'Samyak, you know what? The entire day she chants "Pappa, Pappa". Whenever someone rings the doorbell, or whenever she hears some noise from outside, she goes "Pappa.". But she never says Mummy.'
Beckett utters the word 'Pappa' in the cutest possible way. The way she greets me when I reach home from work is seared into me for eternity. That one high pitched lilting syllable followed by the second low pitched one just melts the day away. She can then scratch, bite, or scream the living daylights out of me and I won't be even the slightest bit perturbed.
But for all her paeans of Pappa, you just have to see what happens when Missus arrives. Beckett doesn't have to utter any word. Maybe it is the boobs, or more likely the fact that Missus goes to any extent needed to ensure that the best is done for Beckett both while she is at home and when she is not. When Missus is at home, there is no way Pappa can hold a candle to her.
But Pappa does other weird and fun things; like holding Beckett upside down and swinging her by her legs, or getting into tightly contested gibberish matches with her only to lose after putting up the most valiant of fights, or reading out books to and with her, or playing both Hindi & English songs - right from the golden oldies to today's pop hits, or eating her food when she refuses, or bathing her and teaching her to bobble her head under water in the bathtub, or getting glow toys for her to see and marvel at in the dark, or pushing the swing, the roundabout, and the sea-saw while she has fun at the other end, or playing Raag Hansdhwani for 10 seconds before she starts making a go for my Baansuri, or the ever so dreadful potty ritual - which has now become a productivity game where the objective is to minimise the usage of wet wipes and time taken while not compromising on the cleaning quality.
Pappa is alright.
