The Tornado ! The Terminator here I come

As the eve of the weekend was just within grasp , I was super excited to receive my friend who was coming from Delhi to meet us after so many years.  I had heard stories of her daughter who was a tornado in the making. When she visited our city 4 months back with her daughter who had not yet completed a year, she had inspired terror in the hearts of the much older kids who had a year or two more of earthly wisdom compared to her.

Undeterred by her inability to walk without kissing the ground after 2 steps , she fought and made it known to all that she was indeed the queen among the beleaguered  kings. Having missed her adventures in the previous visit , I made it a point to make it up this time by picking her up on Friday night and bringing her home.

My first impression was that of  a wisp of a child nestling in her mothers arms, refusing to get down and even look at us. Where was the self proclaimed queen whose tales I had heard ardently ? My friend assured me that I would not be dissappointed. How true. The next morning , she awoke with a sweet smile at me (whom she was seeing for the first time in her little life ) . Her eyes begged me to let her down the mammoth bed that she was sharing with me and her mother, I moved my bulk a little in an attempt to help her down, and lo behold!  before I could reach her, she had managed to get off the huge bed and raan away all excited and pleased to be in a new place filled with things that were begging for her to touch and caress and hold and destroy.

The tornado had unleashed itself..I could not keep myself in bed a moment longer as I could see her running from room to room pulling things down. I woke up fearful of  the beautiful antiques and Swaroski figurettes that were the pride of the house . I hastened to remove anything and everthing that could be broken by her little hands.

The hours just vanished as we were busy trying to keep pace with her . When our backs had turned for a split second , she had managed to drink some of the cough syrup stored in the dressing table and was experimenting on the usage of Vicks as a facial powder. Thankfully we got to her before she managed to get it into her eyes. She then proceeded to play throwball with my mother’s precious kumkum from various temples, we rescued it just in the nick of time and by the time we had managed to replace the kumkum she had taken a big lamp from the table and was prepared to throw it from the balcony on to the heads of the unsuspecting people taking their brisk early morning walk downstairs. Oh ! Well do I need to say more?

When it was time for her to leave, my thoughts were about her proud father whom she had never set eyes on (he had been a brave major in the army and had given up his life fighting terrorists 3 months before this beautiful child of his opened her eyes to this world). It pained me to see her, thinking of how proud he would have been to watch this beautiful daughter of his laughing , walking , the epitome of mischeif and cheer. He would have loved to see the world through her , to watch the warmth and trust with which she met people and befriended them immediately.She resembled him so much, the tears that I held in check threatened to spill out when I bid good bye to her smiling self. I bade goodbye to the duo.. praying to the Almighty to watch over this little angel and her mother, always.. they always are a part of my prayer to God, hoping that there are good times to come for them to mellow down the sorrow they have endured…