Few minutes past midnight ...

I returned back home quite late yesterday. Actually, late has lost its meaning really, with me returing after 11 pm almost daily.

I was dead tired and all ready to just park my car, grab some dinner (or whatever you call something had at midnight ... a snack perhaps!) and crash. Just then my watchman's little (she would be barely 2) daughter came running along, insisting in her own way, as children do, that she wanted to be helped into the front seat. My tiredness notwithstanding, I couldn't refuse the little brat. So there she was, all chirpy at almost midnight, jumping around and testing out all the buttons in the dashboard. It was a delight to watch her play with the light switches, her face lighting up every time she saw the lights go on and off. Such simple joys ... that we have almost forgotten in our daily grind!

My thoughts almost went back to my childhood, when I would love to go for a drive in my uncle's car, a rickety old Premier Padmini. I would imagine myself driving a car, listening to music, changing gears ... :) And now when I drive, I just end up cursing the traffic, or the driver who overtook me!!! How we forget to get the joy out of the mundanest things now.

Going back to the little girl, my thoughts went to how she may also become the same like so many of us, hopefully she'll have a better life, earn well; and maybe even drive a car. And then probably forget to notice the small things that make us smile!?

Nah - Let her enjoy her childhood as long as it lasts, and let me enjoy that innocent laughter - so what if my dinner time is delayed by a few more minutes past midnight!!!