I'm a Jonah for some!

We're just back from a party that was celebrating the 28th day of a new born baby. She's been christened 'Atulya' and she's simply cute and adorable. I wish the li'l one a wonderful future with all her wishes coming true as the years progress.

Atulya is the granddaughter of a friend of mine who's a classmate from school. We've been in touch for quite a while thanks to a chance meeting at Bombay about 10 years back and ever since, we'd effectively made up for lost time with at least once a week of 'hi and bye' conversations. My friend and his good lady used to feel let down if I'd not contacted them and would insist on knowing the reasons for my slip up. Since they're successful professionals in the civvy street, I surmised that it was their genuine need to be friends with us that made them feel possessive about our relationship and frankly, I basked in that glory(?)

However, all that changed sometime around the month of September last year. The communication had become infrequent and my own efforts at rekindling it were not quite successful. Since I got busy with my movement away from Delhi and other connected events, I did not pursue it further. So, it was a pleasant surprise when we got the invite for the celebration and their insistence that we should attend, backed up by numerous telephone calls.

And weren't they thrilled to see us, shown by their genuine expressions throughout the get together. During the course of our conversation and to my persistent queries, my friend spelt out the reason for their sudden hibernation. They'd decided - on their elders' advice - that we should be kept out of the loop of the impending childbirth as we'd no biological children and would not take kindly to that bit of news(out of jealousy, perhaps or a question of sour grapes - they didn't spell that out but left it to our imagination!). I've told in this forum earlier that I've the trappings of a good script writer and thus, mustering all the reserves of imagination in me, I've been asking myself since then as to why I or Lekha should feel strongly against the growing family tree of the others! The answer still beats me!!

So, it was with a deep sense of hurt, a badly bruised ego and bewilderment at people's perceptions that I'd returned from the party. My friend and family will be leaving for their foreign destination this weekend and have promised to restore our weekly communication from now on.

Sadly, I seem to have lost the inclination!