Her First Solo Plane Trip
I’m mum about my anxiety, and am instead receiving gifts from her
My daughter Sivakami went to New Delhi for a week after she finished her class 10 Board exams.
She is fifteen, and this was her first solo flight.
Vikesh and I dropped her off at the Ranchi airport, and our older daughter, Gayatri, who lives in New Delhi, picked her up, hosted her for a week, and dropped her back.
Her grandpa, my dad, brought her home from the Ranchi airport. In spite of her “door-to-door delivery” and chaperoning, Sivakami was All Alone in the airport and on the plane on the way out and the way back.
Or as alone as one can be when one is in India, but you know what I mean. Traveling alone without friends or family.
Strangers don’t count, they add to parental stress.
When Sivakami returned from her trip yesterday evening, her dad and I were in an almighty hurry to get to our dental clinic.
Due to some back-to-back government holidays for Holi (festival of spring and colors) on Monday and Tuesday, followed by Good Friday, many of our out-of-town patients were in the city for just a few days. They wanted their fillings and root canals done double-quick. We worked through all the holidays.
With Sivakami out of town, Vikesh and I took on a lot of dental cases. Who would we rush home to anyway? Our empty home held no attraction for us.
However, even though she was now back, we had patients’ pending work and off we went.
Poor Sivakami spent the evening alone at home after meeting and greeting us for just half an hour.
Before we left, she said that she hadn’t managed to shop a lot because she was under the influence of our older daughter and her sister Gayatri, who is parsimonious.
Yet, she did manage to get some things for us, and I thought it would be interesting to write/read about.
She got me a foaming face wash. I find Sivakami and her friends attracted to “things to make the body clean and that smell nice” much more than I was at her age. They spend more money on one body wash than I would on eight bars of soap.
That said, she did get it for me, and it smells nice. I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if I am a dentist.
I like the new smell. I haven’t used tea tree before and now, the smell will forever remind me of the time when Sivakami went to New Delhi, when we bought all her course books. while she was away, of a time when Vikesh and I explored the empty nest before it happens to us couple years from now.
She also received some free sample sunscreen when she disembarked at New Delhi. It makes sense, sunscreen samples being handed out at New Delhi — it would prevent sunburn.
They should have handed out free samples of rehydrating drinks as well! New Delhi heat can go up to 113°F and stay there.
For herself, Sivakami got some bubble gum balls. I tried one and it tasted okay enough, sugar and gum, though I don’t see the attraction. Maybe the foreign taste of a candy that is available for her to buy only at New Delhi airport is what drew her to it.
For Vikesh, her dad, she got a pen set. He’s into stationery and loves notepads and pens, so that was met with a smile.
Honestly, if Sivakami had given us a dead rat like I’ve heard some cats and dogs do for their parents, we would have gracefully and gratefully received it and welcomed her (and her stinky rat). However, our daughter picked things we liked, which left us feeling delighted with her perceptiveness and the gifts.
In Tamil, kuninju (stoop/bend down) kai means, you bend down to reach with your hand.
We aren’t supposed to take from a hand we have to bend down to reach. The items are to go from us — taller, stronger, adults to them — shorter, fragile, children.
On Mother’s Day, when my children do things for me, when they make cards, serve me in some way, or save up their pocket money for a special treat for my birthday, it makes me sad. They should use their time and any money I give them or which they earn for themselves to make themselves better or happier. They shouldn’t feel obliged to spend it on me. I’m their mom.
I feel out of balance taking something from Sivakami, my own baby, who is so small that she’s smaller than Gayatri, who is small too. The fact that Sivakami is 15 and Gayatri 20, is not lost on me. They’re always going to be kuninju kai to me — if I take from them, I’ll always feel I am bending down to do so, and it feels wrong.
It felt wrong to have one baby (Gayatri) take care of the other (Sivakami), too, but they were so insistent on it that I ended up giving in.
True to form, Sivakami is back with a book she got for herself.
I read a few pages from it, and it reads well. The book starts with a bell that can hear. It’s fantasy and talks of the Fates. I was happy to think of my daughter wafting along in this author’s imagination, collecting the golden threads the author has laid for Sivakami to pick up along the way.
The baby is in bed with a book,
Well fed, well traveled, happy to be home.
Mommy and Daddy are a shout away.
The AC is working.
The mosquitoes are dead.
God is in his heaven, and all is right with the world.
Thanks to Margie Pearl for her edits and to Debbie Walker for publishing this piece!