Yes, I am a father now, but when does one become a father? Is it when his daughter comes out jumping from her mother’s womb into the doctor’s hand? Or maybe when he, for the first time, sees her little fingers and those tiny pink toes. One might become a father when he holds her close to his heart for the first time, and everything around him becomes 10000 times brighter and a zillion times slower. It might be when he rushes out of the labour room and starts dancing with his teary eyes jumping, screaming and celebrating in that empty hallway. Is it the first time he listens to his little nightingale’s crying voice that makes him feel like a father? It can also be the night when she wakes up crying, and he holds her close and sing a Lauri that he has been practising for years! “So jaa ri gudiya mishri ki pudiya meethe tere do naina”. Or is it when he holds her up to his shoulder after every feed and waits for her to burp, or changing that millionth diaper makes him feel like a father? Is it the PAA PAA the first words that his daughter ever mumbled, and a chill went down his body, was that a sign of becoming a father. The night after her first vaccination, she got a high fever, and all she wanted to do was hug him and be with him; that sure made him feel that he was a father now. The first massage he gave her as a newborn, the first time he fed her with his hands, the first time he was her sit, crawl, stand, clap, dance, maybe when he sang her Hakuna Matata every morning. 

But I know when I became a father, not when Rumi was born, not when she looked at me for the first time and smiled, not when she smiles at me every time she looks at me now. I became a father way before all that, before all the firsts that i experienced, before all the sleepless nights and bright mornings, way before I realised that all it takes is her smile, and all my worries and stress are gone. I became a father on the day she came into existence. From the first day of her formation in Shikha’s womb, I became a father way before her heart could beat. Shikha, thank you for making me a father. I felt like a father when we talked about her, I felt like a father when we shopped for her. I felt like a father when your blobby tummy grew bigger and bigger every day. During the doctor’s visits, I felt like a father even when I was not allowed to be in that sonography room and eagerly waited outside to listen to Rumi’s first heartbeat. That evening walks on the terrace, our last sandwich, and everything during those nine months made me a father. Yes, I am a father now and was one 19 months back.