“ You do not care for me,” she said.

It was an incident that changed my perception towards my loved ones forever. It took place some 12 years ago. I was 13 at that time.

February dawned. It was time for the yearly crafts fair at Surajkund, near Delhi. That year, my little cousin from Chandigarh was also accompanying us .

The hotel we were staying at had organized a fashion show that night. The prospect of watching one in real was thrilling.

However, my cousin, being merely 8 years old, started getting bored after just 15 minutes of the show and started pestering us to go back to the room.

Procrastinating and passing off her pleas as childhood tantrums, we paid little attention to her. Still, she kept imploring us to return.

After repeated pleas and little response from our side, she got very annoyed. Crossing her arms in front of herchest, she sat back hard against the chair. “You do not care for me,” she said. My mother was taken aback.

She immediately escorted us back to our room. Attending to all our needs, she lulled us into sleep. We did not go back to watch the show.

I was not very aware of this incident till the time I presented my mother with a card on her 38th birthday. It said, ‘I care for you.’ Pointing her finger to those to those words and asked me, “Do you know what they mean?” I gave a confused nod.

She smiled and narrated the event of that night. She explained. “It was from your little cousin that I learnt what caring for someone really means. When you care for someone, your focus shifts from ‘I’ to ‘him/her.’ At times, when my wishes collide with those of my loved ones, I remind myself how much they mean to me. Then, everything falls into perfect harmony.”

A small child gave us a lesson for life. Every ‘I love you’ ‘I care for you’ ‘I miss you’ and every non-verbal gesture in this direction is in full awareness of its meaning.

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