Last night was one of those when my elder twin refused to sleep. The poor kid had an upset stomach and was in some kind of distress.  I decided to try out my weapon supreme in such situations – my car keys. Like many beleaguered parents would attest, a car ride is the ultimate when it comes to pacifying bawling babies and putting them to gentle sleep.

My wife took out the baby wrap, with the baby inside, took his feed bottle and we were off. As I made circumambulations around the park in our huge township at about 1.00 AM in the night, the little kid slowly drifted into blissful sleep. It was somewhere around the third round that I noticed the car headlights behind us. I admit I was quite sleepy, but I was sure that the headlights had been on my rear view mirror for quite some time before I noticed it. I slowed the car, and found that the other car also was progressing slowly.

I turned the car around the corner of the park – the other car did the same. I stopped the car at the end of the turn and was more or less unimpressed when the other car stopped as well. I took off again and after completing a round, found that the car had moved a bit forward, but was still stopped. One more round later and – hey presto! The headlights of the car were again back in my rear view mirror, slowly keeping pace with us, but still maintaining a discrete distance.

I was beginning to get worried. Who was following us at this time of the night? Why was the car slowly going around the park and following us? Throwing caution to the wind, I decided confrontation was the only mode to follow. I sped off, finished my rotation around the park rapidly and appeared behind the other car, which was stopped. Getting down from my car, I walked up to them and ……

The young couple inside were every shade as sleepy as my wife and I. The tiny blanket-wrapped baby in the lady’s lap was in a blissful sleep. The husband looked up at me with a surprised glance as I appeared near his window. If there was one moment in which I felt a sense of camaraderie as well as embarrassment in the same fleeting moment, it was this.

I hurriedly apologised and explained why I had made such an unexpected appearance at their car window. They were both civil enough to laugh aloud and came over to look at our own elder twin, floating on the mists of dreams in his sleep.

At that rather unearthly hour, two tiny babies made me aware about the common bouts of problems parents face. But then, are not most of the problems faced by us the same all over? And yet, we feel we are unique in our suffering and jump to conclusions about the intentions of the others.