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| The card that thammi drew & the payesh she made with patali gur sent by your didun |
I used to write letters to my niece on my blog for the first couple of years after she was born. For her to read when she grows up. She turns 5 today and I thought it was time to revive the tradition.
My dear Kimu baby,
You turned five today. Which means that the earth has circled the sun five times since you came into it. Which, if you think of it, is rather slow. Well, let us just say that unlike in the case of your favourite fried rice, which can be rustled up in a jiffy, some dishes gain by slow cooking.
Oops, I got carried away. I thought was writing for my food blog.
Your Jethi and I sent you a whatsapp voice note last night and sang happy birthday. To wish you in case we woke up after you did.
You beat us to it and woke up later than us, but then it is your birthday today and you deserve to be pampered like a princess. Your thammi, who drew you a lovely card (your dad and I never got hand drawn cards from her), told me a few weeks back that you are fascinated with the concept of princesses these days. Maybe you will grow up to become a constitutionalist and change your stance.
You sent us a voice note this morning and said, ‘thank you for singing happy birthday … and also every day, no every time, on my birthday, we are going to call each other in my daddy’s laptop. Bye.’
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| Thammi’s card with a little bit you peeking through |
Yes, you are part of the Zoom generation. From school lessons to birthday parties, everything has played out on a zoom screen for you since April 2020, when you were not even four.
I want you to know that you are growing up in a dystopian world. That this will not be forever. This is not the way human beings are meant to live.
World wars ended, countries became independent, famines ended, polio was eradicated. One day we will win over the Covid pandemic too.
We will meet again and hug. Birthday or not.
Just as we did when we had flown to Gurgaon when you were a week old. When we met in Kolkata five months later for your annaprashan. When we flew to Gurgaon for your first birthday. When you flew to Mumbai for my book launch and when we celebrated your dad’s birthday here. Or when we all flew to Goa two years back to celebrate your dad’s and my birthdays. And on countless occassions in between
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| Baby Loaf is exercising his vocal chords to sing in the zoom party |
As for today, we will catch up at 7pm on Zoom. Hopefully by now your grandmoms would know where to look and will not be in the ‘floating in space’ position that grannies world all over assume on video calls.
Happy birthday Kimu
With love from little Nimki, Baby Loaf, jethi and jethu.
Belated happy birthday to little Kimaya 🙂 She is rich in the relations she has – Ma, Baba, Thammi, Jethu, Jethi and now baby Loaf and Nimki too (and I'm sure there are many others too). Such a precious little girl and I hope she doesn't have to grow up in this dystopian world for much longer.