The Teflon Man melts part -3 The Ice is broken

The next Sunday, Bystander reached the park early and sat on the usual bench awaiting the arrival of his bench mate – the senior citizen. Minutes ticked by and there was no sign of the gentleman in the park. He started worrying whether his non-stop outburst has hurt and made the gentleman to avoid his company.

 Impatiently he started gazing at the holiday crowd slowly filling the park benches. Then he did an unusual thing – reserved the vacant space on the bench with a package he was carrying for the senior citizen.

At last, the senior citizen made his appearance and came straight towards Bystander saying, “Good evening my friend” with a wide smile on his face. After being chastened by Muser, he respectfully rose and showed the reserved seat. The ‘good evening my friend’ made him to blush a little at his previous highhanded behaviour.

The gentleman continued, “You mentioned about Google being the guru for the youngsters. It mirrors the feelings of loggers or bloggers. Can it feel and experience the emotional content? Parents do. When a son or daughter is born, an age difference also comes in to existence.

When children become adults, the age difference in terms of number of years still remains the same. So your attempt to indirectly bring the phenomenon of generation gap is out of context here, as the gap started exiting from the very first day. Do you agree? 

The one point I agree with you is that their perceptions and mine differ. Let me clarify it further. My perception of them remains the same but their perception of me is the one that is undergoing change.
Please do not tag these feelings as a post-retirement crisis or credit them to senility – I am sure these thoughts would have occurred in your mind!. My heart is still filled with the sweet moments of their childhood and it is still fresh in memory.

My friend, in their child hood, I might have tried to wean them towards my favourite hobbies or would have urged them to take my failed ambitions forward. After a time I realised every one has his or her chosen priorities and let them follow their own paths. Of course, this part was as difficult as a numismatist or a philatelist parting with dear collections.

My friend you forgot to mention the fact that when the migratory birds take notice of human presence, they communicate with each other in the flock and then decide either to relax the vigil or to tighten it for survival.

Do the children react like this – SMS, emails, calls go and find a place in the black hole of cyber space. Is this not a relevant point for one to get annoyed?

Birds do follow our presence. Even in my children’s absence I have been following their progress – a new flat, a car, a promotion, or a start-up company. This poor heart gets filled with joy and pride, even if these happenings come to my notice through someone else.

May be all these things might sound to you a little far fetched to you Mr Bystander. But this how I feel. Anything, wrong with that? Your rainbow example – I know a rainbow is beautiful, as a whole and like children, and one should not try to segregate it in to individual colour components.

Let me explain my feelings with the example of a mirror. It reflects the object in front of it and it will continue to do the same even when it is broken in to shards of glass, as long as the mercury coating is in tact, showing multiple images of the same object.

The fact is none of these virtual images can be held in your hands except the real object placed in front of the mirror. Children are the real objects and real images. The point I would like you to understand is that a broken heart still beats with many images of the child –turned- adult. Unlike the virtual image in the mirror, these mental pictures touch the heart and are seen by the mind. Parents are not just mirrors.

I liked-your imagery about celebrations, the steamed ground nut and thoughtful present. Above all your question “How long to wait for the next Sunday” set many things in motion. Thanks for every thing.

Mr Bystander I have decided to arrange for a grand family get together on the first convenient occasion of a birth day or a marriage anniversary, of one of my family members. I feel now it is my duty to take the first step to bring together the flock. This I am going to do not for my  sake but to ensure such togetherness in the years to come for sustaining a close knit family.

I will not miss that opportunity to remind them that friendship and Google stop at a distance and only the kinship will travel those extra miles with them.

You had very many kind words and it helped me to see through the haze. From the way you handled the discussions, I believe you must have a friend or relative of an equal calibre. What else will give me more pleasure than inviting both of you to our family reunion? Both of you will get my invitations.

After a long and satisfied silence, Bystander took leave of the gentleman, walking in to falling dusk.