For the first 15 years of our son’s life, give or take a few months, we were assured free entry and exit from his domain.

There was no question of our right of way in and out of his room. There were two reasons for that. One: None of the doors in the house shut properly, so there was no way of ever locking anyone out. And two: He had never heard of ‘No Trespassing’, ‘Keep out’, ‘Knock before you enter’ or any such thing in our home and therefore had no idea that anyone actually needed privacy.

Then, a little late by his generation’s landmarks, teenage angst, antipathy to household ‘rules’, rebelliousness and everything else associated with those difficult years, hit him and us like a battering ram. The amenable young boy was gone and in his place stood a sometimes-glowing-sometimes-glowering giant nobody recognised. Attempts began in earnest, under the active tutelage of his peers or by sheer osmosis, to exert his independence, forge his own style — and keep us out of his life!

Of course, since he had had no practice (and neither had we) nobody really got anywhere very far from the old ways. But any work, any play, any outing, any family responsibility was accompanied by a noisier struggle or a longer process of convincing than we were accustomed to. In the stand-off — naturally — we blinked first. He had not come with any type of ‘How-to’ book, least of all a ‘How-to for dummies (and daddies and mummies)’, and with our levels of energy and our reserves of endurance dwindling drastically, we had no choice but to give in.

He got his own way. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know his own way any more than we did. He was on the road to independence — and all of us came to believe that he would eventually find where he wanted to go and get there.

And we were not completely out of his domain. Through the next decade, we were allowed in at intervals — whether it was an all-boys hostel room or a newly established independent home of his own.

At first, we had the luxury of keeping a spare key to his little kingdom and we indulged ourselves, set out on a whim and arrived laden with goodies — but those surprise visits soon became too much of a shock for him. He would rather we didn’t see the unpaid bills on the table and the dirty clothes on the ground. Though both would be cleared, the torture of the inevitable sermon far outweighed the benefits of freedom from debt and dirt.

So, slowly, we had to accept that we would be given dates, time and specifications for entry, though some concessions were made to accommodate the time-tables of the Indian railways, airlines or road transport authorities. And we could not help noticing that exits were easier than entries. A quick call to a taxi service, a wave of the hand, and we were sent off, his attention going immediately to a phone call of his own for work or play.

We joked that we would soon need his written permission to visit, but we accepted, as every parent does, that this is a part of the path a child takes.

But now, suddenly, he is off to foreign shores. And he has not chosen one of those 37 or more countries where Indians can obtain a visa on arrival. Now we need an official governmental visa to visit.

The time of invitations is done.

The time of spontaneity is over.

And the distance suddenly seems insurmountable.

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.