The Stupidest Bastard on Earth.

I wake up at 4am, thirsty and restless. I have had a horrible dream last night, all involving terrible things happening to people. I try to get back to sleep and cannot. After tossing and turning for some time, I give up, give in and brew some coffee. The gym in this ultra posh service apartment is closed. I take myself outside to the little garden and try to clear my head.

I miss my little girl. She is now midway through her third year. She can be bratty, unreasonable, difficult. Since she is an only child, she also has a bit of a temper, and can be a bit priceless at times. If denied, she has a way of sticking her hands into her coat pocket, turning her face away from us towards the nearest wall. "I dont want anything" she will say. "I dont want appa, I dont want Amma, I dont want to go to school, I dont want to go home...". And so on. My reaction is to pick her up and quickly change the subject. "Look at this car". Or a story about what happened somewhere, or about her cousins. And then she is ok.

When she is asleep, I often lie down next to her in the dark, looking at her baby face set in sleep, eyes closed. There is often a gentle snore. She licks her lips or her face moves in a dream. Her palms are folded together, and tucked under her cheek. Her legs are akimbo. Her soft cotton nightie is all scrunched up. I look at her with wonder. What have we created, I ask myself. And how lucky I am..

Before going to bed she now has to read herself, helped by either her mum or her dad. Until a few months ago we did the reading. SInce they were books she had read before, I would often find myself nodding off to sleep. She would be in bed, sitting next to me, my left arm around her and her tiny little body jammed up against my side. I can see her little rounded back and her pretty head of tousled black hair. And her little finger jabs at the page and she says in Tamil "Read, read"...And if she finds her very old man of a dad falling off, there is a scream of protest in Tamil, looking in shock..."Dont Sleep Appa, Read".

And so I read, kissing her hair all the while....

I cannot write anymore. Mothers talk about their feelings for their children. I thought I should tell somebody that I miss my family so much it aches. What kind of life have I condemned myself to? At an age when men are consolidating their material gains and looking at a life when the benefits of an empty nest become visible, I have chosen to start a family, quit my job, begin a new and risky business that keeps me away from home, and the commute is not an hour - it is 11 hours each way.

I must be the stupidest bastard on earth.