It was around 1:30 pm; the son is usually back from his playground latest by 1:10 pm. But, for a change, he wasn’t. In fact, his granny’s radar was unable to find him in the play area for nearly 30 minutes then. However, stuck with work and brimming with over-confidence with their parenting style, the mother has been shrugging off his disappearance.

The granny suddenly yelled at the poor grandfather, engrossed with his mobile, “The child is untraceable for such a long time; how can you be so nonchalant?” The mother thought to herself and smiled, “For such a long time… it was just half an hour.” She realized it was the traditional style of parenting in India that evoked that action in her mother. And she also knew the scoff was more aimed at the parents than the grandpa. So, she reluctantly requested her hubby to go downstairs for the child hunt. Ten more minutes passed by, the child was still missing; grandpa and father both were cluelessly hunting for him.

The ladies finally took charge of the situation – the mother, too, shoved off her contemporary Indian parenting style, and became a Bengali mother and started making calls (Facebook call, as she didn’t have any phone numbers), and the granny went downstairs to howl out the child’s name from the park, hoping he would hear her. The overtly reluctant father of a son came up and said, “I have my office, need to log in. After all, He can’t move out of society. So, stop panicking! And if you have to panic, go downstairs.”

So… the mother went downstairs. By then, her fear had started taking weird shapes – what if the child has landed in a kid less house, what if some pervert man or woman has lured him! What if… what if…. mind started playing its game! It was around 2:10 pm. 

In the meantime, the other mothers, whom the mommy had called, had started freaking out, too. And they helped more than they could. More calls were made, security and facility guys were involved, security cameras started getting monitored, and time was ticking by. Still, they couldn’t find the child anywhere – not even at the known friends’ houses.

After a frantic hunt of nearly an hour, the four adults were still clueless and were on the verge of losing their manners when one of the mothers called and gave the direction of the hero of the story!

As the protagonist’s mother was on the way, a small kid came running up to escort her. In those few seconds of a walk, her anger and fear created a lump of laughter in her throat. But she held her gravity up and walked with a hung face. She saw the kid sitting in the lobby on a high stool, shaking his feet.

While the others took charge of him, the mother thought of dropping his friend at his home, to which he confidently responded, “Aunty, I know my way up. I go to play all alone.” The mother smiled and said, “Yes! Darling, you do! But, when you perform such silly, unknowingly innocent activities, as your friend did today, we parents tend to freak out. So please allow me to at least stand in the lobby until you reach your home.” The little kid looked up and gave the nod of acknowledgment.

On the other side… When the grandparents asked the protagonist to say sorry to the security guys and the other well-wishers, he burst out crying. While granny was scolding him with overwhelmed warmth, the mother reached and denied speaking to him. The men were relieved – more because the ladies of the house were relieved. As they walked back home, the elders thanked everyone. And the more they thanked, the more the kid sobbed. However, they finally reached home.

Holding the crying child’s hand, the mother dragged her to a room, closed the door, and looked at him with frowning eyes. As a habitual style of Parenting in India, she had been planning to scold and talk to him. But now, as she sat in front of her 6-years-old, an unknown curiosity fought up a smirk on her lips. While she controlled her feelings (trying to understand them), the child kept looking at her, with teary eyes. Eventually, she burst out laughing and called his son close to him.

The kid was furious as if he was hunting his absconding mother and finally on finding the old lady he was crying, and the oldy was enjoying.

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