Abhijit, my late kid brother who died in a MiG-21 crash in 2001, passed out of the 89th course NDA in 1995. They completed 25 years in 2020 but could not celebrate it because of the pandemic and so, decided to have a big bash this year. 300-odd serving & retired officers, spouses, children, and parents of NOK of their fallen comrades met at the NDA today. They had a film screening, a memento presentation ceremony, a visit to the Hut of Remembrance, and high tea before ending with a grand lunch at the cadets’ mess and dispersing from the Academy.
There’s a party at the Sylhet Mess at BEG tonight, and Maa is tired. So, only Kym and I are going. But it was 1815h and she wasn’t ready and was dilly-dallying. To get her to speed things up, I said we’ll race, counted down 3, 2, 1, and ran to my room and shut the door. She was startled at first, but, gathering her wits, made a dash to hers and started her bath.
At regular intervals, I was shouting, ‘I’m allllllmost readyyyy’, and she’d shout, ‘So am IIIII’. Finally, my mum snapped at me, ‘Kedrya, have a heart, yaar. Are you really competing with an 8yo? Just slow down a bit.’ Immediately after, I heard a thin, but loud voice, ‘Nooooo, Baba. That’s cheating. If you let me win, how will I know when I really win?’
I am so proud to call myself her father.
P.S.: That’s Abhijit’s statue (looking skyward, holding a plane in his hand) at the back. And the smaller statuette is the Hirkani Award given to Maa for fighting for her son’s honour.
![Mr Baba: 'Would you like to take off the backpack now that you've been downstairs for like 30 minutes?'
Ms Kym-Kym: 'I like it like this. You should try it. It's very comfortable.'
Mr Baba: [Pulling on his backpack] 'Hmmm, you're right. That's rather snug.'
Ms Kym-Kym: 'Twinning! Yay!'
#LuckiestManAlive #BearFamily](https://scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/416920031_3373151642830342_6696851954454537274_n.webp?stp=dst-jpg&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=ZMLmjPdSAEUAX8nnJex&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&oh=00_AfB0olvUVmnenPKd2wCllMDehg5gzDgAbc4BDsGLqIm6pA&oe=65BA4561)
![Kym: 'Mr Baba, can I tell you something wierd? You can actually get tired from doing nothing!!'
Me: 'It is called boredom.'
Kym: 'Noooo. I mean, like physically tired.'
Me: 'One can get tired and sleepy due to boredom. I remember reading about it somewhere. Let's find out.'
[Some Googling later]
Me: 'It says here that "A new paper published in the journal Nature Communications finds that a part of the brain that is associated with motivation and pleasure - the nucleus accumbens - also can produce sleep. The new findings may explain why we have the tendency to fall asleep in the absence of motivating stimuli, i.e., when bored." Isnt it interesting?'
Kym: 'I already knew that. Why do you need to research things we already know?'
Me: [Finding a subject worth talking about now]: ' Ah well, that's what we'll talk of tomorrow on your morning run. It's very interesting the way science is done and our understanding of the universe is expanded.'
Kym: 'Can we talk of unicorns instead?'
Me: 'Sure. How do you know they exist? That's an interesting question too that you can use the scientific method to answer.'
Kym: 'Do they have to exist for us to talk about them? We can just pretend they do for an hour and have fun.'
Me: [Laughing] 'Yes, sure. We can do that too.'
#BabaBabyConversations #BearFamily #KymAndI](https://scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/416410840_383105434396466_2267910263456009774_n.webp?stp=dst-jpg&_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=LIozs445JFcAX_48wGC&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&oh=00_AfDQ2qbb0yO_wUmLj_L0ZxF61eDdwlIN-vyrd8GZe_pBMQ&oe=65BAFA57)
