A FATHER’S RAINBOW

From the pen APN

31^st December 2014, the last day of the year 2014 greeted me with a wonderful rainbow spread sky. The beauty of the sky was ethereal and majestic.  I came inside my room running & tried to wake my son up but he was reluctant to come with me. He is a 4 year old child. To me the innocent face of the sleeping child looks no less beautiful than the colorful rainbow. He did not get up. Perhaps he was dreaming a more pleasant dream so I left him sleeping for some more time.

I went outside again to view the beautiful rainbow. This time, I went to a nearby field so that the trees and raised concrete structures around me would not interfere in viewing the rainbow.   After a few minutes’ existence the rainbow disappeared but before its disappearance I had clicked a few photos so that I could show them to my sleeping son later, explaining what a rainbow was. Now I was returning home but at that time my son had already wakened up and stood expectantly at the veranda to view the rainbow.  

He asked me emphatically, “Where is the rainbow?”

I could not face such a demanding question. However, I had no other way out. Finally, I told that he was late and the rainbow had faded away.

Abandoning the comfort of blanket and sleep he had taken the pain to come out to see what a rainbow was. But his hopes were now dashed to the ground. The broken hopes of the child came down rolling in glistening tears. His voice was now chocking because he had missed an opportunity to see a rainbow. He had never seen a rainbow. Missing THE UNKNOWN and missing a potential new experience were too poignant for the child.  Tear drops and his pained facial expressions torn my heart. 

It was still raining softly but the sky had no rainbow. I felt awfully sorry. I looked at the sky in all directions to find a rainbow but there were no more rainbows. I took out my mobile as a last resort and showed the recently clicked photo of the rainbow on the miniature screen. The sobbing of the child stopped but the photo was no substitute for the magic of a real rainbow.

That night my family slept calmly and so did my child. I was lying on my couch ruminating over the day’s incident. Some faint memories took clearer form. I remembered how my father had once created a rainbow for me because I had insistently cried for a rainbow when I was a child.  He had arranged a big mirror and had placed the mirror at the bottom of a tub full of water to reflect the sunlight through the water. The reflected light while passing through the water produced the rainbow for which I was crying. He had created an artificial rainbow on the cleanly white-washed walls of our house. He even got the rainbow formed on my white shirt. I also remembered how the coloured bands of rainbow would shake when there was disturbance of the tub’s water.  

My father was great because he made me play with a live, pulsating rainbow that needed sunlight, mirror and water which were the real ingredients for forming a rainbow.  But I, as a father, ended my duty just by showing the image of a rainbow on the mufti-touch-sensitive-screen that understands commands like zooming-in and zooming-out.

It was late night. I switched off my mobile and threw it to a corner of my bed. My son was sleeping by my side. I looked at him and promised the sleeping child silently that tomorrow his papa would make a rainbow dance around him.