by Vani Viswanathan
It had been ten minutes since the cake cutting and I was already bored. Sitting on a plastic chair in the corner of the room, a few glittery pieces of paper from the party popper on my head , I surveyed the room.
An assortment of adults filled the scene. Men in suits and women in a variety of clothes – dresses, flowy anarkali suits, sarees with backless blouses. I’d come straight from work and was in black trousers and a nondescript blue top. I was the youngest… Well, not really. It was a kid’s party, so I was of course older than them, but the other adults were older – parents, couples, most of them gushing over children.
Not only did I not fit the general profile of people there, I was nowhere close to admiring children or knowing what to do with them. I mean, I did love them in a they’re-so-cute-and-helpless-little-versions-of-people-I-love sort of a way, but for the life of me, I didn’t know how to keep them engaged, entertained.
And I didn’t mind being that way, except it made me extremely bored and useless in social gatherings such as these. Other adults in the room were milling about, minding the children, serving them food… As a two-day colleague invited by the kid’s mother to the party, I thought it would look weird to offer to help when there were so many capable people around. None of my other colleagues had made it. And the kids, ah, I didn’t know what to do with them.
Looking around, I couldn’t help feel a twang of disappointment over myself. How could I be such a failure with little people who were tickled by talking cats and engrossed over cockroaches?
Sitting on that plastic chair in a corner, I remembered, with mild annoyance, times when I was a failure. Like that time when my sister, telling her three-year-old a story about cows, only to quickly transfer it to me to continue. Caught unawares, I mumbled and fumbled through by changing a story for adults into a story of cows. Junior was clearly not pleased. “Chitthi, you are boring!” he said and went back to his mother, while I was left smarting with hurt.
Or every time my fiancé and I visited my sister and he, despite being a relative stranger to the family, could keep my niece and nephew so much more entertained than I could ever dream of. I pretended I didn’t care, even as I threw the toddler niece and baby boy nephew looks that clearly said “traitor!”
And so you could say I was facing a low point sitting with a paper plate of chips and cake in that corner of the room, while kids ran about screaming, adults were busy and I realised I had nobody to talk to, kids would never like me, and heck, I could never love children.
It was while I was wallowing in self-pity that I noticed a little boy looking at me. Immediately, I knew we had a connection. He was sitting all by himself in a room filled with things to do for children – puppet shows, a “tattoo” man, a painting corner and a trampoline! He looked at me in a shy sort of a way, averting his eyes every time they met mine. A child that found me interesting! I didn’t want to chase him away with constant attempts to make eye-contact. I pretended to be interested in my food and orange juice.
Friendly boy was lying on the floor on his chest now and eating from his plate of cake and chips. In a few minutes, we’d achieved a sense of comfort with each other, so I tried to keep his attention with a series of mindless antics: constantly touching the tip of my nose (no effect), sticking my tongue out (old trick), twirling my hair (too girly?) and baring my teeth (he looked terrified). Upset that I was quickly losing his attention, I started pushing one chip at a time in my mouth. Held it against my teeth, broke it with my finger, munched.
Friendly boy stared open-mouthed, a smear of cake cream visible on his tongue. I was shocked. Really? This? Nevertheless, pleased that I had got his attention back, I continued. One chip at a time. Three chips down, he attempted it. Little person that he was, of course he couldn’t get it right the first time. The chip fell on the carpeted floor. I wiggled my finger “no” when he considered picking it up. He moved to the next chip. I slowly opened my mouth, put a chip against my teeth, and broke it with my finger. He tried it. It worked. He smiled shyly. My heart fluttered with joy, and I could feel a tear snaking its way up my throat to my eye. I did it again. So did he. A few chips down, he burst into a joyous laugh. Children! How beautiful the sound of their laughter was! Chuckles, spilling out of those tiny mouths, passing those cute pearly whites. For a moment, I sat there transfixed, thinking that maybe I had a chance at this world, with my darling niece and nephew.
Thrilled, emboldened, the boy opened his mouth really wide, and set a huge chip between his lips. My eyes opened wide with surprise, and I smiled at him, egging him on. “Crack!” he broke the chip, and I laughed.
And he started coughing.
Choking, coughing madly, while I sat rooted to my seat, not knowing whether to rush to save him (by doing what?!) or to absolve myself of any role in the matter. As a couple of adults rushed to his help, I decided on the latter. I put my paper plate down, grabbed my bag, ran to my hostess and passed a thousand-rupee note to her child muttering a barely-audible “Happy budday!” and ran out.
No, niece and nephew couldn’t be trusted with me until they were older. Maybe I’ll be their cool aunt when they grow up, I decided.
Pic by https://www.flickr.com/photos/jepoycamboy/
