N. Raghuraman's column: Some scenes are indelible in our memories, they are not filmed

There are some scenes in life that don't need to be filmed. They are just there and we see them. Yet they stay with us for years, sometimes even for the rest of our lives. That was one such scene. I will never forget her. It was the year 1995. I had just returned home from work when I saw my almost four-year-old daughter playing board games alone. She would jump from one end of the board to the other, sometimes playing on her side and sometimes on her imaginary partner's side. It was a scene I can never forget. My eyes filled with tears. Until recently, she used to have a partner to play with her throughout the day. But for the last two months, they were not with her. They were her grandmother. Now the child was left alone. I immediately washed my hands with soap, sat on the floor and started playing with her. Her full attention was on the board. She would scream with excitement every time the dice was thrown. I would scream with her, but my shirt was slowly getting wet with tears. My wife suddenly wrapped up the kitchen work and sat down next to us with two bowls. The food was the same – curd and rice – but made differently for both. The curd and rice from my daughter's bowl were well mashed, while my bowl also had a few other ingredients. We both had to throw the dice repeatedly, so it was not possible to eat with our hands. Then my wife decided that she would feed both her baby girl and a 35-year-old child who had recently lost his mother with her own hands. Every time the daughter was fed a morsel, we would clap. Every time the wife fed me, our eyes would meet. As her eyes were saying, I understand your pain. Please calm down. But the one who was being fed had unspeakable pain in his eyes. I don't know which pain was greater. Was it the agony of losing a mother? Or of watching the innocent girl play alone, who didn't know that her dear partner would never come back? Or was the fear of the father who wondered if his daughter suddenly asked when my partner would come back? I had no answer. Perhaps none of us had it. That evening, the board games, the dice, the curd-rice, the feeding of each other, and those silent eye contacts became our way of dealing with the damage that none of us could explain in words. The result of that love, touch, feeding each other and eye contact was very simple. Tears. Just tears. I was reminded of all this on Friday night, when I was at an event that featured three legends from three different worlds – Amitabh Bachchan, Gulzar and Sachin Tendulkar. One is the voice and face of Indian cinema, the other is its poet-philosopher and the third is cricket's most loved star. But the show was not about films, not poetry and not cricket. It was full of emotion and I recorded many scenes there. One of these scenes was related to the grandfather – Dr. P. Jagannath, who is a famous surgical oncologist. These celebrities had arrived at the launch of his book. Despite having three legends on stage, he was giving at least the same importance to his grandchildren less than ten years – Ivan and Viana. It was these children who introduced their grandfather to the audience and how he gave the name 'Blue'. A common man like me would not be proud to be in the presence of these legends, but it was not so for those doctors. He put his family, especially his grandchildren, before all his success. The trick is that the people who matter the most in life do not necessarily stand on the biggest stage. They can also be the little ones sitting next to you, waiting for your attention. No matter how high you reach in life, the real criterion of success is whether you can still bow down and hold the hand of a child.