Life is indeed beautiful, I tell him everyday. Yet on somedays the gloom doesn’t lift. Allergic eyes, dyslexia problems, aggressive classmates, expensive bike that he cannot have, introvert nature, short height - almost everything sometimes goes against him. And I have to spend more time for that bright as a sunshine smile. But soon he is smiling through tears. I have learnt from him - our glass is not empty but its half glass full!!

My little son has given me many a lessons in optimism. But this one has been the best of all. We work as a team to overcome these small issues. He realised that he too had ‘dyslexia’ after seeing the recent Indian movie on the problem. I had never agonised over it and told him it was a serious issue. He was upset when he saw the little kid in the film going thro’ confusions and travails. He was happy that he had learned to ‘flip the letters’. Thats the trick we have developed to overcome impulse to write mirror images. We just give letters a symmetric flips.

We love spending a crazy day out some weekends. Crazy because if I have to go to a shop in neighbourhood, my son takes the longest route possible. Enroute we have to avail all kinds of public transports, that is, a bus-ride, a metro-ride, a tram-ride, a launch-ride and maybe hop on a local train too. Then we return to local grocery shop and all the drudgery of routine life.

The school assessment report often says that he is introvert. And I have to explain that its not a complain. And then he tells me that he doesn’t like to fight with class mates. Maybe those who don’t fight are ‘introverts’. And we dig many a meanings of the word and decide so what if we are not extrovert and can’t showcase our talents but we can play rhymes on synthesizer, paint and draw and read books - after all our’s is half glass full!!

I don’t like pretending that life is totally beautiful and paint a happy picture for my son. Death of a pet fish in aquarium, passing away of grandfather, violence on television, newspaper pictures, villians and vamps in fairy tales - I cannot avoid dark shades of life. We are learning to take unhappiness in stride and say that our life is half glass full!!