Children of the child

(This is for those who plan to be parents and those who already are and absolutely paranoid about the annual parents day at their offspring's school)

We caught a pleasant sight of Kabir dancing alone humming a Goanese song from a Hindi movie one day. One could make out the song only from the tune he was humming as he could not pronounce even a single word from the lyrics correctly. It was a nice pleasant surprise knowing him to be rather rigid when it comes to dance. He lacks the grace, balance and rhythm for dance. He did not inherited them and it was not built into his system. He had to labour real hard to learn simple dance steps when he was chosen for a group dance during the Durga Puja function in our neighbourhood.
Later, it transpired that Kabir was being trained in the school for a dance in the annual day function in his school and he was rehearsing himself. Two very different kinds of emotions engulfed us immediately. We were immensely happy to find him so dedicated towards learning to dance but was mortally afraid imagining what would happen if he was not found suitable and dropped from the dance.
Every passing day led to deepening of our fear as we saw him practising two different roles - one of a dancer and the other of a sailor rowing a boat. As the song was choreographed, three or four pairs of dancers would dance in the foreground while another set of three or four boys will hold oars and enact the scene of a rowing a boat. It was obvious that the less capable boys would be made sailors as all they would have to do was to move their oars. Mimi was afraid that Kabir would be made a sailor and she kept on nagging me to find out from the school. Instead, we kept on telling each other it was nothing even if he was not choosen to be a dancer; of course without believing at in a single word that we said. More than about us, both of us were worried about the psychological trauma that our son will go through if he was not selected for the dance.
The day before the annual day function, Kabir came giggling and jumping as he ran towards home once he was dropped by the school van. "Ma, Guess What! I was selected to be one of the sailors rowing the boat," he told his mother hardly capable of keeping his breath.
It was our turn again to be engulfed by two very different kind of emotions - relieved that he is happy; ashamed that we grown ups make life so complicated and difficult over issues so trivial which even a five-year-old does not bother about. Kabir tought us something so significant that we had, in a way, become the children of our own child.