All hail the new carrom king

The resort we stayed at in Goa had swimming. Cycling. Water Sports. A jungle gym and play area. Croquette. Yoga. And of course, a kid's room. Infested with, lord save us, DVDs of cartoons and assorted kiddy movies and the playstation. The brat spotted the little board indicating the direction to the kids room on day one itself but due to unscheduled trip to Baga, had to defer his plans to investigate said room till the next day.
The next morning dawned bright and early. He hopped onto my snoring stomach and prised my eyes open. "Mamma. I wantu gotu d kidzroom. Now."
I peeled my eyes open and looked groggily at the watch. For obvious reasons, the eyes felt sandpapered. "Its only 8 am, dear child," I said. The kids room opens at 10 am, I informed him. He bounded off my stomach with the kind of alertness I would go down on bended knee should it happen on a school day morning.
"Okay, letsh have a bath and brush the teethz and be ready by 10 oclock. And finish our breakfasht." The pappa and I were in no mood to be bathed and breakfasted by 10 am. This was after all, a holiday. We had license to wake at hours when breakfast and lunch could be combined.
The pappa though, wakes up at ungodly hours most mornings, before even the early bird has scrubbed their beaks in preparation for the morning wormly parcel, and was already stirring.
We woke up. Breakfasted. And took ourselves to the kiddy room to drop the brat in. He entered like the proverbial kid entering a candy store, bug eyed with wonder. "Dere's a PSP," he squawked, unable to contain his excitement. We left, having administered dire warnings to behave and to do the occasional puzzle and book reading and not lavish all his attention on the PSP.
In the evening, post lunch, he began his I want to go to the kids room whine whine whine again. Ever notice how kids have the ability to keel you over with their whining, until you buckle down and beg them to shut up or are made of sterner stuff and just ducttape their mouths up?
I buckle. I began taking him down to the kids room. And then I passed a notice board which had a list of activities pasted on, activities for kids. Among those was a football camp. "Come on brat," I said. "Let's go to play football." He draped himself on the railing like the limp asparagus he was and dithered and dathered. 'Fifteen minutes of football, " I bargained. "And then you can go to the kids room." I prayed that the football would be fun enough for him to forget all thoughts of the kids room.
We landed at the meeting spot for the football camp. Right next to the games area. With a table tennis table and a carrom board. No one else had turned up for the camp from amongst the kids at the resort.
"What I'll do? Lets go to the activity room, I will play PSP," the brat got into whine mode.
Come, lets play some table tennis. Given that his head barely bobbed above the table, that was a sure flop. Lets try out carrom, mamma tried. Last ditch effort at keeping him out of the activity room. He sat. The lad manning the games joined him. They played one round. The brat was hooked. He played and played. Moving all around the table to fire his shots. Moving the coins to suit his trajectory of aim. Cheating shamelessly. It was evening before we knew it. He called his father to join him. Father and son spent the evening playing carrom, while mamma swatted away the mosquitoes. He was dragged away with great force when it was time for dinner.
The next morning, he sat on my stomach again before my eyes could open. "Gerrup mamma. Letsh gotu play carrom."