Happ B'Day, bhai:)

By the age of 3, I was adamant about getting a baby brother. After several attempts to dissuade me from bringing home other people’s cute ‘kakas’ (babies) from the Victoria Memorial park, on various outings with family, my mother specifically suggested I ask my father… He laughed it off… Upon my pestering her another day, my mother told me that my father would bring the baby… I believed her. Come evening, although he kept denying, I made my father open his briefcase as soon as he returned from office, looking for ‘kaka’… His laughter still rings in my ears… (He had a beautiful laugh) I was disappointed… and the whole family laughed merrily at my expense… Finally, one day, my mother told me to pray to her favourite Krishna frame, and asked me to promise to him that I would put a garland around him and offer 'laddoos' when my brother comes. Which I did, when in a few months came our precious Guddu… It was a difficult birth and afterwards the baby did not cry for 3 days… Papa was awake during the entire time… The nurse asked Mommy to offer prayers at the Bandel Church when the baby is fine. The whole family went. Papa named him Vivekanand. We call him Guddu at home. The sweetest baby in the world, who even as a child treasured his freedom immensely….

As a baby, he loved to listen to the stories I read him… and

soon enough, he wanted to read on his own. To be continued...:)