Spiderman cried….....

I had always encouraged my four year old son to be tough. As he is maturing from his fussy-missy baby world, I have tried to train him not to cry if he wanted something or if he fell down.

The other day he started crying while we were waiting in the hospital. He started wailing in high pitch. As he saw my grim face, the high pitch dropped at least a couple of octaves and his tight-lipped mouth was quivering trying to insulate the noise coming out of his mouth.

Although it was a bit heartbreaking to watch his eyes filled with tears, I managed to keep a tough face and talked to him with a calm tone.

Do you want to be strong?

He nods his head assertively and says, “Yes”.

If you want to be strong, you can not cry like a baby. You are a big boy.

Have you ever seen superman cry?

“No”

Have you every seen spiderman cry?

“No.”

As I was about to present the concluding punchline, he interrupted me. As if a truth had suddenly dawned on him, he raised his voice and said (emotionally), “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

I was perplexed.

What do you mean, “yes”?

Then he said something that cracked me up and completely blew me away.

“Yes dad, I have seen spiderman cry”. He continued to cry.

I had such a tough time controlling my laughter and put up a brave face. Tobey Maguire cries in the movie, Spiderman, when his uncle passes away.

I told him that it is okay to cry, but he should try not to cry for every incident.

These are constant reminders of the profound influence of TV on our lives, especially the lives of our children who do not have the ability to distinguish good from evil.

Well, this is an incident that I have treasured to share it with my son as he grows to be a man.

Everything happens for a reason?!

I decided to drive to Bangalore along with two of my good friends. The (married-bachelors) trip was conceived and planned over a couple of phone calls in a span of ten minutes. Although I felt that I was a bit rash in deciding on the trip, something told me that this was the way it was supposed to be. The excitement of the "bachelor" part lasted for a few days, by listing the pubs we would visit in Bangalore, before my two buddies dropped the “sorry” word with the usual excuses. I went on with the trip alone.

I am not the type who would go the extra mile to reach out to folks from my past. But, in some cosmic way, I met a very good friend (a senior from UG) of mine after over fourteen years. It was a very gratifying experience. We talked about how life has changed over the past decade and laughed about the crazy things we had done during our rebellious college days.

This pleasant experience had motivated me to reach out to more folks. I ended up contacting two more friends (including one roommate) after sixteen years. We exchanged information about our circle-of-friends with whom we had contacts. We laughed about the way the nicknames (often vulgar) flowed freely in our conversations, especially since we had grown to be refined men (ya, right).

As I was driving back to Chennai, I kept wondering how all this could happen. Is somebody pulling the strings? I mean, this is not the typical me.

I had contacted three friends of my student days. As I was coming to terms with the trip as if the story was coming to a closure, I get a call from another friend (from PG) after many years. Through this friend, I had also spoken to one other friend whom I have been trying to contact for many years.

Five friends!! After over a decade!! Not a bad score in two days.

Perhaps, this is some kind of a (friends-meeting) season, alright. It was saddening to hear some friends who had left us for the better world. But, for the most part, it was a pleasant and a worthy trip.

I don’t believe in destiny entirely. But, I think there are forces of nature that take us to places for a reason.

I don't know the reason yet, but it sure was exhilarting.