PTD CLUB MEMBERSHIP?! (19-June-2021)

A Kannada proverb goes - hiriyakkana chali manemandigella – the elder sister in the family with her habits sets the pace for the rest of the family members.  When our older daughter turned 18; she was closely followed by her younger sister by a calendar gap of 41 months.  That set the memory jog back to the days when the toddler-infant duo sent us parents going around in circles, or it could have been any geometrical shape!

Sibling rivalry is no rivalry but a healthy nexus that transcends a symbiotic relationship.  Older one sought all the attention when the younger one arrived home from the hospital.  An early confrontation is when she ran towards the cot, jumped to perch herself up-in-the-air for a brief period before she bounced off the bed and cart-wheeled so meticulously to land her little behind right on top of the little one’s head!  We parents skipped a heartbeat and stood frozen in our tracks.  In all jest we pull the little one’s leg – ‘deela devi (little loose) no wonder nothing goes into your head!’

The next episode that drew our attention was when the grandpa at the front door handed her a 1-kilo coffee powder packet, which she picked up and in one swift continuous movement relayed it to her sleeping sister.  She shouted catch; the alert grandma with all her alacrity could only feel the whoosh of the flying packet that fell bang in no-man’s land….and the rest acted as a source of aroma for our delightful fantasy!

(Grand)Parents admitted her to a neighborhood school.  The precocious girl honed her talent to be a bright child and transformed into a quiet girl to spend time amongst books and creative artwork.  The younger one quickly learned to turn on her side, crawled all over and attacked her sister’s artwork.  Times when they decided to fight interspersed with times when they signed the peace pact - we miss all of it now that they are both grown up!  For their grandparents they became the eternal non-detachable appendages.

Sisters started to share each other’s possessions and became very soon inseparable.  Evenings and nights of weekdays and weekends were filled with their ingenious song-and-dance performances where their bed became the practice area, the living room the expansive stage, and the midnight the show timings.  Our new walls became the breeding ground for their artistic talent!  Some light fittings that they broke with their indoor ball-play have stayed keepsake.  We parents became their muffled audience and lived through this with a lot of passion and endearing love.

Just as we started to enjoy their kid pranks, the older one graduated to her early teens.  Their behavior became the stimuli-and-response for each other.  The little one fought for her own territorial boundary before she too graduated to the teens.  We then had two teenage kids, the unique stereo-effect this time around being a symphony to our senses, also a note – the duration got us all confused about the pitch, which threw us out of place with our waning patience!

To enjoy children as they grow up is a treat; it is a special privilege to see two girls growing up, a true joy to behold.  May the clan of daughters expand – I secretly induct parents with two girls into a virtual club called the “PTD Club” - Parents with Two Daughters (and more, less is good too)!  Eager to build this fraternity.