Now go to bed, little one

Another quiet day comes to an end.

We lie together on the bed, a little tired after the evening walk, though Aaryan seems fully awake again. Some nights he falls asleep quickly on the way back home. Other nights, sleep disappears the moment we enter the house and he returns to being a bundle of restless energy.

Tonight is one of those nights.

He jumps from one side of the bed to the other, climbs over us, tickles us, escapes our grasp, and returns laughing again moments later.

Outside, the moon hangs bright in the night sky. Through the balcony curtains we can see a few scattered stars, steady and quiet above the sleeping city.

Eventually he settles beside me and asks for a story.

But not a new one.

He wants the same story he has demanded every night for the past week — the story of how I hurt my chin as a child.

For reasons known only to him, stories involving injuries, bandages, and dramatic suffering seem endlessly fascinating.

“Should I tell you the one about getting lost in the city?” I ask. “Or the time a dog chased me?”

“No, no,” he says immediately. “Later. First the chin story.”

I sigh theatrically and prepare myself for another retelling.

And then, suddenly, he says softly:

“बाबा, तुम बहुत प्यारे हो।”

Before I can respond, he turns toward his mother.

“मैया, तुम भी बहुत प्यारी हो।”

We laugh in surprise.

“But that is what we are supposed to tell you,” we say.

He shakes his head firmly.

“No. Let me say it. बाबा, मैया… तुम दोनों बहुत ही प्यारे हो।”

We pull him close and cover him with kisses, which he immediately wipes away with exaggerated annoyance before bursting into laughter again.

“मैं तो ऐसे ही कह रहा था,” he says mischievously.

And for a while, under the moonlit sky and the slow-moving curtains, the world feels impossibly gentle.