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Over time, Rohan Mishra had resigned himself to people rubbing and pinching his face. He found it very annoying. And though he didn’t know much about law, he was reasonably sure he couldn’t sue them for violating his personal space. Not yet anyway.

I must really do something about this language thing, he had often told himself. A furrowed brow just wasn’t enough.

Desperate times usually call out loud for desperate actions. Rohan did too. But perhaps the reason no one ever listened to his cries was because he tended to do it too often. The calling-for-desperate-actions thing that is. He felt alone, without a hope (usually when he wasn’t busy watching TV or eating.).

Until one day, the neighbour from next door walked in. It was a boy.

“Ah!” Thought Rohan, “Boykind!”

Indeed, with all the aunties and didis and… Disha, it wasn’t often that Rohan got around to man-to-man interaction. He was happy. He figured it would only be a matter of time before his baby-charm drew the neighbour to him.

He was ok. He talked sensibly (As opposed to the koo-koos and boo-boos most grown-ups degenerate into when conversing with him.) and watched TV with him for a full half hour. What’s more, he did something with the remote (Mummy never gave Rohan the remote.) and opened Rohan’s eyes to more cartoons than he knew existed.

Rohan crawled up to the boy and sat leaning against him.

And then he left. He said he had to go to school. Rohan was annoyed, surprisingly, for the first time in the day.

Posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2006 at 11:35 pm and filed under stories, babies.

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