By Sanjay Asthana
We were all enjoying the rainy weekend. My sons Akshay, 24 going to be 25 soon, and Anmol, 23, their friend Jay who came from Noida to spend the weekend with us. Home became festive, like a party, with loud chatting and guffaws reverberating in the living room. It was a welcome change from the usual calm that is created when each of us is locked in our respective rooms with the mobile phone to give company.
I heard them talk. They sound like grown-ups. It takes a while for that feeling, that your sons are an adult, to sink in for a parent. And it was heartening to realise they are adults, and good people, focused on the task at hand and aspiring for new heights. They were discussing their jobs, football, Netflix and girlfriends. These young men mean business.
The two brothers are very distinct like chalk and cheese. Akshay is a private person, self-contained, curious, compassionate, and has diverse interests. He’s a civil engineer with a full-time job, yet is pursuing psychology and learning about networking. While Anmol is amiable, social, gets along well with people, is serious about his career, and is focused, but doesn’t show it in his easy demeanour.
I was sent on a nostalgic trip. This was fairly early in the morning on a Monday, the day Anmol joined his first job, now nearly a year ago. I wasn’t fully awake when Anmol entered the bedroom and ambled shyly toward my bed. I realised my wife, Seema, who’s a dancer by heart apart from so many other things, was already out of bed and had stepped out of the room. Anmol climbed the bed, crawled to me, and gave me a hug. I was pleasantly surprised. Then, I remembered it was going to be his first day at work. And life hereafter will never be the same.
When Akshay and Anmol were kids, it was sort of our morning ritual, I'd wake them up gently to get ready for school. Now Anmol is here to wake me up on his first day to work.
In the last few years, the two had to make a quick exit from college and come back home, to Gurugram, just in time before the flights stopped operating due to Covid. They were homebound for months and went on to finish their college and get their degrees online.
They didn’t mind it. They rediscovered their pet indulgence during their growing up years: playing computer games. It kept them busy day and night. They were mostly awake till late in the night, perhaps, early morning. As a result, I mostly found them sleeping when I left for work.
The nights were active, and happening. I could hear sounds of animated conversation emanating from their rooms. They were playing, giggling aloud, and more often than not, rushing into each other’s rooms, to have a fight or an argument about something that cannot be settled online.
That day, Anmol was to join his first job online. I could sense his excitement laced with some nervousness. He couldn't sleep well at night, he tells me, was wide awake for three long hours before he could go back to sleep. This was news. Normally, the boys have no fixed time to sleep and they play like crazy with utter disregard to the biological sleep cycle, and then at some point go to sleep, and sleep long hours.
Anmol would keep me posted about his job hunt and the rounds of interviews that followed after he finished his BBA. Many times he’d dress up in a coat and tie and face the screen placed on his study table for an interview, with just knickers and slippers waist down.
Recruitment is a long-drawn process. Some interviews went on for four rounds, punctuated by a tense waiting period in between, and may culminate in disappointment. Finally, he did receive a job confirmation from an American multinational–the one he was going to join. I remember him saying with a big smile, “What a relief! I don't have to go through this process of applying again and again and waiting endlessly for a response.” At least, not in the near future.
An appointment letter had arrived with a detailed HR policy. Anmol went through it, we discussed some of the points. He gleefully informed me that he will get paid extra if he agrees to shift to Mumbai. Anmol didn’t negotiate his salary. He was too happy to get the job and didn’t want to risk it by demanding a certain hefty take-home pay.
“I can't be late. I have told Mom for an early breakfast,” he said, a bit restless, as he left the room. I smiled. The fatherly protective instinct took over me. I wondered: isn't it too early for him to get into this morning's anxiety about going to work? After all, he’s still a child and, perhaps, should be doing things he likes, like sleepless nights playing online games, rather than entering into the rigid work cycle of reporting, meetings, targets, and long hours at work.
I could feel his warm tight hug long after he had left the room. I was reluctant to get out of bed. Nostalgic I was, past images came before my eyes in a sepia tone. I relived the day I was in Anmol’s shoes. My first day at work. I too am a civil engineer by training. The director of my company asked me to prepare a report about how I’d propose constructing a 100 km highway given certain conditions, which I did. It was a tough first day, for the director also asked me how I’d propose to his daughter for marriage. I did end up saying something affable but I'm glad that it never happened.
I’m still undecided about how I felt that day when Anmol joined his first job. Was I very happy because Anmol will now be working? Or because he continues with his natural inclination to share with me his joys and sorrows, excitement and anxiety with a hug? It does good to him, something that hasn’t changed since he was a baby. Or is it the pleasure that my bundles of joy–my boys are now grown-up men, ready to fly the nest, to meet their destiny, and soon to create their own nest?
They are independent and often tell us: “We don’t need your money.” And they have a life of their own, which also means their own set of challenges, anxieties and worries to have a foothold in the very competitive world out there. They need us, perhaps, as the sounding board, to share their feelings and seek support.
I’m glad, we, the parents, in the advancing age, are still a part of their world and as I see it, it’s beautiful.
Comments