That Rainy Evening

Being a single parent is not easy, even in a big city, and a being a single father is worse. “A man can never nurture”, it is said. No one is willing to give a man a chance. He is bound by the societal streotypes of a bread earner and a protector. He is often the the subject of the society gossip and the child often subject to taunts and questions, answer to which he is too young to contemplate. Conflicting emotions tears up the man everyday and at every step. Should he be the caring and loving mother or the disciplinarian father? It is an emotional mesh that tend to push him to the extremes in either direction.

It was one of these battles that I was fighting that rainy evening. My five year old son was impatiently pacing in the room, anxiously looking out of the window for his playmates. It was pouring outside and he wanted to go out and play. The mother in me did not want to let the boy out in the rain. After lot of cajoling and promises, I agreed to let him go out and play with his friends on the assurance that he will keep his raincoat on and avoid the puddles. He ran down the steps of my fifth floor apartment, too excited to wait for the lift. I had hardly settled down in my sofa to complete a long pending book, that I heard his joyful shrieks. I thought of taking a peek out of the window to check on him. There he was racing down the society walkway, on his bicycle, along with the other kids of the society, drenched to the bone, his shirt sticking to his body, raincoat long shed and forgotten. I shouted at him and commanded him to come back home on the double.

He stood at the door shivering in his wet clothes, scared and nervous about the expected reprimand. I was scolded him as I rubbed him dry with a towel. He was obviously sad on loosing out of the fun time with his friends. His question disarmed me completely, “Baba, did you not play in the rain when you were my age?” He ran inside, too cold to wait for an answer and too young to understand contradiction of the adults. 

When I was his age, I not only got drenched in the rain, but also muddied my school uniform playing in the rain and mud along with my friends. When I seek to protect him, I was actually denying him the joys of childhood which he is so entitled to. We adult spend too much time thinking, “what would happen if,” and thus miss out on the small joys of life. When we correct your children we forget how we craved to do exactly the same things as a child.