My free-wheeling rebellious ways were the bane of my Mother's life ever since I learnt to crawl around my childhood apartment. Went exactly where I was told not to go, never ate anything I was fed, read books that weren't meant for me, watched stuff on TV I was definitely not meant to watch ^_^ , kicked up a fuss every time I had to pray or go to the temple - you get the drift.
So rules, instructions, traditions and rituals were not for this disobedient child. And that's how it remained for a quarter of a century.
Till suddenly, a certain time of day meant waking up daily for a transcontinental phone call. Tuesdays meant that agnostic me visited a certain temple on someone else's behalf. For two weeks each year everything else (including the CEO of one's company) would be dumped in favour of quality time with someone. GTalk Video Chat (yeah, Hangouts didn't exist back then) is where I went on dates every weekend.
My Mother would have truly been proud of my new found ability to suppress the rebel in me and happily dance around all the various rituals that came to pepper my life with structure and stricture.
But you know what the funniest part was? I honestly didn't mind. In fact I actually looked forward to many of those rituals. They brought a new stability to my flitting-floating existence. They brought me and the boy closer.
And now we have made up some new rituals - some silly, some sweet - but each of which makes the love run deeper every day. The goodbye kiss every morning, the "What's for Dinner" joke each evening, the much-debated-over TV shows post dinner - each of these rituals adds another shade to the rainbow we're painting together.
With that the rebel casts aside her fear of rituals and rules and walks into the sunset with her Mr. Right (rite? right?).
So rules, instructions, traditions and rituals were not for this disobedient child. And that's how it remained for a quarter of a century.
Till suddenly, a certain time of day meant waking up daily for a transcontinental phone call. Tuesdays meant that agnostic me visited a certain temple on someone else's behalf. For two weeks each year everything else (including the CEO of one's company) would be dumped in favour of quality time with someone. GTalk Video Chat (yeah, Hangouts didn't exist back then) is where I went on dates every weekend.
My Mother would have truly been proud of my new found ability to suppress the rebel in me and happily dance around all the various rituals that came to pepper my life with structure and stricture.
But you know what the funniest part was? I honestly didn't mind. In fact I actually looked forward to many of those rituals. They brought a new stability to my flitting-floating existence. They brought me and the boy closer.
And now we have made up some new rituals - some silly, some sweet - but each of which makes the love run deeper every day. The goodbye kiss every morning, the "What's for Dinner" joke each evening, the much-debated-over TV shows post dinner - each of these rituals adds another shade to the rainbow we're painting together.
With that the rebel casts aside her fear of rituals and rules and walks into the sunset with her Mr. Right (rite? right?).
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