Book Binding Blessings

With the start of the academic year, starts a rat race. A race to get Albert Einstein and Marie Curie out of children. Little do some parents realize that if children are left to pursue what they like, and nurture them, they may grow into Leonardo da Vinci or may be Pele in later years. Let us give our children a childhood full of memories to go back to at later point of their lives. Like I am doing now, as I sit with my daughter’s books and some brown paper to bind. I was cupping my hands and feeling the edge of the book underneath the sheet, and the time line in my mind scrolled a lot back to 90’s when my mother used to sit with me and my brother during the book binding sessions. While she bound my books, I used to always wonder what new I might be learning. And yes I loved the smell of new books. I still do. Slowly my mother taught me how to bind. In a few years I will teach my daughter how to do it. Thank you mom.

Meanwhile, my daughter woke up and came to me. She looked at the books and asked “My books?”, “yes” I replied. “You’ve to go to school today” I said. I noticed her eye brows where pulled together in a Do-I-Have-To-Go manner. “Don’t you want to go?” I asked. “Yes” came the reply. Then I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude towards the teachers at the pre-school who toiled to settle her down and make her feel school is a secure place. Initial days at the pre-school were equally stressful to me and her. She was never willing to part with me. Then after a couple of months the stress levels gradually came down. Towards the end of the pre-school days she used to pick four to five fallen flowers, at the apartment pavement check for its freshness and bundle them with her little fingers while going to the school. Later I learnt she used to give them to her teacher. I was speechless. A little human being, who is two and something was practicing gratitude.

I thank those teachers who wiped her tears and held her closely, during stressful times. A million thanks to you for protecting her from falls and many more for teaching her all good things. May their blessings protect the children they taught like a brown binding sheet to a book, a book in which they will write their destiny!