By the Skin of Our Teeth

When the boys were young,

cell phones were not part of childhood.

Kabir was eleven the first time a phone entered their lives.

There was one phone.

It was shared.

And it existed for exactly one reason.

Emergencies.

I was teaching at IIJNM – the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media –

a good two and a half to three hours away by bus, one way.

If something went wrong,

there was no easy way for them to reach me.

And no easy way for me to reach them.

That phone wasn’t freedom.

It was a lifeline.

I did have a cell phone myself.

But there was no bandwidth – financial or otherwise –

to add another bill by giving the boys one of their own.

If they ever called me,

no matter where I was –

a meeting, a classroom, a conversation –

I picked up.

Always.

My first question was simple.

“Is it urgent?”

If the answer was yes, I listened.

If it was no, I said, “I’ll call you back.”

And I did.

They knew they could reach me.

That mattered more than anything.

We were not a cell-phone household in spirit.

Phones then belonged mostly to the upper middle class, maybe the wealthy.

And even if you had one,

it was not casual.

Kabir had already managed to run up the landline bill once,

talking late into the night to some girlfriend.

That alone ensured he wasn’t being rewarded with a personal phone.

This is where the story begins.

We were heading to Kihim -

to our family beach house -

with Amma and Baba.

A long holiday.

A month, maybe two.

The plan was simple.

My parents would come from their home.

We would leave from ours.

We’d meet at Yashwantpur station

and travel together.

The house was shut down.

Windows closed.

Doors locked.

Bags packed.

This is how you leave a house in India

when you’re going away for a long time.

Kabir refused my terms for taking the phone.

My rule was clear.

The phone would be handed in every night.

He pushed.

As he always did.

Testing how far he could go.

He said "no",

and moved toward the door.

I wasn’t going to be blackmailed.

And I wasn’t going to bend.

So I opened all the windows again.

In our house,

that meant one thing.

We were not leaving.

Sameer thought this was all very entertaining.

He sat down with me.

We pulled out a storybook.

We read.

We laughed.

Inside my head, the calculations were frantic.

If we missed this train,

getting to Kihim would be expensive.

Flying would cost money I didn’t have.

But I had called his bluff.

And I wouldn’t undo it.

The clock kept moving.

I cancelled the taxi.

Kabir watched.

Waiting to see if I really meant it.

At one point I said,

“This is your last chance.

Now or never.”

Otherwise, the holiday ended right there.

At the twelfth hour -

not the eleventh -

he agreed.

Everything moved at once.

Windows shut.

House locked.

Cab called.

Bags hauled.

We just about managed to get into the nearest coach

before the train started moving.

We didn’t even reach our compartment in time.

We walked through the train

to find our seats.

That close.

I wasn’t always able to hold my ground when it mattered.

There were many times in their lives

when I said something

and couldn’t follow through.

This time, I did.

Years later, one of them told me

that this moment stayed with him.

That it shook him.

Not in fear.

In recognition.

That maybe - just maybe -

Mum would hold firm sometimes.

There were baby steps forward.

And many steps back.

But this was one of the triumphs.

It cost me a lot of tense minutes that day.

A lot of breath.

A lot of resolve.

And I’m grateful we made it through -

together.