The Wonder Years Of Disbelief

On the day the billionth baby was born in India, my son left the safety of his childhood years and entered his _ for us _ terrifying teens. We began the morning with a massive row: he didn't want to go to school on this most significant day of his life; I insisted he would go to school if I had to personally drag him there by the substantial scruff of his neck. I won the battle but lost the moral fight. But there was a reason for my insistence.

Because our son did not want a party, we were determined to give him one. Because he did not budge from his position of wanting to go out for dinner with his family, we plotted and planned a surprise party with cricketer Ajay Jadeja as his secret present.

 

"Why are you whispering to each other?" my son asked us some days ago. "We are not whispering," my wife replied, "I'm just telling your father how much I love him." "Just this morning you said you should have married the accountant and had made the wrong choice," my son reminded her. "I think you should leave the room and let us talk in privacy," my wife retorted. "I don't know why everyone is talking behind my back, and no one has normal conversations any more," my son said, close to tears.

Having decided on Jadeja was the easy part; getting him was tougher. My first cousin is Jadeja's first cousin, so in effect, we're second cousins. My cousin promised to deliver his cousin, taped and tied, at 5.30 pm on the day of the birthday. A cake was ordered, cooking was undertaken in the middle of the night after the children had gone to sleep, fizzy drinks were home-delivered, tiny bats were collected from toy stores around the city for the cricketer to autograph for each child....

That's when Murphy's Law struck. Jadeja had to fly to Mumbai a day ahead of schedule. "Sorry," he said to my cousin, "but no can do." "He has to," I insisted, my heart sinking at all the preparation that had gone into making the party happen. Further negotiations were struck with Jadeja: he'd call at three in the afternoon to wish the teenager, and we could send him the cricket bats to sign as return gifts, but he was short of time.... A star-struck errand boy was despatched to his home with the bats.

The children came home from school, and I rushed back from work. My son wanted to go immediately to the market to have his bicycle repaired. "You can't go," said my wife, "you have to wait." "Can you give me one good reason why I have to wait?" he asked. "Because I love you," said his mother, "and because I'm not feeling well, and because it's too hot, and because I say so." Three o' clock came and went, it was 3.30; then almost four when the phone rang." Jadeja was actually on the phone. "Happy birthday," he said to my son _ we were listening on the extension _ "I'd have loved to be with you, but duty calls," -- or words to that effect.

My son, who hadn't managed beyond a few, feeble "okays", now turned to us: "Isn't it strange," he mused, "that parents think they can fool you by getting a friend to call and say he's Ajay Jadeja. What do you take me for? After all, I am a teenager now."

It was hardly surprising when, later in the evening, one of his friends said, of the signed bats: "Ajay Jadeja? Give me a break. You guys probably signed these yourselves."