100 Rays Of Son - 57

Stronger Than Love

When Rayyan mentioned the words Stronger Than Love, I was thinking very high, about spirituality, kindness and many other things. Swiss knife was last thing on my mind. Rayyan along with his friend Gautam, created this movie with most of his favourite things. Lego blocks, Mario game, and off course The Swiss knife. This tool must be a decade old or more and has been a permanent companion for Rayyan. A gift from my brother, it has been handy in fixing, installing or repairing a lot of things around our home.

Mario was one of our favourite game and we both enjoyed it quite a lot. We were as much interested in finding Princess peach as was Mario. We loved the challenges and would be very excited to know about how to overcome a hurdle. We both played against the game challenges without competing in this one game.

Most of the time, even after years of experience, I am still annoyed when I ask Rayyan to fix something and he walks in empty handed. As he nears the thing which needs attention, he slowly pulls out the Swiss knife and starts working. I have to agree that most of the time I was not able to believe it can work as a saw, micro screw driver to fix loosened handles of spectacles, a knife to cut hard fruits and many other tasks. From tiny impossible looking tasks to big ones like filing an iron wire, Rayyan with his patience and with his trust in the tool has achieved a lot with it.

It was one of those things that he had lost with the bag, but got it back later. He almost couldn’t complete three different tasks without his tool and missed it quite a lot for that short period before the auto driver returned his bag along with the Swiss knife.

There was a lot of patience and work involved in creating this short movie. One of them was to give my clean bedroom and messy look for whatever reason Rayyan had in his mind. I was surprised with the final movie because I did not see anything much happening when the shooting went on. This is again one of my favourite projects Rayyan took up, though I do not know the reason behind it. Whenever Rayyan has some free time, he takes up his own projects and starts working on them. This is the advantage of being in his field where work itself is entertaining. 

100 Rays Of Son - 56

And My Mom Was Completely Forgiven

I think I may be bit of narcissist because I do admire my intelligence and performance quite often. Though intelligent, wisdom is not something that I owned. There is a difference. Give me math, I can solve it. You run around the bush, I miss the whole game.

When it came to marriage and love, I was in a lot of confusion. I was very sure I wanted to be professional person and was very sure I wanted to work in the field of space science, especially the research regarding Black Holes and deep space. My dad wanted me to study and become a bank employee (for whatever reason he had) but my mom was damn bent upon getting me married, so that I could live happily ever after with my husband and at least two children. Unfortunately, she already had decided who I should marry as well. I was torn between my wish to study and my desire to make my parents happy. Even at the age of 18, I was not at all mature to make right decisions. 

When I did not show much interest in marriage, and also created chaos by writing open letter to the chosen boy about my ambitions and differences we had between us which may make it impossible to live together, she got a bit worried. She asked me, “Are you in love with someone? What do you wish to do in your life?” I now realize this was my opportunity for a different life which I missed completely by enthusiastically answering her, “Mommy, I wish to be astrophysicist and study about black hole”. Not stopping at that, I went on to describe the black hole and how much effort I have already put to know about it. She wanted to know what kind of guys I would admire, I rushed in and brought out comic book of batman and showed him to her. “This is the type of guy I admire”. Now there was no doubt left in my mom that over studying had turned me crazy. That night she started brainwashing my dad and explained certain things. I heard her telling him, “She will surely be sucked in the black hole”. All my efforts to explain how she was confused only made her confuse more and more.

Finally, after many more promises, drama, fights and roller coaster rides I was married off. I had to give up my studies and settle down to a life as a house-wife. Honestly I tried my best to love, to be obedient wife, to please people around, to become pious and religious, to listen without arguing and also to be someone who I was not; but, failed miserably at everything. I was stressed because pleasing others is not easy. The bar keeps rising higher the higher you jump. Financial dependency makes you weak. When you cover yourself to hide from peeking eyes of men, even a small malfunction will make you an evil woman. I struggled and with every struggle my mind would wander off to think how much I enjoyed studying and how different life would be if I did not give in to the wishes of my mom. Slowly anger started to grow inside me for the stupidity my mom did and her foolish decision to marry me off. It was not the fighting kind of anger but something that smothers slowly in your heart. It is there but you do not express it.  

Fast forward now to Rayyan’s learning of Urdu. Being a dyslexic, learning a language meant a great deal him and he asked me, “Maa you are so talented. Why don’t you achieve something in your life?” Earlier we had a challenge of memorizing social studies page and he was shocked my memorizing skills as well. With that question I started my rant, “It is all because of your naani I am stuck here cooking fish, drawing water and cleaning house. If not I would have been an scientist…. blah blah blah……………”. All the while Rayyan listened to me silently. “Maa, naani is not stopping you now. She is already gone. Who is stopping you now?” The impact of those words on me was something no one imagine. Honesty, he was simple child asking a simple question. He was not imparting any gyaan for sure. But, it changed my whole perception of my life. All of a sudden, it was like waking up from a trance. “You can either have excuses or reasons or achievements and success. I will not believe that even after death Naani is holding you back and stopping you from achieving your dreams. May be you cannot be what you wanted to be back then, but can you not be something better than what you are pretending to be? Is this really you? I think you don’t have to become some great person, but at least become what you really are rather than trying to be like everyone around you and fitting into the role they define for you”. Honestly, I can’t recall what my answers to him were, though I remember I argued a lot with him back then. It could be because I was blindly defending myself and maybe I did not myself believe what I was saying that I cannot recall it. In the end Rayyan said, “You have two choices maa. Blame Naani, who is gone and has no say in your future, forever and be where you are doing what you don’t like, or take responsibility for yourself and start thinking what you want to do and what you can do from now on”.  And this is when, I all of sudden felt guilt, regretted blaming my mom and forgave her completely. In a moment, I realized there was nothing for me to forgive because she had not wronged me at all. She did what for her was best for my life. Never did she want me to actually suffer or hurt. Rayyan was just giving his views and also his love his grandmother who had just lost her battle with cancer made him defend her. He never realized that he was giving rebirth to his mother back then. I still feel though my parents gave me birth, it is Rayyan who gave me life with his presence and wisdom. If not for that day when he woke me up from my trance, I would still be pretending to be someone who I did not like at all. In fact, I had started gossiping as well.

I made a foolish decision to shift to Byndoor after picking up my life after cancer, in a desperate move to have a happy married life and wanting a reconciliation. I wanted to give my marriage a second chance and also wanted to live independently from my family. There were too many losses, changes and things going wrong at that time. This is when I had given up whatever I had achieved after cancer when I had no help and gone to the village. It was too late to realize things do work that way. Relationships do not heal when you give in. I feel so embarrassed writing this, because today I am not that person anymore.

With nothing to fall back on other than my counselling diploma and teaching experience, no place to start my journey, from the small village of Byndoor, I started taking steps towards becoming who I was born to be. Rayyan helped me in all the possible ways he could. Baby-sitting Farheena, helping me with housework, and many other things; besides encouraging me not to give up. And slowly, as I stopped blaming my mom and taking responsibility for my future, life changed. If I look back, I can’t believe the changes that took place. Many people tell me I am a good parent and very good to Rayyan. I support him and love him, but if they see the impact he has had on my life, I think I haven’t done anything more than what he deserves.

Today, I have only love and respect for my mom and no resentment or anger. Rayyan freed me from hating or feeding the anger towards a loving person who genuinely believed that she was doing me good. After all, without her foolish decision, I would never have met Farheena or Rayyan.

100 Rays Of Son - 55

The Ancestral Pool – Byndoor Talaw

If I ask Rayyan the best entertainment he had and the most he enjoyed his time, he usually mentions the pool in Byndoor where he learnt swimming, diving, jumping and many other antics. This is the same place where my dad had learnt swimming, and he said it was there long before his childhood and that his ancestors learnt swimming there as well. Rayyan’s father also had lot of stories to narrate about this pool where he enjoyed with his friends.

Initially I was very sceptical about Rayyan swimming there because there was too much of noise, and moreover the water did not look clean. I was afraid that he may drown or get hurt. But later I realized that is maintained and cleaned regularly and noise was because children were having fun. Believe me it was as tough getting Rayyan into the water as much as it is tough getting him out of it.

He was hesitant and scared to get into the pool and it took a lot of coaxing from me to get him there. I have another story of how my brother and I actually threatened him into getting into dangerous waters without realizing it back then that it could have landed him in trouble.

The Byndoor talaw (pond or pool in local dialect) has an attraction, tradition and rules of its own which almost everyone follows with few exceptions. One of the best part of it is, though many are against the use of it, most of them will encourage children to play and learn swimming there during the rainy season and few months thereafter. Someone will take charge of teaching newcomers to learn swimming. It had its drawback as well, but it was quite entertaining most of the times.

Similarly, one person took charge of Rayyan and taught him to swim. Within two months, Rayyan started waiting for his sessions in the talaw and would be very excited being there. Soon there were few regular friends and companions for Rayyan to have fun in the pool. These children waited for monsoon as though their life depended on it. The month of May starts with discussion about Farheena’s birthday plans, but as soon as 11^th May was over, the discussion would be only about the rains. Even with few trickling drops of rain, these children would run to the talaw to check whether it was fit for swimming. It was really funny, because they themselves knew that it required 4-6 heavy rains to fill the pool but they just couldn’t wait.

I am not sure how many parents were as happy as me to send their children to have fun, even when it rained heavily. All the illness which came with monsoons were blamed on the swimming in talaw. But children would somehow escape and rush to the pool.

This was the first time in his life Rayyan became very bold with trying out new diving tricks, swimming for longer periods and diving deep which I never thought he was capable of. Within few months I could see physical changes in him as well, with natural muscles covering his body. He looked quite different all of sudden. His immunity increased and he became quite strong after his swimming experiences. He continued to swim in sea as well, when monsoons were over. Besides cycling, swimming is something Rayyan is very passionate about. The problem I face is, Rayyan doesn’t want to come out of water, once he gets in there.

This is one of the great fun Rayyan had during his stay in Byndoor. Even when we shifted to Bangalore, Rayyan would look forward to visit to Byndoor during monsoon so that he could swim in the talaw again. Slowly, all of his friends moved away to different cities for jobs and the group broke up. The talaw stopped beckoning him to its bosom. The tradition though continues with more youngsters continuing to enjoy the water and learning to swim there.

100 Rays Of Son - 54

Mob & Mom

When we were living in J P Nagar, there was a commotion outside our house at around 8 pm. It looked as though there were two groups of people clashing with each other. Farheena usually gets terrified of fights and chaos of any kind. I stayed with her and calmed her down. I was also worried as what was happening, but did not have courage to go outside and look. Then I heard a voice of a woman calling out for help. This shook me up and I opened the door and went outside. What I saw shocked me. There were a group of young men all ready to attack a woman who was in her 60s. I could identify few of the boys to be from our neighbourhood and asked them what the issue was about. In fact, I landed between the lady and the group of boys to protect her. They answered, “We have got nothing to do with this lady. We are looking for her son. She came here to protect him. Ask her first what he has done and whether she should protect him or hand over to us to teach him what she hasn’t taught him”.

By then, the old woman had entered our compound and was taking shelter there. Soon, another lady who was from our neighbourhood came in and told me to keep out of this chaos because it involved bad deeds of bad people and it can lead to violence. I knew this lady to be a bit rough and tough and never wanted to have anything to do with her apart from casual greeting when we met, yet I could not throw this old woman out. I told her, since it was her son who created the problem, you should punish him and leave this old lady alone.

By then someone shouted that they have found the guy they are looking for and all of them rushed in that direction. They looked thirsty for his blood. At this stage the old woman started wailing loudly, “My …………………. My son! They will kill him”.

I took her in and gave her a glass of water. In all the chaos and when my life was in danger, Rayyan was unaware of the happenings because he was working on the laptop with his headphones on. Farheena, also calmed down and was listening to music sitting on his bed. The two were unaware of what happened outside.

I did not have an appropriate response to my children, but I decided to make the lady comfortable and ask her about the issue. I brought her in amid protests from my landlady who said the crowd may barge into our house if I take her in. I made her sit inside and offered her water. Then I got to hear from her the story which led to the scene.

Her son had an affair with a married woman, mother of two children. According to her she had seduced him. The tough woman who spoke to me was the cheated husband’s sister. On that day, the husband had caught them both in a compromising position and by the time he regained his senses, they both had absconded. This is when his sister gathered people from the locality to teach them a lesson. The lady on hearing that her son was in danger, had rushed there. He was her only son and she was widow. She said she was afraid to go out now because they will kill her. They had already slapped her thrice.

Rayyan was now listening to all the story from his room, but he remained uninvolved. I decided to call the police and inform them of the situation. As soon I connected the call and asked the lady to narrate the incident, I realized how stories change in FIR. LOL. After her dramatic narration where only the crowd was at fault, I gave the address to the police to come and give safety to the woman to reach her home. She was illiterate and could not call anyone without the telephone book. I suddenly remembered that I knew someone from her community and gave a call to that lady. She spoke to this woman and said she will send help.

Finally her people came, police came and lady was taken safely to her home. What irritated me all through was, how Rayyan remained unaffected, and detached from the whole incident. He did not comfort the woman, did not ask me questions, nor did he come out when I went out to talk to people who were demanding that I send the woman out.

After everything settled down, I barged into Rayyan’s room and asked him, “What does this mean Rayyan? Are you going to be one of those mute spectators to crimes without helping? You know how much I detest those kind of people who feel that if it is not happening to them, it is not their problem? What if the crowd would have hit me? Don’t you think you should protect your mom?”

I am still in confusion with Rayyan’s answer that day. He said, “You are the strong woman who were protecting the lady, right? Why do you need protection? Also, there was this huge crowd of people out there and how can I fight all of them and protect you? So I stayed back here”. I was watching him seriously and was wondering whether he was joking. You can realize that the fire is stroked, “You did not have any sympathy for that old woman?”

“I had, but somehow I think she shouldn’t support her son in his wrong deeds. Somehow, I don’t see you doing that if I were that guy”.

I realize that it is difficult for non-moms to understand what moms go through when their children are at fault.

Finally gives me his perception of the issue.

“Maa, you went out and got involved in an issue when the crowd was quite wild. In all the chaos you forgot Farheena. What if the crowd would have barged in and attacked all of us, would that be fair to Farheena? You very well know, who become mobs, right? They usually do not think who, what or why. Don’t you think the right thing to do was to call the police and inform them about the chaos? For every wrong we do there are consequences. Sometimes children bear consequences of parents’ misdeeds and sometimes parents bear consequences of children’s misdeeds. I am glad Farheena did not have to bear the brunt of your actions today”.

I continue to throw angry looks at him, because though sensible, I do not agree with his part of argument.

“Honestly maa, I don’t even know how to fight or talk to people who are angry. You are an expert at it. I feel if you fail at it, there is nothing I can do”. He sounds genuine and there is honesty in him.

I still cannot accept that was the right way to respond. Even to this day, I interfere in things which are unrelated to me, though many have warned me not to do so, because many times those who look like victims may actually not be victims. At times, I have ended up defending wrong people, but that doesn’t change me.

I know he was being good brother to Farheena back then. He always has been. I also know that if two people are drowning, he will save Farheena and leave me to drown. But for me it is still a dilemma what to think of this attitude of Rayyan.

So here comes another negative post of Rayyan

100 Rays Of Son - 53

The Dyslexic Dilemma

For the first time yesterday, Rayyan seemed a little bit embarrassed with the post I put up about Dio. He feels it was not as important as to share it on Facebook. May be for him it is not, may be for many people it is not, but for me it means a lot. I have known the joy of zooming through the roads and also enjoyed bullying those who do not follow rules or try to act smart. So Rayyan, you can be rest assured that it means a lot to me.

I came across this passage in Rayyan’s writings and it shows how a child suffering from dyslexia finds it difficult to manage in school, even if they have good intelligence to learn.

“As far as I can remember, I was a very lucky child. I was living with my mom’s family in Whitelfield, where I was loved by everyone. I had the best food, clothes and whatever I wanted. My grandmother filled me with butter, ghee, and other fatty food, to make me fat, but I never gained weight. As for school, I went to a convent initially. I don’t remember how I did in my L.K.G or U.K.G, but I remember the teacher would give me sweets when I did something good. After that, we moved to Rajarajeshwarinagar, which was a little on the outskirts of Bangalore city. I was shy kid back then. I used to go and hide behind my mother whenever someone tried to talk to me. I was in a new school called New Horizon Public School. I studied there for 6 or 7 years. I was poor in both Kannada and Hindi languages. Even then the teachers liked me; maybe because I was one of the well behaved students, and never disobeyed them. I worked hard on languages but could never score good marks in them. The teachers would give me the passing marks in the languages, so that I could go for the next class. As years passed by, I had more difficulty in learning languages as they were getting more and tougher. My mom being diagnosed with breast cancer had affected my studies too and I had a very bad time emotionally back then. I was still learning the basic alphabets of the languages, when my classmates were learning letters, poems, etc. Nevertheless, I was good in maths and science”.

Rayyan still has problem with spellings and names. In our education system, there is no escape from studying at least 3 languages. English, Hindi and a local state language. In Rayyan’s case, it went to be 4 with Urdu added to the list. His father wanted him to study his mother tongue and sent him to a school where the language was included.

By the time Rayyan was 9, I realized that he was mildly dyslexic due to the mistakes he would make. Now I was in a dilemma whether I should reveal it to the school teachers and Rayyan or work to help him out with my strategies. It was a tough choice. All of Rayyan’s teachers I spoke to had no idea what dyslexia was, neither had they had any clue to help a dyslexic student learn. So, I did not discuss this with either Rayyan or his teachers much but I gave them a hint that he had problem learning languages and words confused him.

For all his shortcoming of learning languages, Rayyan had photogenic memory. He could look at an answer and could recall how the words were placed there. I was quite surprised by this skill. I would ask him to create the answers in bold big letters and memorize them the way he could. Until grade 6, Rayyan struggled with Hindi and Kannada and later on he had to face Urdu as well. When he faced the SSLC board exams, his school had kept a target of 100% passing of students. The highest risk they had was of Rayyan not clearing the languages.

Once, his Urdu teacher was in tears. She said, “He puts so much effort, does everything I ask him to do, yet he is unable to learn the language. What should I do? I don’t want him to fail because of my subject”. I promised her that I will try my best and see what can be done about this.

I sent him to my neighbour to learn Urdu, because though I was teaching a lot of children all the subjects, I had no clue about Urdu. We had just 8 months to prepare for the exam. The neighbour was good with the language, but she did not have any clue how to teach Rayyan. I was again in a dilemma as to what we could do. Finally I decided to take charge of the situation. I started learning the language starting with alphabets. I assured Rayyan, that I will learn and help him clear the exams. I know this looks like one of those Bollywood movie story, but this was the only option I had. Two months of hard work, and I was reading Urdu. Now, I surfed through previous papers and understood the pattern. One of Rayyan’s classmate who was good in Urdu helped me with my learning, and in turn I helped her with math and English.

First, I made Rayyan memorize poems which were repeated often, followed by fill in the blanks, match the following etc. Later I encouraged him to learn short answers, followed by any detailed answers he could manage.

This is the most inspirational thing I have achieved according to Rayyan. He was in awe of his mom, but as they say, for every person born there is opposite (heard it from Mr. Glass) and I am opposite of dyslexic I think. Languages are easy for me to learn and it works naturally for me.

Finally as exams neared, I clicked pictures of Rayyan studying hard for it, so that in case he failed, he should know that he had tried and given it his best. I did not want him regret or blame himself for whatever happened. I hoped for the best but was prepared for the worst as well.

Finally the SSLC exams were over. Rayyan did great in English, Maths and science. Average in Social Science, Hindi and Urdu. His poorest marks were in Kannada, where he barely scraped through. When we heaved a sigh of relief and celebrated, I revealed to Rayyan about dyslexia and what it means. He was completely shocked and couldn’t believe that he still managed to clear all the languages. I think it was the placebo effect, he feels it is mom magic. Honestly, he started trusting and respecting more after I learned Urdu.

What I realize today is, all that stress year after year and hard work was not necessary for him to go through. If he did not have so many languages to learn, he could have utilized the time to learn something more important which could be useful for him today. He has no use for any of those languages today. Moreover, I feel he has forgotten to either read or write them all of them. I hope school and education system will come up with better study strategies for students with dyslexia so that they do not have to struggle like Rayyan. 

Memorizing the answers as photos

Sitting on a tree to feel fresh

Never parting from books

Pillow hanging on head 

Giving sleep a stiff challenge

Looks like dreaming of reading

Lost to sleep again

These two pictures will tell all about the struggle and stress he went through. 

He looks so pathetic here ... poor child!

Fighting the last round of boxing with sleep...

100 Rays Of Son - 52

The Real Help

When Rayyan had to pick a two wheeler, he chose Honda Dio. Everyone kept prodding him to buy a bike, but he was insisting on Dio, a scooter. At 22, it was surprising that the boy choose a scooter when he had chance to go for a bike.

Once the Dio arrived, Rayyan slowly encouraged me to try my hand at riding the bike. He did not force me much, but would mention that it was not tough to learn anything, no matter what age we are at. I was interested in learning to ride two wheeler, but I was also sceptical about learning it after 45. Slowly, I started taking it out at night for small rides, when Rayyan took care of Farheena. Since I was not comfortable with empty roads in night, I started venturing out early in the morning.

Days went by, I had my license to thrill and was going away on long rides early in the morning. This gave me a new sense of freedom and confidence as well. I also enjoyed riding the two wheeler quite a lot. Once, an enthusiastic cyclist, I now quite enjoyed this motorized riding as well. Slowly I realized that Rayyan was always travelling on his bi-cycle whereas I was making use of the two wheeler so often. I went through guilt and told him that he can give up the bicycle and start riding the scooter instead. I can manage with autos or cabs. Rayyan said, he was all comfortable with his bicycle and did not need the scooter. He only took it out if someone needed a drop.

Later, he joined night shift in Digital Juice which was his first job. I insisted that he take the scooter, because it was nearly 16 km from our home. Yet, Rayyan often took his bicycle. But, since I was working full time back then, he had to take the scooter to be home early, so that he could drop Farheena to work and sleep after that.

It was much later that I realized, Rayyan did not like or wanted the scooter. He went for it, so that I could ride it. If he had gone for the bike, there was no chance for me to ever try my hand at riding two wheeler. When, questioned, he said, “Yes maa. I had you in mind when I went for it. I think I made the right choice. If I had discussed with you, I am sure you wouldn’t encourage me to go for it but would insist that I buy what I like. So, I never brought it up. But now, I think you realize it is worth it. I can buy a bike anytime I want now”.

This is just one example of how Rayyan has helped me live a better life. He is there to help, but he also helps me to help myself as he does with Farheena. He never acts as the man of the house, but like a person like anyone. Gender discrimination is something unknown to him. Rayyan doesn’t encourage dependency in people, rather he loves them to get the skill and do it on their own. I am quite sure that I would never have purchased a two wheeler and learned to ride it at the age of 47 if not for Rayyan.

Many people would appreciate if someone would give them a drop to a place they wanted to go, but like they say, ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’.

Every time I take out the scooter and reach a destination on time, I thank Rayyan.

100 Rays Of Son - 51

Marriage

When Rayyan turned 25, I suddenly realized that he never had a serious relationship and decided I should prod him for marriage.

Me: Rayyan, get married. Most of your friends have got married and you should get married too.

Rayyan: Who should I marry if my friends marry? Where is the connection here?

Me: Find a good girl and marry. Start looking.

Rayyan: Where?

Me: How should I know where? You should know that. (Almost angry)

Rayyan: According to me, we don’t look for girls to marry. People should marry because they found a good life partner.

Me: How will you find something that you are not looking for?

Rayyan: Why do you want me to married? Let us see if your reasons are good enough.

Me: I want to see my grandchildren.

Rayyan: oh! Maa, having children is your choice, having grandchildren is not. The girl may not want to get pregnant or go through child birth. She may physically be unable to conceive. So, then you would want me to divorce her? That reason doesn’t count. It will be the choice of the woman whether she wants to bear a child or not. So, grandchildren are not a good enough reason.

I realize that this is something I have to seriously think over. Why did I get such a weird human for my son? Still I do not want to give up.

Me: I want to relax that you are settled and will be taken care of.

Rayyan: So, you want a caretaker for your son who is completely capable of managing his life and can work on his own. What if she is lazy and doesn’t want to do work? What is she comes expecting me to take care of her?

Me: She can be of help to me in managing home.

Rayyan: So now you are talking about housekeeper. All these things do not lead to marriage Maa. You are not on the right track at all.

Me: So according to you, why are all the people married then?

Rayyan: How should I know? I am not married. You are married, you tell me.

At this stage I want to give up, because I have no clue why I got married, why I remained married or why I am still considered to be a married woman. But somehow, I want him to find a wife. As I was wondering how to take this ahead, Rayyan continues after a while, “Marriage is highly overrated maa. I am not against it, but I don’t think people should be desperate for it either. So many people regret their decision after getting into it, but never hesitate before taking the leap. Also, I will never spend on extravagant marriage, because if you see properly you will realize it is a trap for us people. We struggle to celebrate in better way than others, wasting so much time and money. Even if it ends in bitter way it is ok. I will not stop you from looking for suitable girls but don’t give false hope to her nor should you have false hopes about her. She should be able to accept that I am Farheena’s brother and I will be responsible for her. I give her a choice to be part of responsibility or not, but I don’t want her to stop me from being responsible for her. She should be informed that I am not religious. Also, make clear that I will not spend to make her friends jealous. If the girl likes me for who I am and I like her as well, we can go ahead. I don’t know where to look for girls or how to look for them either. If you want you do it.”

I was kind of happy that I could at least look for girls. Since then I have freaked out few girls as well by looking at them in a scrutinizing way. But, I have also realized that people marry for various reasons and Rayyan’s reasons are not included in them. So, tough job ahead of me, which if I think this is my job and want to do it. Rayyan has given me a choice to retire anytime I want.

P.S. It is difficult for people who are not Indians to understand this conversation. In India, arranged marriages exist and moms always try to get their children married off.

100 Rays Of Son - 50

How It All Started

May 11^th on Farheena’s birthday, like usual both the odd jobs and even jobs were passed on to Rayyan. Though I do my bit when we host a party, there is a limit to running around I can do. Farheena’s dad is weird person and so far hasn’t been of much help around parties. Usually, Rayyan ends up being the burden bearer of all the pending work.

This year, being busy with the party I realized very late in the night that Rayyan might not have had enough food that day. He was busy running errands throughout the day. So when I asked him about it I realized he did not even get a piece of birthday cake. He had just one tiny meal in 30 hours with a bit of snacks in between. Rayyan says his stomach is trained to eat more when food is available and also to go hungry when required. He says his tummy doesn’t complain nor does it affect his functioning. I know what he says is true. When usually we order more than we require at a restaurant, we turn to Rayyan to finish it off and he gracefully does it. His friends have been surprised as well at this gluttony part of Rayyan when he takes up challenge of finishing off food. But usually, he limits his food intake and surprisingly avoids heavy food as well even though he is not heavy. Sigh! Only if I could do it as well.

Going back to Farheena’s birthday, Rayyan could go to bed only after 3.30 a.m. with light dinner. I know that Farheena gets a lot of attention, gifts and love on her birthday, but there is nothing much I do for Rayyan. Feeling extremely grateful to have this pleasant person around, I kept thinking what gift I can give him. I have so much to be grateful to him for. My life wouldn’t be what it is today, if not for Rayyan and it has much easier because of his presence. All of a sudden I realized that Rayyan and Farheena were born 100 days apart, and I had 100 days to get a gift ready for him. This is how #100RaysOfSon started. When I told Rayyan that I am going to do it, he was happy to know that he could read through his childhood stories, though at that time he may not have realized that mom admires him so much that it can be embarrassing at times. Only request from him was for me to not exaggerate anything and also not to demean anyone when I write about his stories. He wanted me to be honest as well, which again may lead me to demean few people but I did not tell it out loud to him. I was excited and wanted to start immediately.

Initially I tagged my brother and sister to the posts so that they could read them when they were free. Apart from them, I did not expect many to read this. But as I started, I realized that these posts got more attention than anything I have posted on my wall before. In fact, I saw some people comment for the first time on my facebook post. This was an eye opener for me, because I realize today that good things are appreciated as much as success. This is what makes us humans special. This was not a success story, but a recollection of simple life events which had an impact on me. I want to thank everyone for connecting with me over this posts, though I have failed miserably to respond to you personally.

BTW, so far Rayyan has been reading and recollecting few memories as well. Another shocking experience was that the dyslexic Rayyan could out spelling or grammatical mistakes in my posts. This is the only time it has happened.

We had long discussion about the tadpoles, jeans, swings, beach, and off course the fish. In fact we tried searching internet to find out what kind of a fish it was. It had no scales at all and was very smooth like a dolphin, had a blow hole on its head and its fins were very different. Rayyan says it had pinkish tinge on the grey. So far it remains a mystery fish. We are enjoying our discussions over this stories.

We discussed out pets, our adventures on beach and our wonderful memories of USA. Rayyan recollected our adventures on auto-rickshaw which I will share sometime soon.

I realized how much Rayyan loves his grandparents as well. He lovingly recollected their memories when I posted about them, especially about the coin collection. The posts about his grandmother and grandfather were the ones he showed lot of appreciation for.

I also realized that I have so much to be grateful to my family for showering Rayyan with love which looks like a maximum anyone can love anyone. My mom, dad, Surila, Sajid and Sabina have loved Rayyan wholeheartedly without holding back at all.

I recollected how Paula and Jay have been a family to both my children, even though they were on the opposite side of the globe. It was nice to hear from his friends and my friends about how they felt about these recollections, of which they were a part as well.

Every day as I try to recall an incident to write about, there are tons of stories that flash before me and makes me happy. Rayyan has handled his life so well, that there is nothing to make me sigh, pull my hairs, feel sad or get angry. All of those recollections of memories come by a whiff of fresh air from beautiful garden. I am a very happy and grateful mom.

I am thanking everyone once again for making this beautiful memories worth sharing with you all. Each of your gesture of liking the post, commenting or calling me to tell how much you liked it is appreciated a lot.

100 Rays Of Son - 49

A Project To Remember

I have been coaching students and helping them with their school projects since I was 15 years of age. Being a bright student, I was even able to help my own classmates with their studies and homework since I was in 5^th Std. I also enjoyed helping everyone with extra-curricular activities and school projects.

Naturally I used to teach my younger brother, sister and their friends at times. When Rayyan started school, I was helping him with his homework as well. As days progressed, I saw that Rayyan was a bit different from any other student I have met. He would not allow me to help him at all, but would request me to guide him to help himself. I had set myself into a pattern of teaching and this was challenge for me. He would insist on understanding any topic I was teaching him before moving on to the next. I couldn’t move on until he understood what we were learning.

When the school started giving him projects, he would insist on doing it on its own, even when he was a small child. This was something I used to explain to everyone, but most of the children who I coached had various tricks up their sleeves to get most of the work done by me. I was quite good at it as well. The only person who never took advantage of my skills for doing his projects is Rayyan. He has asked my opinions, accepted my guidance but never allowed me to do the actual work.

Once his school gave them projects to work on and the topic was about science. They had to make a choice of what they would love to work on. My immediate choice was of solar system. I told Rayyan that I have worked with different students creating solar system and I would love him to do it as well. In fact, I was looking forward to show my talent to Rayyan so that he would start involving me more in his projects. Rayyan had something else in his mind and he worked on it in a completely different way. It was tough for me to watch him, because it went against all of my previous models of solar system. As the work progressed, I realized something about Rayyan. He was not only more creative than me, but also had lot of patience. He was a perfectionist and could re-do things over and over again. He never compromised on quality. I also saw that he never took references; his creations were completely new and unique. Finally I had to accept that though I have been a part of lot of student’s project, I would never be a part of Rayyan’s project. I was happy about it, because that was my strong belief as well. Honestly, I was no different from him in my childhood. The solar system turned out beautiful, but it was not an easy task for him to carry it to school. No wonder it came back home all broken, but Rayyan was appreciated for his work.

Apart from it, he created a device to check whether a material is conductor or non-conductor of electricity for another project, and lot of unique things which I had never come across in my own creations.

One of the best projects I remember created by Rayyan was flags of some important countries of the world. I told him to get the prints and create the flags, but Rayyan wanted to do it on his own. It was for a competition in his school. I saw him draw, color and create flags on white sheets of paper with sketch pens. His dedication to the project was amazing. The end product looks so much like printed flags. It was set up on a platform neatly with the names of the countries beneath them.

I got a call from his school the day he completed the project and presented it in school. His teachers were amazed that he had actually created the flags so perfectly. They appreciated him quite a lot. They took the picture of him handing over the flags to his school for treasuring the memory of his hard work. He also won prize for his project. Rayyan says, that it was something he enjoyed a lot working on the project, though it appeared quite boring to me.

What I have seen different about Rayyan is, his honesty, hard work, goodwill or any contribution gets recognized by others. I have worked so hard with children to bring out amazing projects, which looked great, but never have they been appreciated in the way Rayyan was appreciated for his work. I sometimes feel he has been lucky to bring out the best in people. He has not been accused, blamed or judged wrongly by others, but very often helped and appreciated. I feel that has helped him a great deal to walk on the path he choose and he chose the right path for him.

100 Rays Of Son - 48

Paula Aunty – Unforgettable Memories

When my mom had recurrence of cancer, I was looking for moral support to hold myself up emotionally. From the tiny town of Byndoor, it was almost impossible for me to find any sort of support. This is when I connected with a breast cancer support group which mostly had members from USA. I was wondering whether this would help, since we had huge cultural gap. This is when I bonded with Paula.

Soon our bond grew bigger than cancer support. Farheena and Rayyan got involved in web chatting with Paula aunty as well. In fact, the connection with Hi/Bye aunty was a huge turning point for both my children. The name Hi/Bye aunty was given to Paula because Farheena couldn’t say Paula. Since Paula came on webcam with a ‘Hi’ and went off with a ‘Bye’ the name stayed.

Slowly Rayyan got involved as well. Paula was curious to know about our life. Rayyan would click pictures all around Byndoor to share with Paula aunty. Somehow, in a short time all of us were very close to each other. Finally it was decided that we meet and the only option was for to travel to USA because it was not possible for Paula to visit Byndoor.

When Rayyan was in USA, it was great fun for him to enjoy Paula’s competitive spirit. Once they were in the pool and Paula was bragging how many kicks she could do. She challenged me to compete with her. I had no clue what it was all about because I was just learning to swim a bit. Then she challenged Rayyan and he refused saying it was not necessary. Paula wouldn’t let go of him. Finally Rayyan got into the pool with Paula and with the count of 1, 2, 3, Go they started kicking their legs in the pool holding on to the ledge. I could see Paula tiring out, but she wouldn’t give up. She was determined to win the battle for whatever reason and she went on and on for some time. Finally she stopped and stayed in the pool watching Rayyan. He went splash .. splash.. splash … She later got out of the pool, dried herself and still Rayyan was going on and on. We all had a good laugh as Paula kept accusing Rayyan of not considering her age, bragging off and so on. I am not sure how long Rayyan went on before walking out without any stress. Paula finally agreed that the name ‘Paani Holla’ was right for him. Though she admired him, she pretended to be angry with him for some time.

What Rayyan loved about Paula aunty was that she was not like other people he had met. She had great sense of humour and would end up like one of his age when she was with him. Another day Rayyan was trying to stand on his head and immediately Paula wanted to prove that she could do it better than him. She asked me to record it as well to show to Rayyan. Rayyan who was out playing, came in at the right time when Paula aunty was trying to stand upside down, and in the video you can see him zipping past me to capture her antics. He did not even see I was recording it already. Paula wouldn’t give up until she succeeded.

Rayyan was fascinated with window shopping in Walmart as well. He was never tired of roaming in Walmart and would be crestfallen we had to come back home after shopping. One day Paula decided to teach him a lesson. She whispered to me, “Today you and Farheena find a comfortable spot to wait for us. I will take the scooter and ask Rayyan to shop for us. I will make him run around the whole Walmart so that he will never want to come here again. Today, he will get enough window shopping of Walmart to last him a life time”. I agreed. So Paula got on the scooter and started off with Rayyan. Farheena kept watching people and greeting some of them as well and enjoyed her waiting because she knew that Paula had one of her dramas ready and it was always fun.

After a long time Paula was back and she told me, “There is something terribly wrong with this guy. We need to get him tested whether he is human or not. He is just walking and walking and walking without either getting bored or tired whereas I can’t even feel my butt anymore and due to boredom I am spacing in and out of time”. Neither Paula nor Rayyan learned any lessons with each other because Paula kept challenging Rayyan as long as we stayed with her. Rayyan had a lot of fun as well, because Paula would make all of laugh with her antics. What Paula observed and loved about Rayyan was, that he never spoke about his achievements even though she had prodded him to challenge her. He just went along and left it there once it was over. No talking about it or telling, “I told you not to challenge me”. She would accuse me that if I was in his place, I would post about it everywhere and keep reminding her of losing after bragging and challenging. She was right, because I can see me doing it even today if it happened. Even though her bond was strong with me and Farheena before we visited USA, she was saddest to part with Rayyan when we left USA.

Though we had Paula for a short period in our lives, she is very important part of our lives. All of Rayyan’s friends in Byndoor were familiar with her name. It was with very heavy heart Rayyan had to accept that Paula aunty had to finally lose her battle with cancer. Farheena sometimes waits for her messages even to this day. All the days my children spent with Paula aunty are unforgettable memories they treasure forever in their lives. She set a high standard for women in Rayyan’s life that it will be a challenge for others to meet.Though not related by blood, Paula aunty will be a family for us. 

Paula loved the way Rayyan listened to her. She was explaining Marshmallows to him.