Embargo

by KESHAB SIGDEL

My daughter is learning numbers.

She is learning the names of the months and days.

She wants to do things on her own—

Like her father, like her mother.

And we keep saying,

“Not now dear, you are too small for it.”

Now she has a wish— a wish to grow

And not to be a child anymore;

Because she wants to do things on her own,

Like her father, like her mother.

And, on her third birthday, she tells me:

‘Baba, when I will no more be a child?’

To her, this asking is important.

It’s about a sense of freedom,

A sense of the self.

Teenage would mark her first transition.

For me, it is just counting of a few more years.

I add ten more years to her present age.

My daughter will be excitedly counting these more years

For they mean ten more birthday cakes,

And ten more birthday gifts,

Before she finally arrives at it.

Oh, this transition is scary.

She will be thirteen.

She will be assertive.

She will try to live on her own—

No more like her father, no more like her mother,

Different from what she aspired for.

And now, we fear the number.

We fear the possible assertion

Of her breaking away from us.

And with this fear,

We declare the number an embargo—

Ominous and Tabooed! 

[first published in The Art of Being Human (Canada), Issue 13, 2015]