Lullaby

She looked really tired these days. She had dark circles around her eyes and her usually sparkling eyes that now looked sunken deep in their sockets seemed to have lost the shine in them. Her cheekbones were more prominent than ever. I was really worried for her. Many times I did try to break the ice to ask her what she was upto. "It's work, Dad. I have been slogging." was all she said and always left as though she was in hurry.

Several times I saw her staring out of the window, completely lost with unfocused eyes. She had buried herself in her books and computer these days. Her daily cheery phone conversations were long gone. My mind was full of ominous speculations.

I know how children these days hate we-need-to-talk situations, but I had to ask her. On one of the moments when she was buried in her work, I asked her almost awkwardly, "Is everything okay?"

"Hm." she replied in a curt manner, without looking up from her laptop.

I was not going to beat around the bush anymore. "You don't seem busy in chats or calls these days...? What's up with you both?"

It seemed like she knew this question was imminent. She stopped her work and looked up at me. She quickly looked away though; and with a strange forced smile and an extremely grave voice quite unlike her, she said, "We ended it. It's finished."

I had probably guessed it already but her confirmation still did shake my heart.

"He was so sure when he talked to me! And you were confident too! What happened exactly?" I enquired, trying to keep the shock out of my voice but failing miserably at it.

For a moment I thought she would burst into tears. But she suddenly seemed busy with something in a book lying in front of her.

"Nothing, Dad. I don't know. It wasn't working out." she replied in a small voice trying hard to sound casual. The corners of her mouth twitched a little and her lower lip trembled almost unnoticeably.

Trying to act normal and failing pathetically at it was something she got from me.

"Now?" I asked her.

She shrugged and said, "Nothing anymore. Finished."

I really wished she stopped trying to look normal.

I don't understand how this generation thinks. It only seemed like yesterday when, in a pin-drop awkward silence she told me, "I want to marry him, Dad!"

I wondered whether there was anything more insecure and scary for a father than seeing his daughter in love with a guy. How could she do that! She was so young, I thought. I remembered the time when she was so small I could hold her in my palms, almost scared I would drop her. When had she grown up so much! To fall in love, to choose a guy for herself!

I felt angry and jealous of that guy. 'Princess' he called her; I overheard her once telling her mother shyly. After all the glow on her face and her reddened cheeks whenever she talked about him was the proof she totally admired him.

"What if I don't give my consent?" I asked her in a strict tone I had never used before.

"I would marry him anyway." she replied in a low but defiant voice.

She had made up her mind and I knew she had really grown up, quite stealthily, without telling me, so suddenly.

I had always set her free to make her own decisions or mistakes.
"You are an adult now. You both are. Hope you have thought well." was all I told her.
I caught her smiling clandestinely with her eyes fixed down, toes playing with something on the floor.

And now she sat in front me, not meeting my eyes yet again but this time that playful sly smile was wiped off. I felt the surge of anger for whatever that had robbed her off her sunny and childlike self.

I remembered the days when she was a kid. She was an obedient child. I would teach her Mathematics and solve a sum as many times as she asked me to, till she grasped the method, till that smile of satisfaction flowered on her eager face. We would study all night together, me sharpening her pencils and filling ink in her pens, forcing her to finish the entire glass of milk that she hated doing... Making perfect half-fried eggs she loved, till she stopped complaining about the yolk being too runny... Sometimes we would play cards together and I would let her win just to watch her face light up with triumphant smirk... When she was a kid, she asked me to tell her bedtime stories. She wouldn't sleep till I told her at least five per night.

Every night she would request, "That song, Dad please!"

I would sing that folk-song I had listened from the Krishna temple at my village where I grew up. I would be all sleepy, droopy-eyed and the tough child as she was, she would make me explain the meaning of each verse, even though she had already heard it from me so many times.

"Please Dad," she would croon with her beady eyes pleading and her tiny arm around my neck and I wouldn't feel tired anymore.

I wish I could tell her that she will always be my princess no matter what. I wish I could sing her a lullaby now. These days when I wake up in the middle of the night, I can see the lights in her room still on. I wish I could sing her favourite song to her. I wish I could sing her to sleep.