So what are the things that bond us together as a family? The question is something that baffles all those people who have the need to be bonded together. My son, who is final year Engineering student, is home these days and just watching him these days gives me the answer to the question that I posed at the very beginning of this write up.

As soon as he reached home at 2:30 AM, instead of getting inside the bed that was kept prepared for him, he just chose to snuggle in my bed and when he held me close, I felt him to be like the samall infant that once he was! Thank God, he still has the fragrance of innocence and freshness of youth in him. Some people may find it odd but this is the way it is with my kids. My daughters too, though one of them is to be married off in a month's time, snuggle inside my quilt, just to hold me close. And very honestly they confess that it helps them recoup the strength that they might have lost during the average hiccups of life that they face.

I, on the other hand, am thankful to them for the trust and confidence that all my kids repose in me. Don't I have the same need sometimes? When I too, like a small kid, would just long to be in the reassuring arms of my own mother. But I feel shy and a little awkward to snuggle in her bed and hold her hands or to put my head in her lap to receive sustenance from her. But her mere presence around me, when I need her the most, is something that cheers me up.

I really wonder, as to why, as adults we behave in a different manner when all of us understand the basic fact that the things that bond us together are easy to come by and are within our approach. We put on a mask of independent, confident creatures capable to face the life as it comes to us and in the process are really robbed of the little joys of life that make us human beings, weak and in serch of support, at times.

I want all my kids to grow and become independent, as they are even today, but I would also wish them to keep the fragrance of childhood intact in them so that they maintain a perfect balance between the "world of innocence" and the "world of experience"!