Amun turned 10 today.
I remember the day he was born. In fact, Smita's labour had started the previous evening. The stock market had crashed earlier in the afternoon of the 14th of March and we had been foolish enough to do some reckless punting with the noble intentions of repaying our home loan. But as luck would have it, in a matter of hours, we had tripled the debt that we were originally in.
The shock was a little too much for both of us and especially for her, as she immediately went into labour. Maybe because of the stress or whatever, as it turned out, the pregnancy turned complicated. We admitted her to the maternity home at around 8 pm and the doctor told us that this could be early labour. But either because we were fortunate or because he was kind; he decided to stay back in the hospital for us. As it turned out, she did need an emergency caeserian operation around midnight and it could have been pretty bad if things had been different.
And that's how Amun came into our lives - exactly ten years ago. His birth gave me a first-hand experience of fatherhood in a single stroke. I was suddenly in a different stage of life. There was another little seven-and-a-half pound bundle of flesh and bones that had entered the scene. Utterly incapable of doing anything except breathing, bawling and excreting, but still surpassing in anything else that came before it in imparting joy on the beholder.
We were heavily in debt. There was absolutely nothing on the horizon which looked even remotely like a saviour. But that day was the happiest in my life yet. Somehow, the love that one feels for an off-spring is not something that can be explained, it can only be experienced.
Today he has turned ten. The last 3,652 days have transformed him in a million different ways. Then he was an 11 inch baby. Today he is 58 inches tall. Then he would sleep most of the day. Today he is the fastest runner in school for two years in a row. Then he would only cry. Today he talks and sings in school operas. Then he would steal my heart, he still does that.
Even this morning when I saw him still sleeping, I was thinking of him as an 11 inch bundle swaddled in sheets. The same serene expression, the same smooth cheeks, still wrapped in blankets. I kept looking at him till he stirred awake, stretched, opened his eyes and smiled. He used to do the same thing ten years ago and would get the same hugs and kisses then too for just doing that.
Our lives have moved up tremendously since March 15, 2000. The house where Amun was born was in an old building, where we had to carry bottled drinking water home. The lift would not work half the times and we lived on the seventh floor. The roof leaked and the approach road to our house gave up about half a kilometer before reaching our building itself. But that was our home and it was complete and happy. Till today, I never regret spending those three years in that house - our first.
Today, things are diametrically opposite. We have more bank balance now than the debt that we got into when the markets crashed. We have a fantastic house with more things in it than we need. We are settled in our jobs and careers and economically on the upward trend. Thankfully, nothing is wanting. Today, this is our home since the last three years and will be for the foreseeable future.
The years have just flown and as it is with years, will never return. Some new years will come and go and before one knows it, we will be somewhere else ten years from now - the year 2020. I wonder how and where we would be.
Will Amun, now 20 years old, be a six-footer? I'm sure he will be tall and lanky - as that's how he is today. Will he be sporting long hair? Will he be good at guitar? Will he be playing some sport at some significant competitive level? Will he know what he wants to do in life? Will he have found the love of his life yet? Will he have gone through heartbreaks? Will he have experienced failures?
I wonder. But one thing is for sure. Even on the morning of the 15th of March 2020, I can imagine myself tiptoeing into his room and see him still asleep under his blankets and feel the same warm gush of love for the same bundle of flesh and bones that is now so big that it spills out of the bed.
