Flight of the Shikra

It was one of those extremely tiring days, Narasimha was trying to get Neelima to sleep and she was in one of those playful moods. I curled up in bed, reminding Narasimha that I had left a glass of milk and some fruits on the dining table for him. I woke up feeling nauseated and as I went to get myself some water, I saw the fruits and the milk still on the table and I just lost my head. It didn't bother me that Narasimha was still in a half seated posture and Neelima was sleeping on his tummy with her head on his chest. It didn't bother me that this always attentive and solicitous husband of mine had probably been awake most of the night with our little girl. I screamed at him and he woke up with start. I scolded him for being so careless and when he reached out for me, I pushed his hand away. I stomped out of the room.

It was much later, while he was getting ready for work, knotting his tie that I went up to him to apologise. He smiled at me as I told him how sorry I was, how sick I had felt and the sight of that milk with a creamy layer on top made me even more ill, when he stopped what he was doing. He looked into my eyes, and held me by my shoulders.

"Neela my love, are you by any chance having this thing called morning sickness?"

And it struck me, I had really missed my chums and never noticed.

I fell into his arms laughing and sobbing at the same time. A subsequent pregnancy test proved that I indeed was pregnant.

For about 4 weeks I had this problem, though moderate, it made me irritable. Narasimha ensured that I had only dry toast and weak tea during the bouts. He made sure that Neelima was well taken care of by our help, so that I would no go into an irritable mood.

Everything else was fine, the tests turned out well, and two years and a month after Neelima, on the 15th of April, we welcomed Nihir into this world. Nihir means 'The Wind' and he came with long locks of jet black hair on his head, and yes, our trademark lips and eyelashes.

"You guys have amazing quality control," quipped Vivek, "you get those lips and lashes perfect every time."

Even as I was in hospital, Narasimha stepped away for an hour and had his vasectomy done. He hugged me, "No more pills and external devices for you, we are free of any worries or tensions."

Alka was already in play school and soon Neelima joined her. We found that having four people taking care of four kids was a breeze compared to two people caring for two. As all the kids started going to the same school, they soon became famous as the kids with two sets of parents. Many a teacher would often get mixed up as to which set of parents belonged to which kid.

English and Hindi were our common languages, but they learnt Punjabi from me and Tamil from Narasimha. They could carry out a conversation in these two languages, though they never learnt to read and write in Punjabi and Tamil. It was fun to hear them speak that mixture of four languages, choosing the right words from each language to express the right emotions and ideas. This also helped them make a lot of friends.

All the four children were fiercely competitive. Coming second was never an option. Having kids in school opened up new vistas for us parents. Suddenly we were making friends with lots of other parents, of classmates of our kids. There were notes to exchange, parent teacher meetings to attend, school annual programmes and annual sports meets to volunteer and contribute our talents and skills, having kids overnight at our place.... We, who were mostly very choosy about the company we kept were now more social and gregarious than earlier. Our social circle expanded.

Suman and I worked out a system, where all the four kids spent one weekend at our place and the next one at the other's. Having the kids over made us feel young and vibrant, and when the kids were over there, we let our hair down over here. The towels that Narasimha had brought for our first massage had long worn out and were replaced by newer ones. There were new experiences, and though we never replicated our first one, we realised each and every one of those experiences were unique. Our love life only grew from strength to strength.

I would sometimes think, what would have happened if I had met Narasimha earlier, if we were of the same age. Would we have had more time together, an even longer life of togetherness? There are no answers to such questions but nature compensated me in a very different way. The average Indian woman reaches menopause at around 44, otherwise by 52 years almost all women would have reached this stage. But nature gave me nearly seven more years, it was around the time I would be 59 that the changes in my body started to take place. Narasimha stood by me through the difficult period as my body learnt to adjust. Patient and caring, he offered me a unique kind of support. And then things were normal again. The desire for him returned, true we needed external lubrication sometimes, but Narasimha and I incorporated this into our love making and foreplay.

"You will always be my teenager on steroids, you were custom built for me," he would say.

We managed our time well, we went on our bird watching trips, the kids accompanied us and we taught them everything we could about nature. Our observatory upstairs was a field laboratory for them to experience the stars. They developed a keen interest in games and sports that kept them physically very fit. They learnt to cycle at an early age, did all those things that kids do, they had their fair share of colds, viral fevers, scraped knees and broken bones, injuries, as well as awards and accolades, rewards and recognitions.

We spent our vacations travelling to different places within the country, mixing fun with education, and the children learnt first hand about their historical and cultural heritage.

Times were changing and we had to adapt to them. We taught the kids how to be safe, how to handle strangers, things like 'good touch' and 'bad touch,' online safety, that relationships was not about likes on their Facebook page, dating was not about swiping right and swiping left, that they should interact with real flesh and blood people, not images on a screen that may not be the true picture. The four of them learnt their lessons well.

On the work front, our business expanded, Suman invested in my factory and picked up a sizeable number of stocks, we were now joint holders, but she preferred to keep only about 45% of the shares, leaving the rest to me. Narasimha, received his promotions, and moved up and laterally. Sonu took over his department and though the direct reporting relationship came to an end, they were peers now, the mentor mentee relationship thrived.

We were not without our heartbreaks. Grandmother passed away, due to old age and soon Narasimha's aunt followed. Zoya and Raghav moved away to Dubai but we kept in touch.

At 50, Narasimha was promoted as the COO pf his company. Under his leadership the company thrived, it opened up into many more areas and was able to attract a lot of young talent. And then a year and a half later, Narasimha did the unthinkable. He had a long discussion with me, we were well off financially, all he wanted was to spend more time with me and the rest of the family. He gave notice to his company.

It was a shocker. Many of his competitors had tried to poach him, there were some extremely attractive offers that he had refused, so his board of directors really were not able to understand what he really had in his mind. The 'spending time with the family' seemed to be some feeble excuse that no one wanted to swallow.

Narasimha was business like. He informed his board that he would be available for six months and during this time he would mentor and handhold his successor. They asked him to recommend one, he named Sonu. The board was reluctant, it probably had something to do with her being a woman, so Narasimha just asked them to put her through the recruitment process as if they were recruiting an outsider, and also consider any one else, inside or outside the organisation, and choose the best candidate, he would be fine with their decision.

Sonu was distraught, but he encouraged her. "I have trained you for this day, and I have trained you well. Don't let me down," he said. For Sonu, letting her Boss-man down was sacrilege. She got the job.

Since she was anyway from the ranks, the transfer of responsibilities happened smoothly. When the announcements happened, the stocks of the company dropped slightly, It upset the new COO. But Narasimha was firm. "when you drive on a highway, a few potholes will not substantially reduce your speed. Take a few good decisions soon and everything will start soaring." And that is exactly how it happened.

Narasimha was given a huge farewell by his company, a lot of emotional speeches were made, and he gave a great pep talk to the staff.

Sonu came home with us after the function. As we sat in our living room, she said, "I am still very nervous Boss-man."

"Just remember this," he said, a good leader is not one who comes good in a crisis, a good leader spends sometime every day anticipating every possible crisis and having a plan, not to tackle it, but to prevent it. But no matter what you do, there will, now and then, always come a crisis situation and all your abilities will be tested. Your training and your decision making capabilities, and most importantly the courage to take those decisions will pull you through.

"Can I come to you for help Boss-man?" asked Sonu.

"You can, but as the days go by I will not be tuned in to the activities of the company, I will be obsolete, and I will not be able to help you much. But I can give you just one piece of advice. When a crisis hits you, and after you gather all the data from your managers, and a solution still evades you, just close your laptop, turn your chair around so that you face the wall, close your eyes and ask your self, 'If boss-man was sitting here, what would he do?' The answers will automatically come to you."

After Sonu left, I asked Narasimha, "This was just like that 'synchronising heartbeat' stuff that you pulled on me a million years ago Narasimha, is it fair?"

"Kung Fu Panda," he said, "remember the movie we watched with the kids? She will quickly realise that it is she and not I who is taking the decisions, it will soon dawn on her that 'The dragon scroll' is just a mirror, that there is no 'secret ingredient,' and one day she will pass this on to her successor."

The children had now started to graduate one by one. Each one of them passed out of school as the best outgoing student of that year and though Narasimha and I had grounded them well in math and physics, all of them chose the life sciences as their field of study. They all went to the same college for their undergraduate course, interned during their summer breaks in various leading research institutions and then went for their masters to different cities in Europe all on full scholarships. Alka went to Zurich, Neelima to Amsterdam, Aakaash chose Copenhagen and Nihir studied in Helsinki. And one by one, they returned to their home city for their Phd. Alka worked on cancer research, Neelima started to work in the field of neuroscience, Aakash's field of interest lay in ecology, where he worked on biomes and ecotones, and Nihir had just returned a month or so ago to commence his PhD in evolutionary biology. The children all had their rooms in the Institute's hostels, as they kept late hours in their labs, often working through the night with their experiments. Alka, being the eldest at 27 was to graduate with a Phd in a few months time and Nihir, the youngest at 23, had just got into active research. The kids or rather young adults now, would be moving between their two homes and their hostels as and when they chose, but everyone tried hard to be there at least for one meal with the family every weekend, be it at home or at some restaurant.

It was one of those lazy Sundays. We had woken up at dawn, cycled, and jogged, the kids were not to be seen, so we sneaked in for a shower together. Such activities invigorated us, when your husband is eight years younger than you, you have a perpetual stud in your arms. Narasimha was half reclining on the bed, his hands furiously trying to break his previous record of solving a Rubik's Cube. I had this small mug of 'Kaapi' in my hand, I sat next to him. He put the cube away. I held the mug to his lips for a sip, then took it to mine, and this happened back and forth for a while. I placed the mug down and whispered.

"It seems the kids are not at home."

"Is this leading to what I want it to lead to?" He asked. I got up and he held my hand.

"You want someone to walk in and catch us in the throes of our passion?" I smiled wickedly, as I latched our door.

I sat beside him again and leaned into him, my head on his chest. He stroked my back, slowly getting closer and closer to my 'bra spot.' We started kissing.

He put his hand inside my shirt, I was not wearing a bra. "You should have come to me earlier, what made you wait so long, you seem to be ready for this right after our shower."

"Not really, just one of those days when I want to break all the rules."

He pulled me close to him and rolled me over, I put my hand under his shirt, he unzipped my jeans and then his, neither of us pulled them down substantially, we made love with our clothes on.

There were beads of sweat on our foreheads, our clothes were damp, and we were glowing when we cuddled together. The best part of our lovemaking, when we would look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder if all this was real. He stroked my hair, I ruffled his.

"Narasimha, I am greying rapidly now," I said.

"Now she tells me," he replied, "and all this while I was thinking my teenager on steroids was streaking her hair."

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"There is one very big reason I married you, and I never told you, I think this is the right moment."

I kept looking at him.

"It is not only about going to bed with you beside me, it is not just about waking up with you beside me, it is not just about loving, sharing caring, cherishing, respecting. I want to grow old with you, I want you to grow old with me."

My phone rang, it was Suman. I listened to her and then said to Narasimha, "Suman wants us over at lunch time, everything is fine, but I think she is agitated about something." Then I paused.

"But what you just said makes me very happy, make me happier, kiss me like you have never kissed me before."

When we reached Suman's place, Suman and Alka were sitting across each other at the dining table, Nihir was on the sofa and Vivek a little away from him on another chair. None of them were smiling. And Neelima and Aakash were missing.

"Where are the other two?" I wanted to know.

Alka answered, "They are in their lab, Neela Auntie, they will join us for lunch."

I looked at Suman and raised my eyebrows.

"These two just broke the news a while ago, they are in love and they want to be together," Suman blurted out.

Narasimha's eyes had that hard look, a look that rarely passes his face. He looked at Alka first and then at Nihir. "Is this correct?" he asked.

"Yes, dad," and Nihir stared straight into his eyes.

Then Narasimha his face even more stern, asked, "Then why the fuck are you sitting there, you should be sitting next to your lady love, one arm around her shoulder and the other one holding her hand when you discuss such issues!"

I burst out laughing, Nihir jumped up with alacrity and settled down next to Alka. Everyone except Suman were smiling.

Suman looked bewildered."This sounds crazy, these kids have been together all their lives, I can't believe this is happening, they are almost like siblings."

"Suman," I butted in, they are not kids, they are adults now, they don't even need our permission, at least they are being honest with us, and most important, they are not genetically related, even remotely.

"I guess, but it still seems weird," Suman seemed to be wavering.

Alka addressed Suman. "This is going to sound weird Mom, but both of us have not been with anyone yet. Or to put it bluntly, we are virgins. We could have done it anywhere, maybe gone to a resort, or booked an AirBnB, but we wanted our first time to be special. We wanted it to be in a place where we felt safe. I don't think any place can be safer than our home. You also know, as PhD students we cannot be allotted staff quarters on campus. But that is not why we are speaking to you. All four of you guys, once we had grown up, have been our friends first and parents later. We really love you guys and you know it. It is just that we were not expecting this reaction from you."

Then she turned to Narasimha, "Uncle, for a moment you scared the shits out of us, but then we should have known better, you and Auntie are always playing such pranks all the time."

Narasimha got up and walked over to them enveloped both of them in a bear hug. "Think Suman, you would have worried your head off and started doing a series of background checks if Alka had brought some other guy home and introduced him to you as her boyfriend. Go back some 30 years, Suman, think of the background checks you did on me just to lease out an apartment that belonged to your friend. You are now getting someone whom you have always known and loved from the moment he was born."

Suman relaxed visibly, I went and hugged her, Vivek walked over and all of us went into our familiar family huddle.

"Okay guys, this is what you get, both of you have your own rooms in both the homes, they are open to you as always. Life otherwise will go on as usual. But just make sure the families know where you are, whether you are in your hostels, or this place or ours. Both of you have chosen well, just fill your lives with love. Your lives will change from now, and it will change for the better. You guys are smart enough to take all the precautions you need to, remember you also have careers to focus on. And most important remember, we all love you both and will always be available as your best friends."

In a while, Neelima and Aakash returned. We sat down for lunch. There was this silent communication going on between the four of them and I knew that they were all in the know of the developments.

When we were driving back, Neela asked me, "You think the other two are also upto something?"

"Probably yes, but it has to come from them, I didn't ask, because I did not want to embarrass them."

Narasimha was right, a couple of weeks later the other two opened up about themselves. And we, both sets of parents, were deliriously happy.

Neela

Neela and Suman decided to sell off their company. It was very clear that the children were not interested in taking over the reins, their core competence lay elsewhere. The factory was a tightly run ship, and one of the automakers who was the prime customer was interested in running this as their own subsidiary.

A deal was struck and the company changed hands. Neela decided to set up a trust fund for her present staff, all of whom she had recruited and trained, so that in case the holding company laid them off later on due to the vagaries of the market, they could fall back on this till they found another job. The fund also allowed these employees to draw the money either on their retirement, or for medical emergencies and incase the employee died, the money would go to their family.

Neelima and Aakaash wanted to get married, we asked Alka and Nihir if they too had thought about this.

"Unless, you guys want separate weddings," I said, "since we have a common pool of friends, and associates, we could have one grand wedding for both the couples on the same day."

The children thought over this for a few days and agreed. We hired a wedding planner and gave them the brief. An engagement ceremony on day one, followed by a 'Mehendi' ceremony on day two. On the morning of day three we would have the actual wedding at the registrar's office, attended only by family and some close friends, and in the evening of the same day would be a gala reception.