One, two, three, four,
five, six, and seven;
seven years passed fast,
like a supersonic jet.
Seventeenth of April,
year 2000 to 2007,
years rolled by,
after I became a grandfather.
As my grandson Akkumon
crawled on the bed and floor,
I loved to crawl with him,
and he went on laughing at me.
As he stood up holding the bed or wall,
I too got up to hold him;
his standing up and sitting down,
made me think down and up the years passed by.
He has grown up to walk without my holding,
while I loved keeping him on my lap and shoulders;
he fondly slipped down to walk,
to walk on his own step by step.
Three years passed fast,
he started pedaling a tricycle,
I bought for him on his own choicest red colour,
which gave me a red-signal to stop thinking that he is any more a babe.
While he went to play school,
I counted each moment for his return,
to play together all games,
that I missed playing during my childhood.
We walked to-gether;
we played together in rain;
we visited temples together to pray,
when all I had to be ever ready to answer his questions.
Answering my grandson’s questions I became a child,
while questioning me my grandson gone older;
as I waited for my grandson’s return from school to play with,
his grandmother waited for his school diary to make him do home work.
While grandson just grown to seven year old,
watching Cartoon Network TV shows,
and playing games on computer,
I became a child to play and missed my companion to play with.
What is God’s play with the mortals like me?
I sat down and wondered all the while,
ultimately to realize God’s own theory of compensation,
that what I lost in childhood I got compensated enough.
Learn from the babes Jesus Christ taught his followers;
I learnt from my grandson to be a child again,
to play with great joy like a child forgetting my old age,
while the grandson got older and serious with his own school studies.
While I wish him a very happy birthday,
and many many returns for the day;
I get gloomy at the very thought of going back to sixty,
without playing like a seven year old child.