“Where’s the little one? We haven’t seen her for a while.”
The guests were eagerly waiting to chit-chat with my daughter. But, she was nowhere to be seen.
She was with us just before the guests arrived. The moment their car got into the driveway, she disappeared. We were busy receiving the guests and failed to notice where she had gone.
I dashed out to see if she had gone out to the road. My wife kept searching the rooms to see if she had hidden somewhere.
Suddenly I heard my wife shouting angrily. I went back and ran into our bedroom from where her voice was heard.
To my relief, there she was--my little daughter hiding under the cot. She hesitantly came out. My wife was going bonkers. I tried to intervene, but her angry stare held me back. Considering the heart-in-mouth moments our daughter gave us, my wife’s anger was justifiable.
“Come with me. Talk to our guests. Didn’t I teach you good manners?”
My daughter kept her head down and didn’t respond.
Sensing her mood, I somehow cajoled my wife into leaving her with me for a while. I promised her that I would bring her to the drawing room. She wasn’t convinced, but she left anyway, giving me a deadline of 5 minutes.
After she left, I called my daughter near and asked her.
“Dear, why did you hide?”
She hesitantly looked up and said: “Dad, I feel nervous talking to guests.”
The shy, introverted nature of the kid would make any Dad anxious, but I ended up laughing out loud. She was surprised by my reaction.
How could I not laugh at this?
My mind replayed an incident that occurred about 35 years ago. Instead of a 5-year-old girl, it was a 5-year-old boy’s turn to come out of the cowshed which had become his impromptu hideout. Covered in grime and sweat, he too came out hesitantly and was given a warm (read--very angry) reception by his mother.
The setting had changed, time had passed by, but the reason for his hiding wasn’t any different from that of the girl. He too was too shy to talk to guests.
As the feeling of déjà vu hit me, I hugged her tightly and said: “It’s okay dear. Everything will be alright. Just relax.”