we start creating beautiful memories together. As I have indicated in the very beginning of this open letter, that both of you signify the victory of life over the morbidity of death; let's live this life together in such a way that, we enjoy every moment it has to offer, and truly make this temporary existence larger than life.

With tons of love & blessings,
Your Beloved Baba