Rock the Cradle on

‘Ma, he looks cuter than my Sophie!’

Arya’s little brother was just nine days old. Wrapped up in warm tiny cloths, he was a picture of serene, sleeping in his mother’s arms. Five year old Arya, who had come bounding back home from her Montessori, had gone straight to her mother’s room. To Arya, her doll Sophie was the most beautiful person in the world. But now she put into words what she had felt ever since she saw her little brother: that he was the most beautiful person in the world.

Her little brother had just drifted off to sleep, only moments before Arya’s arrival. Arya’s screamed exclamation could have woken him, but it didn’t. Had there been anyone else in the room apart from her mother, she would’ve had to deal with an earful on how to behave with a baby around. But her mother, valuing the intent more than the act to convey the intent, instead smiled, and said, “He also looks so calm, doesn’t he? And he has just fallen asleep; you don’t want to wake your little brother make him and cry, do you sweetie?”

Realising what she had done, Arya’s dark eyes widened, her smile dropped to a small frown and she put her tiny index finger to her lips, hoping she hadn’t disturbed her brother. Moved by the look of guilt on her face, the mother put her son in the crib and drew Arya close to her.

“It’s ok, Arya, he’s still sleeping,” she said consolingly.

Arya hadn’t taken her eyes off her brother. She had always had a lot of questions and questions about him were on top of her list. She had in fact tried to count the number of unanswered questions about him, but had lost track of her count. The first of her questions was how he ever managed to get into their mother’s stomach. Was she also there, when she was a baby? Nobody could quite explain it to her. Just then, though, she was fascinated by how tiny he was. His tiny fingers, trying to clutch on to the blanket, his tiny bent legs that were kicking around, his tiny eyes closed in sleep, and his tiny mouth, that seemed to be curled into a faint, barely-there smile.

She had many times felt the urge to hold him like her mother did. But she was also scared that she might do some harm to him. Arya felt the he also was fragile, as much as he was tiny. She didn’t like it even if Sophie fell from her arms. She just couldn’t risk doing anything to the precious little kid. She also wondered when he would be big enough for her to include him in her games. She would be the teacher and he the student, she’d be a mother and he her child, she’d be the queen and he her subject. She would also teach him to crawl, to walk and to run, to hop, to skip and to jump and to read, to draw, and to colour.

And until he grew up, she, the big sister, would take care of him in all ways she could. And just then, she wanted him to sleep well. Suddenly, she remembered what her mother did when she wanted him to sleep. Arya went forward to the crib and gently started rocking it. And taking on the softest voice she could, she sang, “Hush little baby don’t you cry…”

The mother, looking at her children, felt delighted in a divine way that only a mother feels. Arya gently rocked the cradle on.