Now that you are here my daughter…

My eyes are adjusting to your presence. The moment when I held you in my hands for the first time seems like a dream. Your being is so surreal that I have to see you again and again to make sure that you are not a figment of my imagination. Your crying sounds like a creaking door and the chap – chap sound you make while drinking milk lands me in convulsions of laughter.  

Yes, you have arrived and now that you are here my daughter, I have a few promises to make. 

I promise that you will never learn to accept your gender as weak. The idea will never be taught to you. 

I promise that you will learn to make your own decisions. I will be there to give my opinion, suggestions and guidance but I will not make decisions for you. 

I promise that you will learn to value a human for his thoughts and not for his religion or cast. 

I promise that I will be there to help you get up after you fall but I will never stop you from committing what I think are mistakes. I will never strangulate your convictions. 

I promise that you will learn to defend yourself and your rights. 

I promise that you will know the true significance of this gift of life, that you will value it in all humans above anything else. 

I promise that you will understand the significance of hard work, you will understand that success achieved through shortcuts does not mean anything. 

I promise you will grow without any cultural shackles. You will never be a part of a family that demands dowry or pray for a baby boy.

I promise you will be taught to respect Mother Earth. You will learn that there is nothing like cultural superiority. 

I promise that you will understand that there are only two kinds of humans – the ones who make mistakes and hide them and the ones who accept their mistakes, learn from them and rectify them. 

I promise that I will encourage you to fall in love. My opinion about your choice will not matter if you are convinced and happy with your partner. And no, the gender of your partner will not matter.

I promise that I will neither show you off as a trophy nor treat you as a racing horse to further my unfulfilled ambitions.

I promise that I will try my best to incline your interests towards various art forms. I will try my best to make you fall in love with books.

I promise that I will be your best friend. I will listen to you with amusement when you will tell me that your boyfriend got his ears pierced seven times. I will listen to you with pride when you will tell me that you broke a man’s arm with a karate chop when he tried to harass a lady in the bus.

I promise you my precious Anika that I will love you unconditionally. My love will not change with your successes or failures, your decisions or opinions. My love will not change even if I have to change a hundred diapers a day. It will not change even if I end up being sleep deprived and dream of diapers falling from the sky during my random power naps.

I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you. I am looking forward to see you take your first step, call me dad, laugh out loud, fall in love and live your life.

p.s. I might be blogging erratically for a while because of my busy schedule of changing diapers and burping the baby. Please don’t mind.

p.p.s This blog might turn into a daddy blog for a while.