A Special birthday gift !

written 18.12.2009
It’s my birthday today and a special day too! Usually I wake up with an uncertainty as whether to be excited about it or be indifferent. But so far in my 45 years of eventful journey I have never been left without a reason to be excited with, as either family friends or students made it special in one way or the other.
This time too it was illustrated with a different colour and that is why I consider it worth mentioning.
My nine year old son Achu insisted pleadingly for a hundred rupee note and I was apprehensive about giving it though I knew he wanted to buy a present for me on my birthday. Very reluctantly I relented and handed over a hundred rupees. He walked into a gift shop. Well, as I was not allowed in, so I proceeded towards the grocery shop which was a few shops away in the same complex. After a few minutes, from the corner of my eye I saw him walk out of the shop, barging into a bookshop. It took nearly half an hour for him to select a book. Shopkeeper while re-arranging the piles of books back to the shelf reported to me his instruction to the boy at the shop, ‘Bhaiyya, ache se pack karna, meri mummy ka birthday hai,voh khush ho jana chahiye! Thik?’
While walking back home he asked me “Would you like to see the gift?” I told him, I would ,but then it would give the desired effect if you showed me tomorrow. “Well mamma,said the eager son of mine,'I must say this much that it’s a book.” I wondered what book he would get for me. “May be a ‘Panchtantra’ or ‘Grandpa Stories’ What a waste of hundred rupees!,” I mused
Today morning he woke up early and hugged me with a ‘happy birthday mamma!’. He passed on the book he had bought . I hope you like the book by ‘Rashmi Bansal’. While I uncovered the neatly wrapped book and saw the cover of the book tears rolled onto the cover page ‘Stay Hungry Stay Foolish’. On the card affixed to the gift it was written ‘You are my God!’
He had painstakingly taken care to buy a book of my taste. I coaxed him to tell me what made him chose the book. He said “I had heard the name of this book many times when you would converse about books to your students and friends. Then you would say you have not read the book. So I just thought why not gift mamma with this very same book, and though this book was a bit above my budget I must get something mamma would love to read.” So he had bargained to get the book in hundred. As I hugged him to my heart I couldn’t thank God enough for the lovely moment in my life, for the effort he had taken to get a worthy present for me! Each birthday would now be a day to celebrate as the reminiscent of this memory which has exalted the glory of the day! How my son went to the shop got all the books down from the rack and took pain to select an appropriate book just to see his mamma happy.