A magical moment…

I have always heard that good things come in small packages, and I have often witnessed people talking about the "moment of absolute magic"; a moment that would sweep you off your feet. It could be due to love, it could be friendship, it could be both or it could be anything from totally unexpected angle.

“Will I ever experience one like that?” I wondered

“You are going to Newcastle tomorrow and will work there for a week to understand the basics of test strategy formulation for testing web pages” my manager interrupted my thoughts, with a beaming smile.

I was feeling restless and irritated as I never wanted to go. I was unsure about these magic moments, but on this particular morning, I was damn very sure that moments of absolute madness do exist; it would not only sweep you off your feet, but also would bury you six feet underground.

Reluctantly, I packed my bags for a week-long trip. I called up Vel, my friend in Newcastle, and asked him whether I could stay in his house for a week as a paying guest.

“We have two extra bedrooms, you can stay here as long as you want” he said. I would always consider myself extremely lucky as never in my life I was not surrounded by nice friends such as this one. Vel lived with his wife and an eighteen month old daughter, Swetha.

One best thing about this workshop it that it ended at 4 PM every day, hence I could go back home earlier than usual. But, during the workshop, it was really painful as someone from nowhere would ramble on and on about strategy. I always believed that strategy should be formulated on a case by case basis and never could be thought in a class room setting, especially with frameworks. I felt like killing my manager for all this, as soon as I go back.

After five days of my workshop, when I went back home, Vel’s wife was busy cooking and Swetha was giving her some problems as she was crying all the time.

“Can you take care of her for a while?” she asked.

I picked up Swetha from her and took her to the TV room and showed her some cartoons. We also played with the penguin doll, which is one of her favorites. I made her sit on my lap when we were watching the cartoon. Every now and then, she used to look at me and smile.

The way she smiled at me, and the way she played with the penguin were so amazingly beautiful that I would watch it and feel thrilled my entire life. She was a sweet adorable cute little child, and I loved playing with her.

After endless playing and watching TV, I got a bit tired. I then sat on the easy chair, pushed it back and was ready to go to sleep.

Swetha looked at me sitting in the easy chair and started crawling towards me. She then, with great difficulty, climbed up the easy chair by holding my legs with her tiny fingers. All the time, I was only watching her in amazement. She then sat on my lap, looked at my face, smiled and then gently placed her head on my chest. Within a minute, she fell asleep.

When she was asleep, she gently placed her tiny arms around my neck. The feeling of a cute little child lying on top of my chest was amazing. It could never be explained in mere words. She slept for about an hour, like a baby. All the time, I forgot everything else in the world as I have never felt so thrilled and happy deep from inside, ever before.

The five days of hammering in the workshop, the travel, the cold weather and every other thing suddenly seemed so small. I could perform the same boring routine at work for the rest of my life if I could get to be around and play with this sweet little girl, like the exact same way I did this day.

Some days, some moments or some incidents hit us when we were least expecting to be hit. Beautiful moments like these never happen every day. But, these are the moments that would help us to take a step back from out busy schedule to appreciate how wonderful life has been.

This was one such magical moment