Sleep baby sleep

One fair weather night it was ten o’clock. Me and my husband were sitting side by side holding our hands. Our son Pakku was playing with his entire fleet of vehicles. I asked Pakku “Come on baby, it is time to sleep”. He looked at me surprisingly and said “Now!”. My husband said “Come on Pakku let us go to bed”, and his reaction was same “Now!” I gave up and told to my husband “It is a very difficult task to make a baby sleep. You may go to bed.” Unknowingly I hurt my husband’s ego. He said, “OK. Let me try. I will make him sleep.”

He called his son, “Pakku come on. I want to talk to you.” The little fellow rushed to his father’s outstretched arms. He asked the kid very lovingly. “Do you want to see an engine?” I jumped up, “What do you mean by ‘Engine’?” I know one thing for sure, that my son was extremely fascinated by engines.

Both of them got ready and so did I. We went to Hardwar railway station, which was about 11 Km away from our home. It was ten thirty at night. We purchased platform tickets and entered the station. The last train had just departed. The platform was almost empty. Only one Diesel Locomotive was standing at one end of the platform. Father and son were busy exploring the engine. There was an engine driver who was a friendly person and took interest in them. I love to drink tea made at the railway station. We spent some time and returned. On the way back Pakku fell asleep on my lap.

As soon as we stepped in, Pakku’s father gave a victorious smile and said, “Look, I made him sleep.”

Now whenever Pakku did not want to sleep he asked his father to show him the engine.

One night I had a bad headache. I lied down on the bed. My son was busy with his drawing book. He was spreading all his assets like crayons, color pencils, drawing sheets, etc. I asked my husband to make him sleep. He said to Pakku, “Come on Pakku. Mom is not well. Let us help her.” Pakku asked, “How?” He said “Let us sleep peacefully so that she feels better.” He readily agreed and packed up all his stuff.

Then they lied down on the bed, covered themselves with a blanket, hugged and kissed each other, and turned off the light. Then Pakku asked, “Baba! How does the sleep come?” He thought for a while and said, “This is a natural Process.”

“How nature will tell me?”

“It does not tell you, it just comes like dreams.”

“Do you see the dreams?”

“Yes I do.”

“What do you see in the dreams?”

“Hmm... Sometimes rain or trees or flowers...”

“You mean nature.”

“Yeah! Do you also see the dreams?”

“Yes I do.”

“What do you see?”

“Nature.”

“What Nature?”

“The moon.”

“Why not stars?”

“Because Ma says stars are too far and I’m too small. Do you see the stars?”

“Yeah.”

“How does it look like? Small or very big?”

“...”

“Baba!”

“zzz ... zzz ... zzz ...”

“Baba! Baba!”, Pakku called. But there was no response. Then he crawled up to me. I saw his face. He said “Baba has fallen asleep.” He had the same victorious smile he had on his face as his father had a few days ago.