THANK HEAVEN FOR LITTLE GIRLS

THEY ARE THE BIG BOSSES





Sometime ago there was a picture that appeared in newspapers in which the Spanish footballer, Michel Salgado stood guard at a goalmouth while his little daughter was about to kick the ball for a goal. Salgado may be an international footballer, but there was little doubt about who would win this encounter. Little girls can twist their fathers around their little fingers.

Putty in her hands


I say this from my own experience. From the time she was born our daughter Chandni dominated our lives. The moment she started crawling she started playing catch-me-if-you-can with me. She let out a shriek and started crawling away in what she thought was great speed, and I pretended I couldn't catch up with her. Occasionally she slipped on the floor and landed on her stomach with a sigh, rested for a while and was off again screeching away. Sometimes she crawled into the next room and hid behind the door. But one bright eye was clearly visible at the edge of the door, which I pretended not to have noticed, and asked loudly, "Where is Chandni? Where's Chandni?" Impatient as always, she came out of hiding with a shriek and dashed off in another direction.

When she was about 10 months old we were living in a house close to the Ashok Nagar bus terminus in Chennai. Our servant maid carried Chandni for an outing every morning, and they usually landed at the bus terminal. One day we called them back for something, and we found Chandni's cheeks bulging enormously. We came to know that people were stuffing her with sweets every day. They had developed a belief that if they saw and greeted the little one, their day at work tended to be good. We prohibited the servant maid from taking Chandni to the bus stand.

A few days later several people started dropping in to see the little one — a case of Mohamed coming to the mountain. These included a beautiful model called Nalini Mani and many office workers. They all came to see Chandni, not us. In that area I was known only as Chandni's father.

Celebrity fans


One day a Telugu film was being shot in the vast maidan beyond the bus terminus. The servant maid got our permission to watch the shooting, and took Chandni along with her. She came back after awhile because Chandni had dropped off to sleep. Sometime later, to our surprise, the actress Sowcar Janaki knocked on our door and said she would like to take Chandni along with her for a while. We promised to send her when she woke up. And we did, enabling the little one to entertain the entertainers.

Later when we moved to Madurai, Chandni was two years old, and continued in her winning ways. Now Chandni has three daughters of her own, and lives in Canada.

So now we look for other little girls we could pet and pamper, for old habits die hard. There was a little one called Janani, whose pet name was Bommi, because she looked like a doll. She ordered us about in her baby talk. Then there was Sajitha, a cute little thing living upstairs, whose parents entrusted her to our care when they were busy. She too bossed over us as long as we lived there.

Now there is the six-month-old Tania, whom we see at the American College Chapel during Vespers. One can see her bright and twinkling eyes over her mother's shoulder. Tania would sombrely study the faces of each and every one, and she would watch with curiosity the mouths of the singers until they giggled and stopped singing. When the sermon began she promptly dropped off to sleep much to the envy of those forced to listen to the preacher. One day I carried her after the service, and she clung on to me and refused to go even to her mother. Well, that made my day.

"Thank Heaven for little girls" sang Maurice Chevalier. Yes. Most certainly.