Tantrum Sundari.

On some days, the little typhoon would walk in to my room in a pleasant mood. Alas, the flag of peace would be up only for half an hour. During this period, she would willingly, listen and do all the tasks told.

Suddenly, she would become a rebel. Persistence with coaching (I was trying to be a teacher to the one who also wanted to be my teacher) resulted in a walk out. 

Her modus operandi was to gather all her belongings, shove them in a bag and leave the room.

The degree of annoyance could be gauged by the force with which she banged the door shut. The room vibrated as though it was in an active seismic zone. I experienced these mild to moderate tremors once in a week

For a day or two she would stop visiting me. At the end of these cold wars, the spent typhoon would meekly walk into my room.

In making an attempt in waving the olive branch, she would gently rap on the door; seek permission to enter to start the next cycle of war and peace!

I nicknamed her “Tantrum Sundari”, had you weathered these storms, you would indeed agree with me.

With experience I could sense the beginning of the next episode of tantrum - she would decide and change upon our agreed set of tasks like an auto-wallah changing lanes in rush hour traffic.

This incident occurred about 2 years ago, just then we were getting acquainted and she attended a wedding reception in our house. My wife and daughter tried to engage and humor her. Tantrum Sundari did not even smile and remained morose.

All that changed when she saw me from a distance – a familiar face in a crowd of strangers. She broke in to a broad smile and posed for a group photograph. This gave a lasting impression of our bond - to my family. Needless to say, from then on, my family members started gifting her dress, a toy or a vanity bag.

Though I was the courier, she took great pleasure in showing me the gifts as though I was not aware of them. She followed that practice even for such gifts presented by others.

Sometimes she would smile and pose for a photo and if she did not like it the smile would vanish from the face.

When I narrated all these little things to my family, they found out that both of us were sharing the same month of birth. They simply concluded that being the binding reason!

This makes me recollect what happened a few day s ago; I had come back with a new dress for her birthday.

She had a scheme to please everyone and for that important day (isn’t birthdays the most important day for any child) she wore the dress presented by her parents and gold ornaments gifted by the grandparents.

The next day evening she wore the birthday dress that we had presented her and came to my room to show how beautiful the dress looked on her.. I had been out for my evening walk. Within the span of an hour she had made three such visits wearing that new dress, hoping to catch me in my room.

I found the door ajar when I came back. Sensing that someone had come in my absence, I looked around for the tell tale signs left by the intruder.

I found that the sketch, stuck on the wall (Read Wall of Honor) was missing and the intruder could have been none other than Tantrum Sundari.

On a detailed enquiry (read talk with Tantrum’s mother) the cat was tumbling out of the bag. Not finding me in my room, she became annoyed, returned home and threw up tantrums on every conceivable silly thing. Fed up with that behavior her mother gave her a dose of verbal medicine.

Stung by bitter criticism she had re-entered my room and tore off the Wall of Honor, a sketch she drove me complete.

So what happens now? You guessed right, a fresh cycle of ‘severe’ cold war.

P.S. : 'Sundari' means 'Beautiful'.