Feather Touch

The cries of a baby greeted my landing on Earth. I watched the doctor hand a baby boy to its mother - who looked at him with a look that no poet can describe. Sometimes children, including myself in human life, are embarrassed by the way their mothers look at them and I have often wondered about the mystery behind that look – the way a mother looks at her child. At that moment I realized, the bliss she feels when she holds her baby for the first time, the expression gets stuck in her face and reproduces itself when the child appears - even much after the child has grown a moustache. “Hush baby… Don’t cry”, Archana asked her screaming son, a strange request as I could so clearly see how much she enjoyed the noise of the boy. I looked in amazement at the mother-son duo, who was shortly joined by the father – Hari. “Kanha”, he named his son. “Kanha’s Conscience”, I named myself. The couple crooned the baby; Archana asked him not to cry and Hari began plotting his future. “Mera Beta Engineer Banega”, no, nobody said that, but the plans that Hari bore in his mind reminded me of that dialogue. And maybe Kanha read his mind too – his cries got louder. “Don’t cry baby”, Kanha’s parents insisted. “Listen to your parents Kanha”, I added. “Stop!” a voice echoed from above in a tone that reminded me of Shakthimaan. “Don’t advice the child yet. Just wait and observe for now. You will get further instructions tonight. Don’t speak to the child till then, it could be dangerous.” I recognized my manager’s voice and followed his instructions. Silently, I watched the happy family. “So, how did you like your first day at work”, my manager asked me that night. For a moment I wanted to complain about having to sit idle all day and not do anything productive, but the sights I had seen during the day were overwhelming. Parents playing with the baby, singing songs and telling stories; the baby responding with surprising interest considering the literary abilities he would have developed in one day – the sights were magical. Archana lay on her husband’s chest with the baby in her arms; Hari held both of them protectively; few words were passed but the trio communicated extensively. The happiness that blanketed them was almost physical – I could feel it - radiant and soothing. “It is a special sight, I know. Must have reminded you of your own daughter.” It did. “But when you observe things from this particular point of view, must have looked so much more exciting.” It was indeed. “Let’s get to work then shall we?” My manager explained to me one by one what I was supposed to do. And with utmost sincerity I did it. The task at hand was to guide Kanha through his childhood, covering the various facets of that period of a person’s life, starting from… Kanha’s Body “The first thing you have to do is understand his body. And ensure that everything is normal!” My manager instructed me and informed that I have an entire library for human anatomy at my disposal. “Use it well.” I entered Kanha’s body the very next day itself and observed it at work. I started from his mouth where food entered in the form of his mother’s milk and through the oesophagus reached the stomach where a series of chemical reactions broke down milk into its constituents namely carbohydrates, proteins, fats, glucose and another bunch of vitamins and minerals. I cross checked the process with my library, a kind of in-built Wikipedia, and ensured that the chemical reactions were being done correctly. “I will get empty soon. Arrange a refill.” Kanha’s stomach said to the neurons which carried the message to the brain and Kanha started crying. That freaked me out. “This is something new!” I said to myself and moved on; a “just imagine it didn’t happen” look on my face. Food was taken next to the small intestine where a bunch of blood vessels sucked the nutrients and the remnants moved on to the large intestine where another filtering process happened and some amount of water was sucked up. The remaining waste was transferred to the excretory system and thrown out of the baby’s body through its anus and penis. “You have pissed again?” Archana laughed at her son. “You can exercise a little more retrain you know”, the penis asked the bladder. “We are still working on it. Not as easy as it looks”, the bladder responded. “This is AMAZING!” I exclaimed. “The organs! They talk?” I asked my manager before I continued my body tour. “Every cell does! That is why I sent you in. You are supposed to ensure that all of them do their work properly and cause no trouble. At this stage of Kanha’s life, this is more important. And make sure that all of them, the cells are in good spirits, or it will affect the baby’s health. Be very careful and please make sure that you report to me any sort of tension between the cells or even the organs for that matter.” He hurried off. “So I can talk to them?” He didn’t respond. So I decided to experiment it. “How is work?” I asked the penis. “Ohh, not bad. A little busy actually. Could you ask the bladder to hold it a little longer?” It responded. From then on, every day I toured the body, little by little learning the way it worked, and every day I understood that the process was mystifying. But only after Kanha joined school and I met the conscience of other students did I understand the real seriousness of things I was dealing with. Each human body was a nation. The way it functioned was identical, with each cell representing a citizen. All the citizens worked together for the growth of the nation, and the nation in-turn ensured