My three year old toddler Soham too imitating and following his elder brother Mannan has got into the habit of using his iPad for the maximum time of the day. While on one hand Mannan is actually studying for class six, Soham on the other hand is doing his course of M.TAJ ( Masters in Tom And Jerry) 😉😅

To distract him today, I told him that I have a really interesting story about a super kid who had magical powers from Ganesha and whose name was………. yup! You guessed it right! Soham! His eye lit up with pride and with a big smile he responded, “ haan main hi hu shaktishali Soham”(“ yes! I am the strong boy Soham”)

The next challenge was to entertain his curiosity about what happens further in the story of this newly found identity Shaktishali Soham for which I had about two nanoseconds of his undivided interest after which, if I didn’t come up with something really interesting, obviously he would go back to his beloved iPad. So quickly in my mind I replaced the cartoon character Chota Bheem in one of his stories with our very own Shaktishali Soham and recited the story with my modifications to him. Those fifteen minutes of jumping and dancing around, making faces with loud expressions while story recitation captured his interest and he played along too.

The newly found identity of Shaktishali Soham stuck in his mind throughout the day till he slept. Watching him sleep peacefully at night, I wondered to myself what all it actually takes to be a mother..! The kind of bond and the extent of influence a mother has over her child. The undisputed confidence that a child holds in his mother that if she says so than it is so ! So if a mother says that her child is a Shaktishali boy( strong boy) then so he is!!

That’s the power nature has granted to a mother. Especially in the initial growing up years, the absolute faith and the indisputable belief a child holds in his mother is just like what one holds in his God. But, with all this reverence , love and belief comes a very big responsibility for the mother of moulding and directing a child, a human being to become someone beautiful not only on the outside but also within, someone constructive and positive, someone who adds value not only to his own life as he grows up but also adds value to the world. Whatever a mother chooses to say, to inculcate, to imbibe, the child will absorb, believe and reflect in throughout his life as an individual.

To carry a baby for nine months within her is just a small bit out of the huge responsibility of being a mother. The real challenge begins from the time the baby comes into this world, in her arms and continues to exists till she breathes her last, for once a mother, she is always a mother and her responsibility may perhaps have a comma or a semi colon at times but it never really has a full stop !