There they go, my 21-month old Puddi and my almost 5-year-old Chubbocks, hand in hand to the park, leaving us trailing behind. Chubbocks thoughtfully adjusts the length of his stride to Puddi's erratic shambling, and I look at them and swell with love and pride at all the wonderful changes the past 21 months have brought.I was always very clear that if I ever had children, I'd have more than one child. It was very important to me because, in the words of my late Thatha (grandpa), "no one else has grown up in the same house, experienced the same things and can instinctively understand where you are coming from." Not that I and my sibling - my younger sister now in California - always got along. In fact, with a 6 year age gap, we fought for years. When she was born, I resented her taking away the attention from me, all the more because she was fair and cuddly with curly, thick hair, while, according to an aunt, I was so dark and ugly when I was born that my mother cried for months. Of course mom refutes any such allegation but the hurt feeling didn't go away, especially when we had visitors - Dad's colleagues who came to see the new baby saw me in a pottu pavadai ( south Indian style lehenga) and remarked that the lehenga was pretty but not the girl. Of course I was proud of my sister and stored up lots of stories about the things she did and said, to narrate to her when she was older. But the rivalry part of it persisted for a long time, compounded by the generation gap that yawns between a 7 year old and a 13 year old.
It wasn't until she too became a teenager that we started becoming friends. Even though we're as different in personality as chalk and cheese, we started bonding over many things, including shared family history, and now I count her amongst my best friends. She was the person I called last week when I had to face a huge, life-altering decision, and while we were both dithering about it, she called me back the next day with her opinion which so exactly fitted mine. I couldn't be prouder of myself than I am of her when she gets a promotion or topped her class in school. I vetted all her friends, especially male admirers, when she was in school and college. We've helped each other through heartbreaks and cried for each other. And laughed so hard we thought our sides would burst at the silliest of things - from Baby's Day Out to the antics of our children - it's true, we can giggle nonstop, just ask our husbands. She wasn't exactly a welcome gift when she arrived, but I've never been more grateful to my parents for anything more than their decision to have a second child.
Of course, I was clear I wanted a lesser age-gap between my two, so they wouldn't have to wait so many years to become friends. And as of now it looks like they have become friends. Chubbocks, my little baby, has become the responsible elder one - he comes flying in to let me know when Puddi is about to do something dangerous, like jump off the futon or stick her finger into a socket. He accompanies us for her inoculations and while I chicken-heartedly stay in the waiting room during the process, he sits right there with his dad, patting his little sister and saying, "Don't worry Puddi, it's over."
Every time his paediatrician gives him candy he asks for a second piece for Puds - and knows not to give it to her without breaking it into smaller pieces. He carefully puts his arm across her when they sit together on the basket swing or the rocking chair so she doesn't fall off. The first thing he does in the morning is go up to her cot and tell her something funny, just to see her grin. And he hates it if she's sent down for her diaper change while we're all having our morning tea, because he wants her to share it. And whenever she visits him in school, his face is a beam of joy and pride, and he carefully leads her up to the gate, matching his confident strides to her mincing steps. The kid who hates to lose or break his toys has even learned to take it in his stride when she accidentally breaks something or tears his book.
Puddi too is no less of a friend - she thinks the sun shines out of her big brother. She waits eagerly for him to come back from 'cool' so they can play together. She imitates everything he does, from his bum-wiggling dance to his running up the slide in the park. She wants to colour just like he does and listen to stories out of his book. She hugs him and drops jammy, milky kisses on his freshly washed hair. She feeds him choice tidbits of her drooly biscuits or toffee. She keeps calling out to him every time she spies something interesting, and he's the only one she'll say "I lubiyu" to, using his name. And at night, the two of them sleep in identical positions, testifying to the bizarreness of DNA.
As I look back up at that picture, with the two of them walking hand in hand all by themselves without us in sight, it gives me a little glimmer of a future that I'd rather not imagine right now...but it's nice to think they'll be able to walk into that future with each other for company.
