The Morning Bird

I was suddenly awake. I was sure that a sound had awakened me., but now there was silence. I reached out for my phone to find out the time. It was only 4.30 AM on a dark, wintry morning. I did not feel like leaving the warm quilt to find out what’s up. So I just lied there, half asleep, hoping that whatever it was, would just settle itself somewhere and let me be.  I had to wake up at 5.30 AM anyway to switch the geyser on for Sitab, who leaves for school really early and I wished to get another quarter of an hour in bed. But… another sound. This time I could make it out. Someone was splashing water in the wash basin right outside my room. I crept out of bed and peeped out in the darkness. 

It was Alma.

I went back to bed. This girl never sleeps. She’s up at 1 AM, she’s up at 4 AM. She’s up anytime you look her up in the night. She was like that when she was a baby, and she has not changed at all. I felt exhausted, weary and drained.  It was Friday morning – the day when she has a weekly test. So I guessed she was up to revise for the test.  Now sleep seemed faraway. So I just lied there, thinking a thousand thoughts that usually rush in when all is silent.

I thought about daughters, and how they fill our homes not just with laughter and full on chitter chatter, but with so much purpose and determination. What makes our daughters so tough ? So resilient ? So indomitable ? Maybe they sense somewhere, that this is a world where being a female comes with that much disadvantage  and if they have to make their presence, they have to work that much harder, they have to go that much longer. 

What wakes them up from their slumber ? They are not dreaming of dashing princes on horses anymore. They wake up on chilly mornings, wash sleep away from their eyes,  sit down on cold wooden chairs and open textbooks.

I could sleep no more. I tiptoed towards her room. I heard her loud voice, she was mugging up a history chapter. My hand was on door latch, but I did not open it. I did not feel like disturbing her. Instead, I sat on a dining room chair outside her room, and just listened to that voice.  I stared at the wall in front of me, which obviously needs a painting job. But somehow, it did not seem important. Nothing else mattered. All that mattered was that childish voice, full of purpose, shattering the silences of the darkness, paving a path, creating a destiny.

In that cold, winter dawn, I felt as if I had touched the face of an angel.