karmickids

So. Mamma gave a speech.

2012-01-24T01:51:00.000-08:00

The brat was woken up Sunday morning, spit polished and poured into his clothes.
"Where we are going?"
We're going to St Xavier's college, in town, because mamma has to give a talk.
"In a college? With big chillun? Yu're a teacher?"
No, mamma assured him that she hadn't taken up the noble profession and this was a one off. Mamma, Pappa and brat took themselves down to the car where the questions continued.
"Whachyure going to talk about?"
About Twitter and blogs and facebook and India Helps.
He nodded wisely.
"Nobody knows about twidder and facebuk and IndiaHelps."
Erm. They do, but they want me to tell them more about it.
"Bud wai dey aksed you to come an talk. Yure a gud talker?"
Much speechlessness followed.

See, I'm typing so fast....

2012-01-21T01:31:00.000-08:00

...laike Mamma......

Of birth months and nomenclature

2012-01-19T01:15:00.000-08:00

The brat has been chuckling through Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator for some days now.
Before proceeding further let me get down on my hands and knees and thank the heavens above for transforming this complete non reader into a mildly interested reader, which on a Richter scale of one to 10, came periliously close to nine for me.
So, the other day, he sang the Augustus Gloop song for me, as sung by said knee high Oompa Loompas and wondered aloud.
Wot means Augustus?
I tried to get into Roman emperor and August and pre-eminent and all of which I needn't have bothered with.
So, he wuz born in August. For the sake of ending the discussion, I nodded as I pressed at the lift floor buttons.
And I wuz born in d monthof October.
So dat makes me Octobus Manral. I laughed. He continued earnestly. Mamma, will it be Octobus Manral or Octopus Manral.
Move over Bruce Manral and Krish Khan Kapoor, Octopus Manral is the new nom de guerre.

Mere Paas Maa Hai

2012-01-16T01:11:00.001-08:00

There is a lot of bravado that goes on in the playground with everything from cycles, to playstation games to cricket and slam attax collectible cards to whatever it is that chest puffing can be inspired by.
Ergo the other evening when we were down in the park, me doing my regular perambulations of the premises with one ear cocked out to listen in on any murder and mayhem happening in the vicinity of the tykes, I overheard a hot headed discussion taking place between the brat and a fren who is more a frenemy.
"I haff PS2 and PS3 and PSP," said frenemy yelled at brat. "You have only PS2."
"I have Gameboy. I have hundred Playstation games. You have?"
"I have 100 cards. And Sachin Tendulkar gold card. You have?"
The brat drew himself up to Shashi Kapoor levels of Deewar dignity. I feared he would say, can you repeat the question. But no.
"My mudder wrote a book. Yer mudder wrote?"
Haay Mera Bachcha. To borrow a hashtag from the wondrous Aneela.

The Reluctant Detective is here

2012-01-12T08:20:00.001-08:00

Available on flipkart, indiaplaza, infibeam, crossword and pre orders for signed copies on dialabook.com.

Check www.thereluctantdetectivebook.blogspot.com for details.

And go forth and buy. Please. I humbly request. March into the nearest bookstores and thump your. fist into convenient surface and demand a copy. Now. This minute. Ah well. It is an ungodly hour now. The night watchmen might get startled. Go this weekend. In droves. Buy multiple copies. Gift it to folks you think need some laughter in their lives. They will bless you. And more importantly, I, debutante author, of the trembling knees, will bless you.
Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel

Does Child Protection go too far in some countries....

2012-01-04T21:49:00.000-08:00

I have been following this curious case for a long while now. The case of two children, both Indian nationals, being taken from their parents by the Norwegian Child Protection Services and put into foster care until they are 18, and in separate homes. While the reasons behind the children being taken away into custodial care are not clear, and one can only sympathise with the parents, it did lead me to do some reading up on the Child Protection Services and the definition of children's rights according to Norwegian law and did find it rather fascinating.

Children have the right to express their opinion from the age of seven in Norway. Parents are not permitted to spank their children, even on the rare occasion, This country was the first to appoint an ombudsman for children 25 years ago.
If a child is in an atmosphere of domestic violence or abuse, the Child Protection Agency has the right to move in and take the child out of the home and put the child into foster care.
While the intentions behind these policies are surely commendable one can only wonder how easy it must be to lean over into the extreme. Apparently even the UN has noted with concern the number of children in Norway who have been taken away by the authorities and placed into foster care. In fact, online groups like these are trying to bolster public opinion against the kind of pressure placed by the Child Protection

What are your opinions on this?
There are these horror stories one reads and shudders. A 13 year old boy managed to send out some emails asking for help, to be rescued from his foster home. ""They give little food to me, and I am hungry. Nobody wants to talk to me or take care of me in the foster home, and I feel completely lonely here. Please help me get back home to my mother, or please help me find a lawyer so that I could sue the child protection services."
Another story talks about how a Polish girl just didn't return home from school one day because she had been going to school sad, and the authorities thought that was reason enough to put her into foster care. "Polish newspapers wrote that Norwegian child protection services take as many as 300,000 children away from their parents, presumably immigrants, every year."
And here is more.http://towardchange.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/barnevernet-child-protection-services-in-norway-destroy-families-says-professor-skaanland/
As parents, what do you think of this? All I can hope for is that the Bhattacharyas get their children back soon.

And a Happy New Year to you

2012-01-02T03:31:00.001-08:00

The brat went to his first day at school in 2012 today. The previous week and a half had been a riot of Christmas partying and lunches at nanna's house and his cousin's down for the New Year, more relatives down for the New Year from mamma's side, a New Year's party, much joy and merriment and gluttony and no studying and gifts being showered on him by all and sundry and naturally the prospect that all this must end and the drib drabbery of the school home tuition homework routine would start again was quite a mood dampener last evening.
Especially when reminded the school bag needed to be packed. He draped himself listlessly on various items of furniture and didn't do much packing as mandated.
Mamma took the bag, checked the books, diary, pencil box for pencils sharpened to a point, sharpened the ones that weren't, packed the bag and the book. He emerged to attach the Barcelona keychain received from doting great aunt onto the bag zip and disappeared back into the other room where he was having Spiderman kill some million people off.
After a while he waddled back into his room where I was getting his clothes in order for the next day. "Tomorrow I go back to the third standard?"
Yes, son, I informed him much to his dismay.
"Wai?" he said piteously, "My budday is over and New Year is over. Everything is one year more. I should go back to the fourth standard."
No, I assured him. He had to go back to class three and there was no escaping it.
He emerged from school this afternoon, sullenfaced and grumpy. "What happened, son?" I asked.
"Wai you dint tell me we are 12 years today. I wrote leven years. I had to rub out everything and write all the dates of my worksheet again."

Main Hoon Don2

2011-12-27T23:03:00.000-08:00

The brat, as most of you who follow this blog on a regular basis would know, is a movie buff. A Bollywood movie buff, to be precise, with a condenscending tolerance and part time fling on the side with Hollywood superhero movies, specifically, Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Ironman and the Green Lantern. Within Bollywood, he is a fanboy to the two Khans, Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan. And neither takes precedence over the other.
Ergo, when Don 2 was glutting the television screens with its promos, the brat stared gape mouthed at Shahrukh Khan taking on his enemies with moves slick enough for him to put Neo out of business in The Matrix Trilogy. Speaking of which, sigh, we were warned there would be a Don3 at the end of this movie. Be still my beating heart.
So it came to pass that Don 2 was released over the weekend. "What are peepil on twitter saying aboud Don 2?" The brat asked, knowing that mamma seeks her informed opinion on movies to watch from the tweets of those who have watched said movies, rather than the puerile reviews that plague our print media. "Not too good, son," I told him straight out. "Is okay, I still wantu see it."
So see it happened yesterday. In 3 D nonetheless. Pet Peeve No 1025 coming up. What is this about every second Bollywood movie being released in 3 D whether they merit it or not. Not only do those damn 3 D glasses cut the bridge of the nose, I end up taking them off and watching the movie blurred because the image is so unclear most times. Anyway, having got that out of the way, we settled down in our seats with our sammwiches and Pepsi and the movie unfurled. Shahrukh Khan going down a tropical back water kind of place, to much whistling and cheering from the audience which mainly comprised new pimple sprouters. He then proceeding to bash up one million people, blow up a shanty by the riverside and escape. Then in a scene straight out of 7 (remember Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey?) he surrendered himself to Interpol officers Om Puri and Priyanka Chopra whose lips, god save me, have now a zipcode of their own. So Don goes of to jail, not before rattling off some smarmy dialogue. (Psst Bollywood, go out and find some good dialogue writers, for the love of God, this corny overload drags the action down to zzzzz level). Speaking of which, this was the point when I drifted off to sleep, god forgive me. I awoke to see Hrithik Roshan waltzing Priyanka Chopra around and immediately perked up, thanking my stars I'd woken up at an opportune moment, but then Hrithik Roshan peels off his mask while seated in a car and instantly has a height, bodystructure and voice change and becomes Shahrukh Khan. Gah. I went right back to sleep. I woke up again during a car chase, dozed off again and woke up when a building was being blown up and people were being taken hostage and couldn't help but think of Heath Ledger and the bank heist in The Dark Knight, and went right back into Noddy land.
The movie over, the brat woke me up. "You laikt it?"
I confessed honestly that I'd dozed off through most of it. "Did you like it?" In true testosterone fuelled boy manner, he exulted, "Yus, dere wuz faiding and car chasing and shooting. And now dere will be a Don 3. An I'll see dat also."
I hoped by then he would be old enough to be allowed into a show on his own or with his friends. "An wen I growed up I wantu be Don. An I will rob banks."
Errm. "But robbing banks is fer bad peepul. Den how Don is d hero?"
Is it too early to begin explaining the concept of the anti hero to the brat, you think? Especially to nip any emulation of said antiheroism as being threatened?The brat resolved the crisis for me. "I'm nod becoming Don. I habtu become Green Lantern. Someone else can become Don."

The brat attends his first Catholic wedding reception

2011-12-22T00:11:00.000-08:00

For the eight years of his life, the brat has never been to a Catholic wedding. Fewer cousins getting married, and he being very small when the initial weddings happened, and ergo kept back at home rather than me chasing him around the venue was the reason he wasn't around at the few weddings which happened post his being born and then, when this, the wedding of a cousin cropped up mamma thought it would be good for him to experience how wedding receptions happen in other religions, him being exposed only to the standard stand in line, hand over gift and then go eat of most weddings we go to.
"Do you want to come to my cousin's wedding?" mamma asked him.
"You gotta cuzin?"
"Yes, I have many cousins," mamma replied. "How many?" Mamma did a quick head count and named the number 16.
"Yer lying. You cannot have 15 cousins. I have four cousins."
"But I do. Come to the wedding and you'll meet my cousins."
And mamma added as temptation factor, "There will be lots of chicken mutton fish."
It was the clincher.He agreed to come.
We landed at the venue with nana, where he was most fascinated by the three tier cake and the figurines of the bride and the groom on top. And the beautiful icing flowers. And then the entire shindig of the confetti throwing on the bridal couple, the bridal march and the jiving, waltzing, foxtrotting, insisting on doing some, butchering mamma's corns in the process, and finally coming into his element when the dance numbers began spinning and mamma was kindly excused from the dance floor and he danced his heart out.
He returned to the table, sweat pouring down his face, drinking up the carbonated beverage placed in front of him, looking around hungrily.
"Mamma. Catlick weddings have no starters?"
Luckily, service of said starters began quickly enough and he ate. And ate, and ate. And loaded the tissue paper in front of him with some more. Mamma was meeting up with relatives she hadn't met in years, some since childhood, and he was quite surprised to note the number of aunts, uncles and yes, cousins who were popping up.
And finally, dinner was served, and more gluttony happened given the menu was nothing short of a feast for carnivore brat.
At last fed and sated, his eyes drooping heavily, given it was way past his bed time, we made our way back home. Mamma asked him, "Did you enjoy the wedding?" Yes, he replied. "Wen I ged married, I'm going to have a Catlick wedding. With all the chikkin, mutton, fis. And a DJ an a dancing. And I wantu wear a flower in my coat. And make my hair in spikes wid gel."
Of course, mamma told him. "An in my wedding we'll have strawberry icecream. Nod kulfi falooda."
Ermm. So that's all settled now. All that is needed is the bride, I guess.

Of Robots and robotics

2011-12-20T20:04:00.001-08:00

So it was the annual day yesterday. The brat, it would seem, was a robot. The costume was all silver and black and the first one that came in had his stomach out when he raised his arms and the trousers to around calf length so he looked like a flood affected robot. It was sent back and the next size was sent back which then had the neck so wide, he could do an offshoulder number with it and the trousers refusing to stay put on his waist, which, by any standards is not fall off standards. Given that we had a couple of days to said annual day, Mamma let it rest and assured him we would manage with safety pins and a black tshirt inside the offshoulder number.
Asked to show his dance steps, the brat would shrug reluctantly. "I canna do it widaoud d musick."
Errm. So the day of the annual show dawned. And the brat went off to sleep at around 4 pm. We had to reach the grounds by six pm. Much shaking and awaking later he jumped up, splashed his face with water, and dressed himself up. The instructions read, full make up and spiked hair with silver glitter. Mamma had spent a some precious hours scouting stores for gel with silver glitter and failed to procure any and finally settled for regular garden variety gel mixed with a packet of garden variety chamki procured from the neighbouring stationery store. And the black shoes with silver laces were managed by converting regular black school shoes with silver ribbon rolled tight. I mean seriously. A black shoe is a black shoe, how are the silver laces going to make an impact on a stage above eye level. And the hair, given brat's hair is poker straight and soft, it refused to stand up and stay up in respectable spikes but just about kept flopping down wearily onto his forehead. A determined holding up for five minutes had some strands decide to stay put in the direction contrary to gravity. Much rolling on the floor tantrumming happened because the hair refused to spike up. Then came the moment for the make up and the tantrumming increased. "I is nod pudding make up," he spat out. "I is nod a gurl. Eveyone vil laffatme." Mamma managed to get some powder compact onto his face and some rouge onto his cheeks but he firmly drew the line at me approaching him within ten yards with an eyeliner or lipstick in my hand. "Robods don pud make up. Did Sahrukkan pud lipstick and black eyes when he was G.One." Errm. Then he wanted dark glasses. Of the Rajnikant Robot variety. Dark glasses which would come off and come back on at will. And some more rolling on the floor tantrumming happened before he was convinced that those are special sunglasses meant only for big people robots and not small children robots.
Rushed to the venue, informed the classteacher that make up didn't happen because the mard ka bachcha forbid it. She said she will do the needful.
We sat through the concert. Now in open air events in December, you spend half your time swatting the mosquitoes away. That keeps you awake, god bless the little children who performed bravely on a terrible script. Finally it was time for the brat's dance. And they entered. There was the brat, front row, centre, with him as the lead dancer, if that were possible in a group dance. And he danced so brilliantly, so brilliantly, I was open mouthed and the hubby had to put the jaw back up gently. It was a dance which was heavily break dance and robotic movements and he was smooth when required and jerky when required and, maternal love and pride apart, he was quite the cynosure of all eyes and clearly head and shoulders above the rest. That's where I stop gushing.
On the way back to the enclosure they were seated in he passed us. "I danct well? Properly? How I danct?"
Very well, I assured him, fantastic, mindblowing and some more adjectives thrown in as well to bolster the ego.
"Den can you ged for me four Slam Attax?"

Small rant, forgive me. Time to collect the children post show. Parents pushing and shoving, no line, no waiting patiently for their turn to sign on the sheet to collect their kids, the fathers with no qualms whatsoever about pushing the moms out of the way. I signed on the sheet to collect the brat, who couldn't get out because of the throng of parents blocking the exit and when he managed to squirm out, I couldn't get to him because of them monster loutish parents, and finally a teacher had to bring him out from the other end and call out to me, and hand him over the barricade. And I say it again, when parents are such louts, what hope do we have for the kids to grow up well behaved.

Why common courtesy is becoming increasingly uncommon

2011-12-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

Last evening the spouse and I reached home after a long day at the office. The brat was home with his daadi. We waited at the elevator bank in the lobby for the lifts to come down, this being a building with twenty storeys, it does include a fair bit of waiting. As the lift reached the ground floor and opened, a man, his wife and his little son, who could have been no more than six came from outside the lobby, the man bearing some grocery bags pushed past me and entered the lift, his wife followed him, dragging the child with her. The spouse and me let them pass, and then entered. The man had stood near the lift buttons, pressed his floor and would not move to allow me to press my floor button, nor ask which floor he should press on our behalf. I had to actually lean across him and press my floor button which was higher than theirs.
They stood in the lift, spread out, taking up all available space. When their floor arrived, a smidgeon of delight happened when the little son pushed his mother aside and strode out first. Followed by the man, and then the woman. The house they were entering as far as we could see had a lavishly done door and lobby area.
How can I be surprised when these are the sort of children who come down to play with my son? Children who come from absolutely boorish families, where the menfolk think nothing of pushing out a lady standing patiently for an elevator, like it is a train which is being missed. Where the very concept of personal space and politeness does not exist.
These are the kids who push, fight and yell down in the playground and these are the children the brat is suddenly picking up vile behaviour from, behavior so vile that he has been grounded more often these days than he has actually been allowed down to play.
These are wealthy people. Or at least people from the upper middle class segment of society. I would assume a fair amount of education has gone into making them able to earn a living. I assume they also don't come from a mentality of deprivation that results in this push and shove mindset. I put it down to an absolute disdain towards others, a me first syndrome that seems to populate our neo riche. And I am worried what the next generation raised by these parents would be like. I am even more worried thinking that maybe, the brat will pick all these cues from his peers and not what I try to set forth for him. Have written about this on the other blog, this death of public courtesy. Yesterday was such a glaring example, so close to home that it hit me bad. Have you noticed this too? In your society, building complex? The absolute appalling behavior of the neo-rich? The complete dearth of regard, the rise of the 'ugly Indian'.

Mission Eat Fruit begins

2011-12-12T04:02:00.000-08:00

The brat, following in the footsteps of his mother, has appallingly unhealthy eating habits. Ah well, not quite as appalling as it sounds, given that he has three homecooked meals a day, and his two glasses of milk, but the fact remains that his intake of raw vegetables and fruits is at the bare minimum. Make that nil.
Ergo, when I blogged last week about his leg pains, I was swamped with concerned emails from friends and fellow bloggers with the same message coming down to me. "Make him eat fruits and especially bananas. He needs potassium."
I gritted my teeth. I am so not a fruit and veggie person and I was happily passing on my bad dietary habits to the child with absolutely zero qualms. I self flagellated myself for a bit, and then rushed out shrieking to stock up the sadly depleted fruit basket on the dining table which only daadi reaches out for in the house, the both of us, mamma and pappa being such unhealthy eaters.
I began the other day. "Brat, come eat an apple," I said. He sneered nastily into my face like I'd suggested he eat worms or something of the ilk "I donwantu eat apil. I want to eat chikkin nuggedz."
Erm.
I started on the spiel about how he needed to eat fruits and raw veggies to improve his mineral intake and to get strong and not to have his legs ache at night and such like. He heard me out calmly. Or as calmly as he could when his eyes were on the television screen which was set on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. "Okay Mamma." Mamma was quite surprised to see the calmness with which he accepted that he would have to increase his intake of the raw stuff.
"I'll eat fruit jellies. Is made from fruit. Is very helldy. "

Growing pains

2011-12-08T01:18:00.000-08:00

When I was around brat's age, I remember ruining my mom's sleep by begging she dabbed my legs. My calves to be specific. My legs ached and ached and ached and they ached every single night. I don't really remember when they stopped aching but am sure they did because I don't remember the mater pressing the calves with maternal love when I hit college.
So last night when the brat rapped at our bedroom door gently and begged to be allowed in, I jumped up and let him in. "Mamma," he whispered, "My legz are paining. Very badly."
For a moment I panicked. Why were his legs paining? Did he hurt himself? Where were they paining, I asked him. "Here," he whispered back, telling me to "Tok soflee or Pappa will gedup and shaoud."
He lay down on the bed and I pressed his legs, acutely aware of the flashback to my childhood and my mom pressing my aching cramping legs in much the same way.
After around 15 minutes of energetic leg pressing my sleep had much dissipated and I asked the child whether that was quite enough. He nodded his head and disappeared into daadi's room, where he co-slept with her. After approximately 20 minutes there was another rap on the door. "Mamma," he hissed in faux whisper, "My legz is still painin badly."
He was allowed in, his legs pressed a while and then packed off with a heavy pillow and the advice to put said heavy pillow on his legs. Ten minutes later he was back. "Mamma, nutting is happening wid dis pillow. Is still paining badly." My heart melted over. I did some more leg pressing. He drifted off to sleep. Sadly I can't carry him anymore, he's too heavy for that now, so I woke him gently and shunted him off to the other room.
"Mamma," he said. "Thank you." And pecked me on my cheek. "Is okay now. Is nod painin. Is because you pressed it. I knewed if you pressed my legs it will stop paining."
What goes round comes round. This is karma biting me on my substantial butt for all those nights I made the mater press mine aching calves.

Post the PTM

2011-12-04T23:20:00.000-08:00

The brat has performed terribly. Even for a mother like me who is content to let him grow like a weed, this was crab grass level of performance. So dire and shameful, that had it been me in my youth I would have refused to return home and show said report to my progenitors. But the brat has no such misgivings.
Mamma spent the day in some sort of funk that his grades had dropped so miserably, chastising herself more than she chastised him.
The brat has also been on an extremely badly behaved, tantrummy kind of spree that is making mamma question her parenting, and everything that goes with it. Insolence, stubbornness, back answering, snarkiness and outright disobedience.
Ergo, Mamma was terribly sullen and withdrawn all of Saturday. By evening the brat was feeling distinctly nervous and uncomfortable with the sullen mamma.
He came sat in front of mamma in an attempt to make casual conversation. Discussion topic being a movie brat and mamma had watched together. Mamma's heart was not in the conversation.
He wandered off and brought back a book. Much to mamma's open mouthed shock. And began reading through it loudly and earnestly. This is a child who has to be dragged kicking and screaming towards a book. And once with a book in front of him will whine and whine till Mamma gives up attempting to make him interested in the book. And here he was reading Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (yes it is his textbook for the term) with great apparent enjoyment. Chuckling to himself, reading out bits aloud to me, and looking to me for approval. Which I gave him wholeheartedly.
The next morning, he pries my eyes open. "I want Charlie and D Grade Glass Ellivator." Okay. "An I wantu read Matilda." Sure child. "An I wantu read Charlie and Willy Wonka adventurz." Mamma's maternal heart overflew. Yes, yes, of course son, I will get you all the books you want. As long as you take an interest in reading.
Reading, mamma began, will develop your language skills, your sentence construction, help your spelling and so much more. You will do so well in Language Arts and comprehension. "Bud I don wantu read to do well in Langveg Ardz." said the brat. Mamma was puzzled, why then, she asked the brat, this sudden interest in books. "Because you ged so happy when I is readdin a buk."

Food baby

2011-11-29T19:08:00.000-08:00

The brat, thanks to a pleasant combination of genetics and an unparalleled love for food has got a nice little rotund pot belly these days, much to the combined horror of his pater and moi. He does three days of post school karate, swims occasionally, runs around whooping and yelling for two to three hours every day, but the pot belly stays.
Initially, he was quite pleased, it made him resemble the pater even more. "I godda stomach like Pappa."
Yes, my son.
"We're machchin machchin."
Errm. It's not actually something I would want you to be matching matching about, son. And consumed with horrific stories on childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes and early onset of hypertension and such like, I would encourage him to run the minute mile a few times everyday in a bid to get him to lose weight.
But of course, mashallah, he is a child who appreciates his food. Until last night. He entered the room with an air of slight panic about him.
"Mamma, how wuz I born?"
I sat down patiently and explained how he grew in my stomach and the doctor cut my stomach and took him out.
His eyes filled up with tears, "Bud I don wan dokter to cut my stommak. I'm frightinned."
But, child, I tried to reason, why would the good doctor cut your stomach.
"Because N tole me tuday in d park that 'tere peyt mein bachcha hai'. I don want a bachcha frum my peyt."

So the brat spoke to Darsheel Safary

2011-11-27T22:10:00.000-08:00

Ever since he saw Taare Zameen Par, the brat has been a Darsheel Safary fan. And how. A total high speed rotating PSP fan. This was further cemented when he recently saw Zokkomon and spent all his evenings wearing red full sleeved teeshirts with red track pants, tying on my yellow apron as a cape, and cutting up black pieces of plastic board meant to line the laundry basket into eye masks of the Zokkomon version.
Ergo, it wasn't far off when he finally socked me the question, "I wantu meet DarsheelSafary."
I shrugged my shoulders, like I always do when such preposterous requests are placed before me and proceeded to ignore said request completely.
It was repeated the next day and more volubly.
I ignored it again. The third day, he metaphorically sat on my head and wore me down into at least saying I'd try to get him to meet Darsheel Safary. I wish I had a parent who would agree to try to get me to meet George Clooney, but that's another post and not in consonance with the kiddy blog so won't go there now.
In my misery, I tweeted asking for help to get the brat a meeting with Zokkomon boy. And a kind soul from twitter promised to get the brat to speak with Zokkomon. And no, I'm not going to name that person, but let it be known that said person rocks.
So it happened, that one gentle evening, when the sun hung over the horizon like a ball of orange, the phone rang with private number flashing on screen. I answered the call. From the office of Darsheel Safary said a kindly, maternal voice. I handed the instrument to the brat and asked him to speak. Darsheel was on the line. His jaw clanged to the floor. It took him a moment to push it back into position. And he said a soft hello. And said jaw dropped right to the floor again. No words came from his mouth except, "What are you doing?" which is his standard telephone line across all conversations. The conversation lasted all of 30 seconds. It must have been Darsheel carrying on a one sided conversation since the only other words that came from brat's mouth were, "Okay, bye." And he handed the phone back to me, his eyes shining with excitement. "Darsheel Safary spoke tu me!"
"He callt me up."
"I'm his fren" By the time the next morning arrived, this had morphed to becoming "Darsheel Safary's besfren on phone."
By the time he went down to the park in the evening, it had further morphed to long hour long conversations he was having everyday with said child star which I was quick to gently dissuade.
So now, the brat wants to be signed up at Shiamak Davar's to become a movie star. And I have to ask Aamir Khan if he's making another movie and needs another boy to act. The maternal line will be firmly drawn at the second request. Our kahaani is already poori filmy to begin with.

The brat gets a yellow belt

2011-11-23T02:45:00.001-08:00

Last week, the brat arrived home waving a form. On which he had
already signed where it said Applicant. KKM. "Dat's my signature."
It was a form that was an application to take a karate exam. "Fer the
yellow belt," he informed me. He still being on the white belt despite
having done a year of karate class, thrice a week.
"Sir tole me to pracktiss hardly. An den I'll ged the yellow belt."
Much hardly pracktissing happened at odd times like when Mamma wanted
to doze off to sleep, but was compelled to stay awake and alert in
order to ooh and aah about perfect moves, which she couldn't quite
comprehend.
This morning as we packed him off to school, he reminded us, "Is my
karate eggzam tuday. Tell me beshtofluck."
And so we did. Mamma added a kiss on the forehead for good measure.
And when Mamma went to pick him up he emerged bearing certificate, a
yellow belt tied around his waist, the discarded white belt in his
hand and a smile splitting his face in half. "I did it, I did it," he
punched air, "I gotthe yellow belt." Around him, his batchmates were
streaming out all wearing different hued belts and bearing
certificates aloft.
He was hugged and kissed much to his embarassment and wiping of cheek
with back of hand, and asked if everybody got a belt today. "Yus.
Everybuddy got a new belt today. But yellow is the best colour. And
only I got that."
Ermm. I was compelled to agree.
I think that belt and that karate costume will have to be peeled off
his person under threat, duress and intimidation now. Too much
admiration of said sunny colour happening in mirror as I type this.

The brat went to see Rockstar

2011-11-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

I asked a few friends whether I could take the brat to see Rockstar, having yet to recover from the gobsmackedness I experienced when, I, in all innocence, believing SRK's publicity spiel about Ra One being a movie for kids, actually saw Ra.One. No thanks to Ra.One, the brat's vocabulary has now been vastly enhanced and he now actually KNOWS ABOUT GENITAL PIERCINGS.
Let me sit back and mop my fevered brow at the horror of that thought. Anyway, ergo when it came to Rockstar, The Adventures of Tin Tin having being declined graciously because obviously, the brat has no history with Tin Tin, the way I do. Rockstar, said well meaning friends who had seen it, had the middle finger and smooching and that was about the level of inappropriateness they could think off. Given that the tykes at the playground are flipping the bird at each other over playtime disputes, and given that the brat had already initiated with me, thanks to well meaning friends who discuss these things, a discussion on why lip kissing and cheek kissing and tongue in the mouth kissing is different and what is allowed, I thought one little smooch couldn't hurt. So off we went for Rockstar. It started off all fun and games and slowly went dark and grim. The brat kept waiting for the fun moments but they were few and far between, he had the most fun when the record label head was getting his bone crunching massage done.
The songs he liked. The Kun Faya Kun dargah number had me get gooseflesh on my arms, the boy commented kindly on 'How ole yer Shammi Kapoor is' and my eyes misted in tears at the thought of my first ever crush having passed away. The romance he didn't get. "Bud she is married. Den wai she's loving RanbirKappoor?" I didn't have the heart to explain adultery and such like to him. And frankly, I couldn't get a grip of the 'love' the characters shared meself to do any explaining to him.
We emerged from the theatre, a little dazed, blinking towards the light, suitably thrown off our feet by the music, and Sadda Haq, I tell you, should become the anthem of the current generation. And I talk to the brat about how he's a creative chappie and how he practises his music and plays the guitar and sings from his heart. And the brat replies, "He doesn't study in college?"
Errm. "Yes," I replied grudgingly, "He dropped out." And then came the bomb. "An wai he called Heer Palangtod?"
Yes. Mother Earth Swallow Me Now.

Since I've done a detailed Goa diaries on the other blog....

2011-11-13T22:41:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd make this a photo journey

And this was what we did in Goa

2011-11-09T01:26:00.001-08:00

After the eating, the water scooting, the parasailing and the drinking
of the unlimited Pepsis was done.

Of Big and Small Brudders

2011-10-29T06:52:00.001-07:00

The brat, sitting on sofa at Nana house, having been fed Nana's fabled chikken curry rice, looking to all purposes like a python just having ingested a goat and therefore immobile, watching Dabangg on television.
Chulbul Robinhood Pandey cracks a Main Badaa Bhai Tu Chota Bhai quip to Makhichoos Pandey. The brat jumps up in shock.
"Mamma," he sqùawked. "How d big brudder is shorter than the small brudder? He dint drink two times milk everyday? "
Mamma went on her metaphoric knees to thank the Lord for this heavensent opportunity.
"Yes, yes, yes," she replied and promptly elucidated on the need to have two glasses of milk a day in order to become tall and hansome.
This evening he reminded Mamma, "Gimme my glassofmilk. Or I will stay short."
Thank you, Salman. For being shorter than your chota brudder.
Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel

So we went to see Ra.One

2011-10-28T00:29:00.001-07:00

The brat has been itching to see Ra.One ever since the promos began on
the small screen. Everytime the Chammak Challo song would come on,
he'd bounce up and do the hand movements. Everytime the Criminal song
was on, he'd ask me leading questions about Akon, his antecedents, his
music, etc, leaving me to do some serious google baba research in
order to answer his queries. And then he was gifted a Ra.One
Playstation for his birthday which pretty much sealed the deal.
"I wantu see Ra.One in 3D. Is a game. ShahRukhKhan is a robot. I like
robots. They can run on walls."
Ergo, we went to see Ra.One. In 3D. The movie didn't start too
promisingly. Mamma was frothing at the mouth at the inappropriate
language being used. Abuses flew fast and thick while mamma tried hard
to cover the brat's ears. And got asked cheekily, "Wot means Tere Baap
Ka B%$#@d." for all her efforts.
The storyline was wafer thin, what made Mamma wake up from her
snoozing twice over was the entry of Rajinikant in a two minute walk
in part, which had Mamma whistling and hooting. The brat though, was
totally captivated with the special effects and the gaming and the
villians and sat openmouthed enough for wandering insects of the
flying variety to make a detour to inspect his dentriture. "Ossum" was
the verdict, when we emerged. Though Mamma had to be nudged awake and
told to snore softer in periodic intervals of the movie.
Then the questions flew thick and fast. "Shahrukhan made dis movie fer his son."
"Yes."
"Ossum. An he made the playstation game also fer his son."
"Yes, son."
"Wat's his son's name?"
"Aryan."
"Is so lucky. I wish dat my fadder wuld make for me a superhero movie."
I raised my eyebrows.
"Bud fusht pappa hastu become thin udderwise that suit will not fit him."
Errmmm.

Of 'I is faymuss'

2011-10-18T20:36:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's edition of the Mint carried an article on the invasion of the Cricket Attax. Mamma had kindly. been interviewed by the journalist writing the piece for her opinion on why these infernal pieces of cards had gained the popularity they had, which of course, being the loquacious person she is, had shared her two cents of wisdom. Consequent to which the article led off with Krish Manral's birthday party.
When mamma showed the brat the article, his eyes widened in disbelief. He grabbed the newspaper and scampered down, it being time to go down to the park anyway.
By the time mamma reached down, he had already collected a sizeable audience around him and was explaining the article to them.
"This is Mint. Is newspaper. Only fer big peepul. Who do markitt. My pappa reads. Dat's my name. An my budday pahty. On d twennyfusht October. I'm givving krikit attax as redurn geefs. Yer coming?"
At last count my guest list had tripled.
Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel

The birthday draws nearer

2011-10-17T02:21:00.001-07:00

Just a few days to go till the brat turns eight. Eight.
Pick me up from the floor and hold those smelling salts under my nose
please, and yes, I will pay for the damaged tiling, thank you.
Eight.
Wasn't it just yesterday that he was a mewling parcel of flesh the
nurse deposited in my arms, giving me an anxiety attack about the fact
that this was it. I was now responsible for this person I had created
and that included giving up sleep for pretty much the next two years.
More if you keep in mind that he co-slept with us until very recently,
until a tormented Pappa, absolutely fed up of being shunted to the
very edge of the bed while said spawn of sperm slept in Vitruvian man
fashion occupying 9/10ths of said bed, despatched him to grandmotherly
care through the night given that sleeping in his own bed alone meant
every five minutes would have a rap on our door demanding
investigations of evilz hiding under his bed.
This morning he woke up early, given that his Diwali break had begun
and he could have slept in till whatever time he decided. He rubbed
his eyes, took himself into the bathroom, brushed, bathed and dressed
himself, and presented himself in full spendour. To "go to offis".
His video games held neatly in his hand. I flicked away a tear or two
of realising I was close to drawing my redundancy pay.
He walks on roads by himself, and refuses to have his hand held, which
makes for some heart stopping moments. He goes into stores alone, buys
stuff, gets change and comes back bursting with pride at a sense of
achievement. He no longer brat speaks too. But he does do the
occasional smart quip that makes me swell up chest in maternal pride
at him being a chip off this old block. He is taking a keen interest
in the planning of his party this year, deciding the theme, the guest
list, the return gifts and choosing his cake. He has an opinion on
everything, and no hesitation in stating it. Even if this is
contrarion to what everyone around him is saying.
Me? I'm hunting for some laser beam contraption thingie I can put him
under which will zap him right back to toddlerdom.
Okay. I exaggerate. But you get the drift. The maternal heart is heavy.
And I guess, I'm still better off than the moms of teenagers who are
spoken to only to be asked for car keys and weekly allowance.
So here's the brat. All dressed and dapper. As clicked this morning.
The birthdays. They come too soon.

Birthday party time again

2011-10-12T02:09:00.001-07:00

Too soon, too soon. It barely feels like I've gotten over the madness
of the previous birthday and it's time for the next one again. You
might just find me shivering in a corner of a room, muttering
incoherently, the glazed eyed terrified look one has when one is
surrounded by hellions. Which I will be. Inevitably.
Around 30 to 40 of them pintsizes enclosed in a small room does not
make for much sanity to last through the course of an entire evening.
Anyway, since I am a mother committed to the task of having her child
have the best memories of his childhood possible, I've gone through
with the birthday party shebang all over again, even though I might
have to extricate my teeth and sell my fillings to pay for it.
This includes, hiring of venue, hiring of caterers, hiring of
decorators, hiring of games host, DJ and tattoo artist, and of course,
cake and return gift. Which I've been told has to be Cricket Attax.
"Fer everyone" Boys and girls. We are gender neutral in our love for
Cricket Attax apparently. And the theme of the party has to be
Cricket. I have nodded by head non enthusiastically thinking about how
wonderful it would have been if the child had inherited his X
chromosome donor's love for the printed word and fallen in love with
the wonderful characters from Enid Blyton or Roald Dahl. I could just
imagine a games host as a Willie Wonka and the servers at the party as
Oompa Loompas. But that is so not to be.
So a cricket party it will be. Venue, caterer, decorator, DJ Host, etc
all done. Now to keep the disprin and alcohol on standby to be able to
smile through the entire event beatifically.
Next year, I'm so just taking him out of town for his birthday.

Of aggression, playgrounds and extremes....

2011-10-03T02:52:00.001-07:00

The brat, by all standards, is quite a 'fightercock' in his own terms
and that of the playground. In the new complex too, he has quickly
established his reputation as one who never hesitates to fight when
required. And sometimes even when not required.
In the same playground are a pair of twins, both boys whom I have been
observing for the past month and a half that I have been here. They
are approximately the same age as the brat, come down unsupervised and
are the baap of aggressive.
In terms of language used, in terms of fights picked up, in terms of
general behaviour. Two mothers warned me not to allow brat to play
with them, that complaints to their parents had fallen on deaf ears
and these kids got away with everything with nary a gently rebuke.
Yesterday I was strolling around when I saw both of them and the brat
involved in a vicious fist fight where both of them had ganged up
against the brat. I pulled the punching kids apart and tried to
reason. I tried to ask what had led to the fight and found that it was
general namecalling that had set the brat off. The brat was asked to
ignore.
The next I see them in a corner chatting with another little boy. The
boy waits till they turn round the corner and comes to warn me that
the twins are planning to throw stones at the brat. The brat, playing
peacefully with other friends now, is heckled by them and runs to
answer the namecalling with some of his own, when a stone whizzes
through the air and misses his forehead by a fraction. I run to them
and ask them to desist with the stone throwing and tell them in the
nicest way possible that is harmful and it could hurt the brat really
seriously, and I would be compelled to come tell their parents about
their behavior and their language.
They laughed in my face.
Come tell what you want, they told me. Our parents wont say anything.
Other kids gathered around and corroborated. "We go and complain and
their mother shouts back at us."
The manager of the club house passing by stopped and told me that
these eight year olds come down with knives in their pockets and have
been known to threaten other kids with it and all complaints to
parents have been ignored. "Instead, madam, they shout at me to mind
my own business. Don't let your son play with them."
Another mom walking by noticed the fracas and said, "We have all
warned our children to stay away from these two, they are very
dangerous."
Eight year olds. Dangerous. My heart sank. I wondered what they would
be link by the time they entered High School. The brat was duly asked
to steer clear. I gave them as much of a talk as I could about how no
children played with them, and did they like being disliked by all,
but I felt I was talking to a carapace with everything bouncing off
them.
I felt sorry for them. They had a life ahead of them, and were already
being shunned by their peers and considered it a status symbol that
everyone was scared of them. They had each other to play with. They
didn't need friends. But what sort of parents couldn't see that their
children needed to be brought in line?

The boy grows...

2011-09-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

The brat now officially becomes the boy.
Many factors contribute to this new elevation in status.
For one, he is now almost to my shoulders. It is a different fact that my shoulders are closer to the ground that I would like, without the added incentive of three inch heels.
Also that the years have weighed down and drooped my shoulders.
And then he starts doing grown up things that make me feel redundant and unwanted and set to pack my clothes and scurry off into the old age home.
A big moment of heartbreaking proportions happened this morning.
We got off the car and began crossing the packed road towards the school gates. As is force of habit, I grabbed his hand. He snatched it free. I grabbed it again. He snatched it free.
"Mamma," he hissed. "I'm a big boy, I can cross apne aap."
I collected the pieces of my shattered heart and let him cross apne aap, hovering two centimeters in his circumference in the event that some nasty, brutish driver decided to step on the accelerator. Gah. Perish the thought.
I walked him to the gate and in a final pathetic act of maternal louu, hugged him and planted a smackeroo of a kiss on the top of his head. He wriggled away embarassedly and ran in, at top speed, before his cool image got dissipated by loony mother planting kisses on him and making him butt of cruel jokery.
They grow up too fast. I should have done the freeze ray thing on him a couple of years ago.

Precocious and not so pretty

2011-09-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

Last evening while I strolled in the park, keeping one beady eye on the child in the event that he got into fisticuffs of any sort that needed intervention I found myself near the club house of the complex, where a very audible birthday party was in progress with a DJ spinning tracks which had no business being played at a birthday party of any child under 18. Anyway. As is usual, I digress.
As I strolled in the vicinity of the entrance to the club house a mom was escorting her daughter, who couldn't have been more than 10 to the birthday party. Let me make clear at this point that I vaguely looked at the child in passing, before doing a double backward flip somersault and having my jaw clunk to the floor is shock. The child was made up with full pancake, eyeshadow, mascara, blush, lipstick with gloss. Hair extensions. Glitter eyeshadow. It gets worse. She was wearing a fitted strappy tube dress which was saved from being indecent because, well, she was not as they put it kindly, a haaalthy child. She was wearing gladiator styled heels which should have never been manufactured in kiddie sizes, unless of course, these were picked up in Bangkok where everything is only available in kiddy sizes.
To say I was appalled would be to state that the Titanic was a tug boat with a single passenger on board. I see this all around me. Parents are in some sort of freaking hurry to have their little girls grow up into beauty queens. The fashion industry is not helping either. I had just about finished sputtering into my morning coffee reading about how parents actually defended retail of Abercombie's push up padded bikini tops for seven year olds, and this company is a repeat offender, selling thongs for kids with Eye Candy and Wink Wink written on them. While I do wonder what kind of person could even conceptualise such clothing for children, I wonder more about what kind of parent would actually buy them and make their child wear said thong and push up padded bikini top. Ah well, apparently one lives right in my building complex.
This premature sexualisation of young girls is becoming an epidemic. I mean, as a child, I revolted firmly against being stuffed into frilly pink ribbon and laced frocks, but I was in shorts and tshirts for most part of the day except on social occasions when I was spit polished and poured into clothes that were well, clothes a child should wear, not someone about to start dancing round a pole.
If I had a daughter would I let her wear make up and hooker shoes at ten. I would probably shoot myself in the head before I let her step out of the home looking like that. And would I, as a mother of an eight year old, let him wear a thong to the beach saying Eye Candy? I think not.
There are inappropriate clothes for kids available out there, and the kids probably think they look cool and like their favourite film star when they wear it. That's why I think we were plonked on the planet as parents to wag the finger and steer them non negotiably towards more age appropriate choices.
Let our kids remain kids for as long as they need to be kids. They have their entire lives to be grown up and dress grown up. And what kind of message are these young girls getting when they wear these clothes, if you want attention, this is what you need to look like. Never mind that the attention is not exactly the kind of attention which would be appropriate. And for god's sake, don't slap on that make up on kids attending weddings and other functions. Little girls with full make up is kind of freaky. And inappropriate too.

Yes, that's how karmickids helped me start something I'm proud of....

2011-09-13T00:18:00.001-07:00

Read this in Time Out Kids Delhi:

http://timeoutdelhi.net/kids/kids_preview_details.asp?code=120

Thank you everyone, for being such wonderful readers and supporters of both karmickids and IndiaHelps.

The brat's first sleepover...

2011-09-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

...happened this weekend. I am still openmouthed with shock that this little squirming ball of flesh that emerged mewling like a small feline from my uterus is now old enough to decide he wants to do a sleepover. Without me. I mean, I had put my job definition down as indispensable. That needs to change now. Let me go honk into a tissue before typing out the rest of this post.
Anyway, at some point on Friday, when I was probably busy doing domestic kind of things in the kitchen, the brat had gotten hold of the phone and dialled up a friend whose sons are besht frens. "Aunty," he apparently asked her, as he tells me later, "Can T and K come to my house for a sleepover."
It warrants mention that these are kids from the old apartment complex, the one we just moved out of. Some animated conversation happened, of which I was completely unaware and it was decided that instead of both of her sons coming across, the brat would go across and stay over on Saturday night. I smelt something rotten in the state of bratdom when he was up bright and sparkly at 6 am the next morning. Which was a weekend. Which normally saw him in mouth opened snoring sleep till 9 am most weekends. "Why are you awake so early brat?"
"I have to go for a sleepover. Pack my backpack. M Aunty said to bring a small bag wid yer klodz."
I was openmouthed shock. With great difficulty, I restrained him from calling up M Aunty at 6 am to confirm the sleepover date. At a decent hour, read 9 am, I let him at my phone.
"Aundy, tok to my mudder."
The mudder and the aundy spoke and it was decided he would be parcelled off to Aundy's place post lunch and we would check how comfortable he was about staying overnight and take a call at that point. Anyway, the old complex is a a five minute drive away so he could always be picked up and returned to home base at any point.
The bag was packed with much excitement. The night suit was carefully folded and packed in first. Along with two additional sets of clothes. Mamma noted with a strange, unfamiliar twinge of dismay. She later recognised it as an acknowledgement of the fact that child is now truly growing up.
I called in the evening, the child was too busy to talk to me. The friend came on the line and informed me categorically to come the next morning to pick him up. My friend assured me he was having a blast.
I did get one phone call from him, at night, to say goodnight. That too, my friend insisted he call up and speak with me. He, of course, was having too much fun to think about calling poor mamma, who was moping around the 'kaatne ko daudta hai' house bereft of his mischief, draping herself weakly over the sofa like a limp asparagus. Oh I exaggerate. I had an entire television to myself. I was channel surfing without little hands tugging at the remote. It was heaven.
The next morning I landed up at the appointed time to pick him up. I swear I saw his face fall a bit when he saw me at the door. He was still shovelling in breakfast. We left, him in his nightclothes, after finalising the next weekend when his friend would come across for a sleepover. I think I can now start planning a social life of sorts if this sleepover thing catches. Time I got out and had me some fun too.

Mamma's little helper

2011-09-06T01:23:00.001-07:00

So Mamma went to Hypercity to get the monthly provisions, which went into many huge plastic bags, including 10 kg pack of wheat flour and two five kg packs of rice. A five litre can of oil. Pulses, detergents, etc, etc. Mamma always feels like a pack mule after she's through with this shopping, an experience she dreads.
Pappa picked us up and dropped us home. Where the complicated situation is that one drives into the basement parking, takes one lift to go to lobby level and then switch lifts to go up home. Or if one has luggage, one takes the service lift right up home. Since we had enough groceries to qualify as valid luggage, Mamma demanded Pappa offload all the provisions near the service lift, which he did. Then we waited and waited and waited, but the lift showed no signs of moving from the floor it was on.
"Let's go to the udder lift," said the brat.
Mamma looked at the bags and despaired thinking of the inside outside that would have to be done four times over for all the bags. "No, let's wait," she replied.
"Don worry," said the brat. "I am strong, I will help you."
And to her open mouthed consternation, he did. Lifted a fair amount of bags in and out of the lifts and to the door of the house. Including the 10 kg atta package. This with the school bag on his back.
Mamma is sending him for weight training now. This is one hidden skill she never thought he would have. And of course, his willingness to lift weight and carry stuff to help her made her go all teary eyed.

The dreaded PTM happened

2011-08-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday to be precise. Forgive me, I have been lax in posting but life has been incredibly hectic all of a sudden. Put it down to my running around in circles, shifting homes and generally being on a short fuse all these days. So where was I? Yes, the brat had his PTM on Saturday last, and as always I went in with bated breath, churning stomach and sense of nervous nausea that once had been the precursor to examinations of the algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry variety.
The assessments this time round were conducted without his customary concessions which he had been enjoying all these years. Extra time. Spelling mistakes overlooked. Taken to the Resource Room where the special educator would read out and explain what needed to be done in the answer sheet to him. I expected to see answer sheets marked with big Os and was steeling myself for the same. "Brat," I told him, preparing him for what I was sure we would be confronted by. "Whatever marks you do get, it is okay. Don't feel sad. Be proud you did it all by yourself and it was your own efforts."
He nodded his head wanly, feeling my anxiety seep into him through osmosis of sorts. "My madds paper wuz very good. I will ged eggcellent. Donch worry."
"No I'm not worried, brat, I'm just a little stressed out."
We reached class, brat sat beside me, I lowered myself gently into the little chairs that are meant for pintsizes, and tested for balance and sturdiness. It didn't seem like it would give way beneath me.
I picked up the first answer sheet off the little pile under the placard marked Krish. Sure, the name was scribbled on in the brat's most illegible scrawl. 3 and a half read the figure on the top in the teachers handwriting, my heart sank to the vicinity of my feet. I plucked up further courage and read on. Computer assessment. 3 and a half out of five. Surely, this couldn't be true. I scanned through the rest of the sheets with my mouth open enough for some stray insects to fly in and take up permanent residency.
The brat had scored well. And how. An average of above 20 of 30 marks in all subjects. Except Hindi. Where he scored miserably. And I completely blame myself because my Hindi, am ashamed to admit on a public platform, is lousy. And I kept avoiding taking it up or making him do writing practice.
My eyes teared up. Can't help it, I'm the proverbial bleeding heart. Grabbed the surprised child and smothered him with hugs and kisses much to his horror, this public demonstration of affection happening In Class. In Front Of His Teacher. He extricated himself from my clutches in great disgust and squawked, "Whachyure doing! Eveybuddy is looking at us."
"I'm so very, very proud of you," I told him. "You've done very well in your assessments."
He smirked. In manner of cat who has licked the proverbial cream. " I tole you I did very well. Yu dint believe me."
I nodded apologetically. "Now enough studying," he announced grandly, having proven himself. "I know everything."
Ah. For the confidence of childhood.

The brat moves home and makes new friends

2011-08-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

We moved homes last week. In case you are one of the few who have not been subject to my incessant whining on twitter and facebook on the trying shifting process, you must know that childbirth was easier. Cross my heart. One of my biggest apprehensions about moving home was not, god, what am I going to do with all the built in wardrobes and false ceiling, etc that we got done when we moved here (I am cheapiyan like that, I can't bear to leave behind anything), but what will the brat do?
In the sense, our previous complex had a group of kids who were his bumchums and who ran through the compound like a pack of dogs, playing out to their heart's content. All the mothers were friends, and if I ever needed him to be babysat in an emergency or someone to keep an eye on him down in the compound if I couldn't be there, I could rely on them to help out. Moving to a new home is more than the physical shifting of the self and possessions, it is the uprooting of all the relationships and bonds one has made over the years, and the brat had built a healthy gang of best friends he could play with all day there.
When we moved, the first two days, he whined and whined and whined. The television was not yet connected. And still isn't by the way, and the peace is incredible. He was stuck at home because I was busy putting things away and going berserk trying to sort out cartons, parcels and stuff just tied into bedsheets.
"Mamma, I want to go to Inderface."
Not today brat, I would reply, I have so much to do.
He would look around at the bombing zone the new home resembled and take himself off to the clear space in his room quietly. And play with his action figures.
In the night, when I finally finished a bit of clearing up, I cuddled up with him and asked him if he liked the new house. "I like it, bud I'm missing my frens."
I could completely empathise, I was missing mine too. We shed a tear or two together and the next day, we went off to Inderface and I let him play with his friends for a while, while I had a coffee with a friend.
The next day, again, he wanted to go to Interface. Okay, I said, let's just go down and see if there are any children from your school here.
He came along reluctantly, kicking and whining away, extracting promises of being allowed to play for longer than normally allowed since I was taking time going around the new complex premises.
We landed down and bumped into an ex classmate and a friend. He and his elder brother took the brat under their wing, other kids came up and began chatting with him, they began playing, and I was told by the elder brother that he would drop the brat home, not to worry.
And so he did. The brat came home with a song on his lips and a smile on his face.
Now if only it were that easy for Mamma to make new friends.

Yes. Go ahead. Blame bad parenting.

2011-08-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

Unless you've been on a desert island or hiding under a rock somewhere, you might definitely know of the London riots which rocked the UK and had stores looted, vandalised and over a thousand arrests made, and which actually took days before the rioting and the looting was brought under control. Even as I write this, a friend tells me that things are calm but on the razor's edge because of three Asian youth being run over by looters.
The youngest person arrested is eleven years old, and the oldest, I don't know. I do know that 40 somethings have also been arrested. I read an article by Zoe Williams which said that when she called a neighbour to alert her that her 14 year son was out, rioting and looting, she got a miffed response about being woken up from her sleep.
I am appalled.

As a parent, no amount of sleep is dearer to me, than knowing where my child will be at any point of day and night. Is this why David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, places the onus of the rioting and looting solely at the doors of bad parenting.
He says that politicians need to act on parenting. The lack of parenting is what has caused these kids to run amok, no one to smack them and send them to bed. I do agree. In bits and pieces. The trouble with parenting is that anyone with a womb and semen can become a parent. And in the UK, as in the USA, teenage pregnancies, single parent families, tough economies and lack of education and income are leading to dysfunctional family situations where parents are too busy to be parents. Or parents have grown up not knowing what it means to be a parent and therefore are incapable of parenting.
There are so many factors at play here, and a social fabric that is completely ripped apart with the very concept of family being completely changed from what it used to be. Parenting has slipped from being authoritarian to democratic to being completely permissive. Parents have no concept of reprimanding or controlling their children. Most of the children in these areas, I am told, (I have no concept of it, being here in good old Mumbai) hang out more with their gangs than with their family, and being gang members begins early. From the age of seven and eight. That's how old the brat is. Ruffian though he may be, the thought that he would be a gang member is downright scary. But one guesses, that is how things are there.
The complete breakdown of the family, and the lack of authority figures, and the inability of parents to be authority figures is leading these kids into a mindset where anarchy, looting and violence is acceptable. This is Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange come to life. Teens living a life of nightly orgies of violence, looting, rape, arson. Gangs, youth culture, mindless violence. A mindset where Ultra-violence is the norm. This was written back in the 1960s and Anthony Burgess could surely have been considered a visionary. Barely half a decade later, the culture he wrote about is alive and kicking.
What does parenting have to do with all this? Parents create a home where a child comes to, where a child seeks validation, where a child retreats to, where a child feels secure and safe. When children don't feel safe or wanted in their homes, because of dysfunctionality, lack of affection, sexual abuse they look to the outside. And if parents don't care enough to find out who their child has been hanging out with, why they spend more time outdoors than indoors, how they've spent their day, as long as they're out of their hair, what would you expect.
How can the concept of family be brought back into place? Maybe Cameron does have a point there, getting families integrated would solve half the problem, the other half being to get these youth and education and jobs to keep them occupied. The situation is complicated, and this is a wake up call for the UK, hope they heed it. And no, it is not just poor parenting that caused this. Poor parenting is part of this, but it does take a village to raise a child after all.
It would be definitely interesting to see if the treatment in the novella does come to get adopted in reality.

Carrying his own bags

2011-08-10T00:24:00.001-07:00

I must be one of the few moms who still continues to go collect the brat from school. A few other mothers still do. For a major part though, the brat's classmates and friends either go home by bus or van or have the drivers collect them.
The scene during dispersal time is quite chaotic what with the van drivers and the drivers of individual students elbowing the few moms around to get to the kids they have to collect. But that's not what this post is about.
Yesterday, the brat emerged from his ground floor class and shrugged his bag off his shoulders and handed it to me nonchalantly.
"What?" I sputtered. "Why are you giving me your bag?"
"Everybody's mamma and driver carries dere bag. Oney you make me carry my bag."
I put said bag right on his back and prodded him along the few steps to the car and informed him in no uncertain terms that he is meant to carry his own school bag, given that he barely does have any distance to carry it anyway, and it isn't really heavy with any school books.
Not so pleasant flashback to my days as a student when I had to tote bleddy stuffed to the gills, back bending bag weighing some obscene amount which one never weighed back in those days, but just lumped around without complaining, me specifically, from age nine toting it meself from Goregaon to Bandra, through crowded BEST buses, a long walk to the bus stops either way. It would never even have occurred to me to hand my bag over to my mother to carry it for me the few occasions she accompanied me.
I looked around. Kids were walking around with their parents holding their school bags and tiffin bags, or their drivers holding the bags for them. The brat settled into the car seat, his bag on his shoulders. I think he needs to learn to carry his stuff around himself. I would dread to think he grew up into the Ugly Creature who expects folk around him to carry stuff he is perfectly capable of carrying himself.

Posting has become erratic

2011-08-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

The brat is becoming more aware about what is being written about him. And I am seriously considering shutting down karmickids. I find myself weighing and writing what I do about him. I censor things, I edit things mentally, I wonder whether I would be fair to post certain things about the child and yes, I get into the debate that I so carefully skirted in his earlier years about his right to privacy.
It is rather unfair to him that I do present a side of him without him getting the opportunity to deny or contradict or present his take on the events narrated. I believe in all his versions, mamma would be villian de facto. Ergo, Karmickids will shut down. Or I am mulling with the possibility of making it a general parenting blog, without being too focused on brat stories. Help me decide.

Of BPL and other descriptive phrases

2011-07-26T21:53:00.001-07:00

So the brat hops up to me, last evening and perches himself on the arm of the sofa I was half comatose in, it being the sleeping hour. "Mamma," he piped up. "Tuday, I gave M a BPL."
A BPL. The last I had heard, this was a brand name of the first truly world class Indian electronics and appliances brand and had the baritoned voiced one endorsing it, before the slew of the international brands came and mowed it down.
Or BPL was an income category which was raised and lowered conveniently depending on how we wanted to project our poverty figures to the world.
"How can you give M a BPL," I asked, verily confused.
I asked for a demo. I was to be sorry later that I asked for one.
I was requested to stand up and turn around, and one hefty one was swiftly planted on my rather cushioned behind. I gasped and sputtered in rage. "Brat," I yelled in Wake The Dead tones. "What did you just do?"
'Bud you aksed me to show yu BPL. Dat is BPL. Bum Pe Laat."
Gah. Yes, I want to plant a BPL on the chappie who said this in Zindagi Na Mile Dobara. And while I'm at it, one on the chappie who thought up Mutravisarjan from 3 Idiots. Yes. Two BPLs ready to be served hot.

Who are the terrorists?

2011-07-19T04:30:00.001-07:00

On July 13, serial bombs went off in Mumbai. Like they have before. I
called the brat up from play, hugged him hard and kept him at home for
the evening. Call me selfish. The serial train blasts in 2006 had him
a babe in arms. The terrorist attacks in 2008 had had him see the
telecast on the television, he had seen me sitting transfixed in front
of the screen, with tears pouring down my eyes, but he was too young
to realise what was happening. Now he is older. He understands things.
He asks questions.
What happinned?
There were some bomb blasts in town, I replied. Dat's far from our
hauz? Yes it is, I reassured him. Dey wont come here? I hastened to
reassure him that they wouldnt come home. He settled down to his
dinner and his hour of cartoon watching.
While nodding off he asked me, Wai dey pud the bombs? I don't know
baby, I replied honestly. Dey don like us? I don't think so. Wai?
I had no answer.
The next day he returned from school, yes, his school was open and we
sent him to school and I will slap the next person who says "Mumbai
Spirit."
Mamma, he said as we trotted out from school, all d terroridst are Muslims.
Dey wantu kill us because we are Hindus.
My blood froze in my veins. Why, son, what makes you say that? L's
parents tole him and he tole me.
I looked at my one fourth Muslim mongrel and despaired. How could I
explain to him that not all Muslims were terrorists and that terrorism
had no religion except hate.

Review: Growing Up In Pandupur

2011-07-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

GROWING UP IN PANDUPUR
By Adithi and Chatura Rao

' Growing up in Pandupur' is definitely the ideal book a 9 year old will pick up for a light-hearted , humorous reading. Just hold on as this book takes you on a picturesque and fun-filled journey with the villagers of Pandupur and at the same time makes you aware of society and exposes you to the beauty of nature.

Adithi and Chatura Rao, two undoubtedly talented authors,weave a magical web with their story-telling and take you to the simple village of Pandupur where ordinary people have extraordinary experiences to share. The stories of this book are not merely stories but lessons of life which broaden a child's mind and make him sensitive to other people and their feelings. One story that particularly touches your heart is 'Evenings in 201'.In this story,a young schoolboy slowly bonds with an old, retired army general and realizes that there is more to life than just television and games. Surely ,in every household siblings are squabbling and fighting and being just plain mean to each other.'Sister Song' is a story which reminds us that your siblings are the strongest support in our life and they will always be there for us,they will never let us down.

Hats off to Adithi and Chatura Rao for writing such an entertaining,moralistic and AWESOME book.I sincerely hope that you like this book as much as I did

'Pandupur' is a book that will leave a mark upon you.This book will stay with you long after you have turned the final page with 'The End' written on it.........

(Reviewed by Ishika Chatterjee, student of Lokhandwala Foundation School, Kandivali East)

Psst: The co-author Chatura Rao, is a dear ex-colleague, we started out working together when she was with a television production house on a show on art called Art Of The Matter, and then were together for a bit at The Times of India. Go buy this book for your babies, and yes, its because I know she's a damn good writer.

Just some singing in the mall

2011-07-04T23:13:00.001-07:00

The other day I was pushing along the laden trolley down Hypercity
with the brat trailing behind me, quite chuffed that he had received
not one, not two, but three Gems Surprise Balls with Ben 10 action
figures inside. Suddenly, his joy overfloweth must have happened and
he burst into song. And what a song. A son which had me shrinking into
my very sensible heeled mommy sandals, hoping the earth would open
magically and draw me right in.
Bhaag DK Bose DK Bose Bhaag DK Bose DK Bhaag
I turned an alarming shade of red, and turned around to clamp a hand
on said mouth to prevent the piping voice from ripping through the
aisles. I was already getting snorts of derision from the other moms
in said aisles whose kids no doubt pooped perfect non smelly poo too.
That, I hissed to him, is not a song you should be singing aloud. In
public. Why? He asked, is gotta a bad vurd? Ermm. Yes. Wot is the bad
vurd. BhaagDK? Errm. Yes. Wot it means?
Just know that it is a very bad vurd. Er, word. I said through gritted
teeth and raced the trolley down the aisles. Den, he piped up behind
me, keeping pace, Can I sing nudder song? Of course, I said, smiling
and waiting for his dulcet tones to pipe up pleasanter melodies.
"Character Dheela hai'
Anyone know how Sita managed that Mother Earth Swallow Me Now trick? I
so need it.

The ultimate Ultimatrix

2011-07-01T04:30:00.001-07:00

First off. A pox and a damn off on the makers of the accursed cartoon
serial Ben 10. Now having got that off my rather substantial chest, I
can get down to ranting in a somewhat sane manner.
So the brat decided he wanted an Ultimatrix. He already has the
Omnitrix. Millions of them dismembered all over the house. He began
his whine whine whine whine process which is guaranteed to get mamma's
hair frizzing up in classic finger in electric socket manner and head
with the level of migraine that requires hammer to subdue.
Finally, when dadi returned from her trip to the native land, she
handed over largesse to the brat and told him to go buy said
Ultimatrix as a gift from her. He bounded in joy to the cupboard and
began getting dressed to go to the mall to buy said Ultimatrix.
Mamma followed reluctantly, aware that colossal waste of money was to
ensue. Sure enough, when Mamma read the price of said fancy plastic
wrist strapped device, she fell to the floor and had to be roused by
the smelly socks of the sales staff who hovered around looking very
worried. No brat, said Cruella de Ville mamma, this is ridiculously
expensive. Buy something worth it for that money. The brat sobbed fat
tears that would have earned him an Uncle Oscar had he been doing it
for camera. He rolled around on the aisles. He thrashed. Mamma
seriously considered putting him up for adoption.
Anyway, Mamma was migrainey and easily worn down. The Ultimatrix was
worn. The fancy watch type thingie worn. The brat bounced from end to
end like he had giant springs on his shoes or the force had entered
him, mamma despatched him downstairs before any furniture bore the
brunt of his joy.
Mamma sat down in deep contemplation wondering what it was about the
darned Ultimatrix that gave him the joy it did. Well, a small niggling
voice of conscience said, it could be his equivalent of the LV bag.

Here comes the moonwalker...

2011-06-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

And am I allowed to be chuffed and say he picked this up merely by watching the MJ videos being shown on VH1 that Pappa and Mamma were watching the other night on MJ's death anniversary.

Of loose characters and such like

2011-06-26T22:12:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, the child wanted to go see Green Lantern. Mamma scoured
the listings pages and found that there was a single obscure show at a
cinema hall around a suburb away and on the other side of the railway
line. But in true, Anything For My Child fashion, she girded her loins
and told the child to spit polish himself, we were off to see the
Green Lantern, complete with them 3 D glasses slammed onto our
respective noses.
Having put out brat's clothes and ordered him to pour himself into
said raiments, mamma took herself off to her bath. When she emerged
shining and squeaky clean, the intercom rang, it was a selection of
brat friends. The brat had been busy while mamma was bathing and had
graciously invited a couple of his pint sizes to accompany him to the
movie. Ergo, mamma ended up chaperoning three very, er, spirited seven
year olds to a movie hall, two suburbs and one railway line away. That
too by auto, given that mamma is driverless these days. Mamma probably
deserves a Nobel Peace Prize or something to that level given the
number of spats that broke out in the closed confines of said auto and
which needed immediate resolution, without mamma's instinctive
bellowing.
We reached the cinema hall and found the show cancelled because of no
takers, this when there were three other disappointed families with
assorted sized pintsizeds all expressing their dejection in rather
vocal terms at the situation.
Nonetheless, since we were there, we decided to go for the next
available show. Ready, we were told, was Ready to be viewed and four
tickets were booked. The hall, when we entered was completely empty.
And so it remained through the entire screening. Just the four of us.
Which in retrospect was a good thing given that much spirited dancing
in the aisles happened to Character Dheela Hai and Dhinchitikka
Dhinchitikka and popcorn throwing fights ensued in the course of the
movie.
The movie, which reached its boredom threshold after the second item
song, had us leave the premises before the undoubtedly fisticuff
filled finale and take ourselves down to the McDonalds, where Happy
Meals were ordered and more fights erupted over the KungFu Panda toys
and who should get what by which time, mamma was ready to take her
boots off, hang them up and pull the lid of the coffin in after her.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, she survived it, and reached home
with her bearings still intact, never mind the Disprin she needed to
chuck into the Chenin Blanc.
In the evening, the brat crawls upto mamma and asks, in the same
appealing tone he used in the morning, "Can we go to see Green Lantern
tumorru? I promise I won call anybuddy!"

Of rainy days and maidless mornings

2011-06-16T02:13:00.001-07:00

This morning was dark with stormy clouds and with thunder rolling across the sky. Mamma was tempted to pull the blanket back over her head and go right back to the land of nod. But no, tiffins had to be made and packed, brat had to be awakened, bathed, dressed and taken to school, and ergo, mamma hauled her carcass off the bed and toodled to the kitchen. The cook sent message that she would not be in, thanks to some sudden mysterious ailment.
Mamma hit panic button and began working like a multiple handed goddess, chopping, heating, packing, and doing the morning routine of soaking clothes, etc. The pater stepped into the bathroom had his bath, the brat was awakened, hauled to the potty and bathed, and mamma managed to get herself bathed and dressed and out of the house by 7.30 am.
It was pouring cats and dogs and the brat was instructed to drape his self in his Ben 10 raincoat, which he did reluctantly. The traffic jam to school was one long long jam, which would have probably lasted till the brat started growing a beard, so mamma and brat decided to step out and walk through the traffic to school.
It was an adventure in itself, dodging puddles, getting spattered by passing buses going nonchalantly over water filled potholes, and mamma and brat reached semi drenched and laughing into school, well over 10 minutes late for opening bell.
The brat's school shoes were soaking wet. "Take your shoes off in class," mamma yelled from the outside. He looked back at mamma like she were the village hick.
Mamma repeated her instructions. He turned round and gave her a look from hell.
And trotted back, face ablaze with embarassment. "It is not allowed," he hissed into mamma's ears. "We canna take our shuz off in class. All dirty smell will come from our feetz."
Err, yes. That made sense.
Mamma prayed the soaking wet shoes dried up quick and resolved to ensure he wore sandals tomorrow.

So school has reopened...

2011-06-10T03:50:00.000-07:00

And the brat has squealed in delight to find two of his comrades in mischief part of his class. The class teacher has been warned to keep the trio in separate corners of the classroom if she intends getting any teaching done, and at the end of the first day she informed mamma in weary tones that she had taken heed of the advice proffered and would implement the same the very next day.
The new SPA uniform with its spiffy green stripe down the side was worn and self much admired in the mirror before setting off to school the next day.
"Mamma," said the brat, as he settled himself in the car with his new bag (Ben 10), new water bottle (Green tupperware), new compass box (Ben 10 green) and new tiffin box (coincidentally also green). "Everything I have is green."
Mamma digested this piece of information in silence. And nodded in confirmation. Yes, he did have almost everything on his person with some hue of green.
"I am a green boy."
Ah, well, green behind the ears would be more like it, Mamma would say.
"And now when I get angry, I can become The Hulk?"
Its not that kind of green, brat, Mamma said. To be the Hulk, you need some serious changes to happen in your blood chemistry. And some dosage of radiation. And such like.
He thought long and he thought hard. "Dere is a chemistry laboratory in our school, I will go dere and pud chemikals in my blood. Wid a needle on a pole."
Memories of glucose drips during long past hospitalisations still lingered, I could see.
But why do you want to be the Hulk, I asked gently. He bristled with rage. "Because I am very angry. And when I get angry, I want everybody to be frightened of me."
Well then, you wont have any friends, if they're all frightened of you, and you are permanently angry.
"Okay then, I wont be Hulk," he said in a sad little voice. And then sparked up. "Can I be the Green Hornet?"
Maybe Mamma should re examine the kind of role models the brat has, and start showing him the Chariots of Fire kind of movies.

The first day he returned home without his compass box. It was too early to start losing things I informed him, given that the previous year he had gone on a bottle losing spree of approximately one bottle a week and had I been less worried about dehydration and water contamination, I would have been stern and told him that unless he got the original bottle back he would get no water to school. I suggested it one day, only to have him tell me he would drink from the tap, much to my horror.

Mamma instructed him he would not get a new compass on the second day of school and he was instructed to check his desk for the forgotten item and retrieve it or his pencils and erasers would be sent in a floral, feminine pouch. The threat worked and he had found the missing compass box, and displayed it triumphantly to me on pick up. I should hunt out a pink floral water bottle to ensure his green bottle stays un-lost.

It drizzled a bit this morning as we ran to the gate, Mamma wanted to drape the brat in his raincoat (What else, Ben 10!) but he refused. "Don't. Everyone will laffatme. I'm a big boy now. I can get wet in the rain."

Mamma feels she should have been informed of this big boy development before the raincoat purchase was done, it could have got her a small clutch which would have definitely come in use, seeing as the raincoat is not.

So how has school reopening been for you?

So the brat needs an evaluation again

2011-06-07T23:00:00.001-07:00

So mamma was called into school again to meet up with the special educator. Mamma traipsed into school much like the goat being led to the slaughter house. The brat, as most of you who have been reading the blog on a regular basis would know, has always had issues. He had delayed milestones, suspected mild autism, cognitive issues, speech delays, motor control issues. The works. Thankfully mild. So we worked through it. Three years of speech, occupational and physio therapy later, he had an assessment with the pediatric neurologist who deemed him a little behind, but okay. No autism. I did my little hallelujah dance. And life went on.
The brat continued getting special educator assistance at school as well as concessions.He did decently enough in all the assessments, with help. His grades, while not outstanding, hovered between B and C. And occasionally A. He was coping I thought. He was doing okay. He had his tuitions. I worked with him when I could. School was working with him.
But no. He's not grade level. He is showing signs of Learning Disabilities his special educator says. He needs a thorough evaluation. And probably would need Occupational Therapy. He has serious issues with math. Mamma needs to get her act together and spend more time with him and get him to do more stuff to improve his abilities.
So it is back to gird my loins, metaphorically speaking and get cracking about working with the brat like the slave driver I used to be. An evaluation to be done, and steps to be taken to get the tyke to 'Grade Level'.
Okay. Someone send across the fevikwik for my breaking heart quick. I dont feel I have the mental strength to do this all over again.

So, do you embarass your kids?

2011-06-06T21:24:00.001-07:00

I do. I often do. No holds barred. I can see him cringing in the corner when I get up to shake my butt at parties. I can see it when he gasps in horror when I emerge down in the garden wearing clothes that have seen the worst of the dryer and have been twisted so terribly out of shape they are best suited for donation to the lesser privileged.

Read what this lady has to say.

Yes, yes, what about when them kids make us cringe with embarassment. Like the times in fancy restaurant, when despite all assurances to be angelic cherub, with harps strumming in the background while he downs his meal in peace and calm, and gently requesting for seconds, but morphs into a hellion escaped from the dungeons the minute he sets foot into the place, and does the minute mile around the periphery of the buffet one million times to 'check out' what is on offer, seriously putting waiters at risk for impaling fellow diners with the hot barbeque skewers they are carrying around.

Or when they sit flat down in the middle of the aisle in the toy section holding onto some ridiculous gargantuan toy the size of a small principality, and refusing to move unless said small principality, which is actually a beyblade stadium priced at approximately one dental filling and is primarily composed of plastic of the disposable plate variety, is purchased for them, and you try everything from calm explaining and rationalizing to getting down to eye level and talking sternly like you really mean it, and actually stopping short of dragging them through the store kicking and screaming or leaving them behind, pretending you dont know this child.

Of course, the child will get his revenge when he becomes an adolescent and insists on sitting at a separate table in a restaurant to pretend that he is not, in any way, related to me, given that I will inevitably morph into a loud mouth, loudly dressed middle aged matron. I see signs of that already. Of course, this has already begun.

"Mamma," he gasps, when I start dancing in public, "Don dance. Sit down." And will haul me back to a chair and keep watch to ensure I don't escape and make a public spectacle of myself.

"Dress properly," he will instruct me before he goes off to school on parent teacher day, holding forth as a shining example of how mammas should dress, a classmate whose mother, no offence to salwar kameez wearers, wears them salwar kameezes in synthetic prints every single day.

"Don come down wid me, come in the nex lift." This when we go down in the evenings, him to play, me for my walk. This when I'm wearing ratty exercise tracks and tees which have seen better days.

And of course, I think back to how I would cringe when my mother would pick up a spat in the local train and quietly skunk off to a different corner of the compartment. Or how I would do the merry dance of avoidance when the paternal grandmother would come to meet me outside the school gates. Gah, chickens are coming home to roost now, and all that is coming right back to bite me on my rather sizeable butt.

I embarass my son. Yes, I do. And he embarasses me too. I think we're fair and square so far in the game. Let's see how the scale tilts as he grows and I get older and not so wiser.

About birthdays and gifts

2011-06-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

What is this discussion all about you might wonder, gentle reader? Let me enlighten you. The occasion being Mamma's birthday. Ah yes, the 40th. If you might be so insolent enough to ask. And Mamma has been dinning it into the pater and son's head about the momentous birthday last year which was marked by no cake, no gift, no dinner out, no takeaway too, and just a dry happy birthday wish and extracting every molecule of guilt about it through the year. Now the time has come for father and son to prove themselves, that the past birthday was an aberration and that they will be better prepared this year.
Ergo, the unceasing hints about the gifts I expected to receive and the big song and dance I expected to happen on my birthday, with red carpet rolled out and a brass band striking the right notes.
So, mamma and brat sat peaceably watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night, when the brat suddenly asked me, "Mamma, whachyu want fer yer budday?"
Mamma thought long and thought hard and conceded she would like perfume, or a bag or some items of clothing.
"Okay," replied the brat. "You go to Inorbid. Buy fer yourself a top and a perfuum. Is from me. And buy fer me a Beyblade Flame Libra."
Err? I have to buy myself a birthday gift. On your behalf? Mamma needed to clean out earwax, maybe she hadnt heard too clearly.
"Let me get this clear," she said to the brat. "I have to buy myself a top and a perfume, with my money as a gift from you."
"Yars," he replied, nonchalantly, glued to the part where Harry goes underwater to save Ron and Hermoine in the Triwizard Challenge. "And buy fer me a Beyblet?"
"And why should I buy you a Beyblade," Mamma asked, gently.
He looked at me, with an expression that suggested the nut bolts in the old cranium needed examination. "Because, mamma, dat's my return gift!!!"

PS: He is no longer saying Redurngeef. Let me take my broken heart to a corner and sob. My baby is growing up.

So a change of guard has happened and the monsoon arrives

2011-06-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

Daadi has gone to Pahadland and Nana has taken over brat duty for the remainder of the holidays which comprises this weekend and Monday. School reopens on Tuesday, be still my beating heart, given that timings have been shifted to an obscenely early 7.45 am, which also probably mean I should put brat to bed in his school uniform and shoes, and just lift him and run out of the door in the morning, knowing how crazy the morning run is now going to get.
Yesterday was the first day under Nana's supervision and we managed to drag Nana to the toy shop for, what else, yet another Beyblade, and a school bag and a pencil box. Embellished with that pintsized with alien DNA fused into his system who morphs into a procession of very ugly creatures, guaranteed to thank your stars that you have a child who doesnt have an omnitrix fused onto his wrist. Ah well, whatever.

As we stepped out of the store, the heavens opened up and poured down with a ferocity that ensured Mamma and Nana who were sitting at the extreme end of the rickshaw, with the brat sandwiched in the centre, were drenched enough to be wrung out, and put through the dryer. The brat grumbled incessantly while bone dry, "I'm gedding drops of wader on me. I'm getting wed. My klodz will ged spoilt."
Mamma asked him, in not so polite terms, to zip it, considering she was shivering and drenched enough to do a waterfall sequence without the waterfall. We reached home. The newly purchased Beyblade was promptly assembled and taken down to the lobby area, where the other pintsizes had gathered despite the breaking storm and the howling winds to spar in tournaments so ferocious that many a plastic Beyblade arena had been decimated in the process. Occasionally they would dart out from the glass doors into the pouring rain and return like fresh hatchlings to the warzone.Upon which respective mothers would spot them drench and drag them up home, kicking and squealing, to be hung out to dry.
The brat was hauled back home after two wardrobe changes had happened and went off chirpily enough to sleep.He was up bright and sparkling in the 'dark morning' . "Is d rainy season" he asked, inspecting the sky with a wry eye. I nodded. "Den we will get rainy day holiday!" he chirped in glee. And yes, school yet has to reopen.

And this is what we did onboard the bus

2011-06-01T04:13:00.000-07:00

Played at solving the Rubik's cube, thoughtfully given to us by big sister who had outgrown it, and ergo was delighted enough that the brat evinced an interest in it.
He struggled and struggled, and twisted all the sides round but didnt end up getting the colours to come together as one on a single side. Thankfully a terrible, terrible movie called Thank You, with Akshay Kumar playing the flute and playing at being a marriage detective came on, which he watched for a bit and then drifted off to sleep, and remained in somnabulistic state until it was time to disembark.
The next morning he awoke with giddiness so acute he could not put his head up, and running a light fever. Mamma panicked and rushed him to the pediatrician. Heat stroke was the diagnosis. Drink plenty of fluids and 48 hours bed rest prescribed by the good doctor, at which mamma hyuck hyucked internally. Sure enough, barely had one pack of electral solution made it through his food pipe, the pint sized one was turning somersaults into the lobby of the building when we reached home. By evening he was angsty about going down to play and had to be physically restrained by intimidating voice and gestures into sitting put at home, and allowed extra television time as an incentive. The rest of his days have been a maze of lotus eating, action figure fighting, television watching and running amok in the park in the evenings. Like it should be given its the summer vacation. Of course, inclination to do a spot of writing or a bit of mathematics is nonexistent.
School reopens in a few days time and mamma just can't wait for the brat to get back to the school routine.So how have your summer holidays been?

So we're off to Pune today.

2011-05-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

Just mamma and the brat. In a bus called Neeta Volvo. Which is airconditioned at the specific request of the brat, who is thinking of this as one big great adventure on par with his trip into pahad land by train last year. He has already packed his backpack with enough action figures and Beyblades to keep himself occupied for a journey to Char Dham and back. Not, of course, that we plan on doing the Char Dham, but you get my gist. Mamma is a little stressed out. The only travelling she has done alone with the brat so far has been by air, and that too, short domestic flights, the longest of those being to Delhi, so keeping him occupied and peaceful has been for two and a half to three hours at the max.
At this point I must bow from the waist to those mothers with small children who make transcontinental flights. Respect.
I've packed his backpack with Oreos, Bourbon biscuits, juice tetrapaks, Lays. And his beloved chutney sandwiches. I'm keeping a novel I'm midway through in my handbag. Maybe I'm being ambitious.
We go to Pune for a few days of R&R and unwinding. This summer, the brat has not had a vacation, so this is the closest he's getting to one. Wish us luck for the journey. Mamma must be getting soft in the head if she's stressing out about going on a four hour bus ride.

The karate kid is here...

2011-05-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

Since a better part of the summer vacations and ergo, the summer camps are over, the brat has been suffering from karate camp withdrawal symptoms.

This is what he gets upto for a better part of the day...

A New Tag-What Mommyhood Has Taught Me

2011-05-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since us Mommybloggers came up with something to celebrate, well, mommyhood, so the lovely Monika and I came up with this. A tag that has us list out five lessons of life that Mommyhood has taught us, these could be sweet, bitter, funny, touching, whatever. These could be survival tips or cooking tips, or something as simple as the best thing to get puke smell out of hair.
So, the rules are simple. Put the badge up. Write out five lessons that Mommyhood taught you. And tag five mommybloggers. Without further ado, here are mine five.
1] The human body can survive on months of a maximum of maybe two hours of sleep at a stretch per night. Yes. The brat was a terrible sleeper, and didnt begin sleeping through the night until he was maybe two and a half. Every couple of hours, he would bawl like a two hourly alarm and needed a bottle of formula mixed and shoved into his mouth to get him to settle again, until of course, he decided to poop and needed cleaning up and such joy. Or later, when night toilet training begin and I had to haul him off to the loo every couple of hours to prevent er, accidents. The human body can survive without sleep. I'm not even beginning to talk about how good I got at falling off to sleep in public transport.
2] I have more strength than I thought I did. I can take almost anything that happens now and be unfazed by it all. Only call me if you see blood is my standard dialogue now to the brat. "Dhairya" is what the exact word would be if I could get the essence translated into English. After seeing the brat through five febrile convulsions, one in which his eyes rolled back and his skin and nails turned blue, through years of such bad constipation that hospitalisation was required, of an autism spectrum diagnosis, I know now that I have infinite more reserves of strength than I had ever imagined I could have had. Not to mention the physical strength required to pick up a rolling on the floor, tantrumming 25 kg brat and deposit him in quarantined time out zone.
3] There are more than 24 hours in a day: A mother is elastic, she can manage to fit in everything, school, classes, homework, her own work if she works out of the house, running a house, managing staff, everything, with finesse and without a sense of entitlement to gratitude.
4] Not to be judgemental. I've come across moms who are so quick to judge, quick to dispense advice, quick to assume that their way of parenting is the best way and we would be so honoured if they decided to impart some gyaan to us. I've had moms put me down as a lazy parent because my son went for tuitions from the pre primary. I've been judged because my son didn't go for multiple classes, of being not an involved mom. I had other priorities. Similarly other mother's might have other reasons for doing what they do, or bringing up their children the way they do. To each their own.

5] Compassion. Mommyhood has taught me compassion. To understand another's troubles, to feel for another mommy going through a tough time, knowing what it feels like to have a young child waiting at home, what it means to have a sick child, who is feverish all night, what it means to be worried for your child's grades, what is means to be tired and have absolutely no me time because you are so caught up every second of the day, even down to the five minutes you have a bath when your child is young. Compassion for other moms. Compassion for my own mom, who has raised me against all odds.

And most of all, and I go into a sixth point, Mommyhood has taught me how to live with my heart walking around outside my body. Mommyhood has taught me that I can totally stop thinking about myself and only think about my child and his well being in an emergency situation, making me walk barefooted through chest deep floods infested with dead carcasses of buffalos from the inundated tabelas, post the Mumbai deluge only worried about getting home to be with my baby. Mommyhood has taught me that my life is no longer just my own. Now I need to live for another.

And I tag
Monika
Sue
Parul
Boo
and
Rohini

Never thought I'd see the day

2011-05-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

The brat was invited to a budday pahty on Sunday. The birthday party for Parul's delightful duo, Adi boy and Ragu baby (who incidentally, decided her birthday party was the best time to take an extended nap, and surely put her very very patient dad's shoulder out!). Ergo, we landed up at the venue, spit polished and powdered.
The brat (I should honestly find a new moniker for him, he is no longer brattish, but embarassingly well behaved most times) sauntered in much excitement happening upon spotting the beeg cricket ground, where an actual, true to life cricket match was in progress. Wid umpires. And real stumps. And read white cricket uniforms. His jaw clunked open and stayed in that position for quite a while.
He couldn't bear to tear himself away from the window watching the live match, and had to be physically hauled back to the party, and what a party it was--tattoo artist, sketch man, name keychain man, throw ring stall, pop corn, candyfloss, puppet show, magic show, DJ, games host and the most scrumptious sesame toast floating around calling Mamma's name in capital letters, among the other deep fried temptations which made Mamma throw all dietary restrictions to another day. And this is how the brat sat.

He lolled around like the proverbial Gussie Fink Nottle, limp as an asparagus, refusing to up and shake his booty even when the kind DJ played all his favourite Justin Bieber numbers, even when mamma offered to be his dancing partner. Or maybe the threat of that was what kept him glued to his seat.
Damp like the proverbial wet blanket, he only sparked up when it was time to ingest his solids and at the end of the party when the balloons were officially thrown open to be burst with a toothpick. When the redurngeef was handed over was the moment of most animation in the course of the entire afternoon.
Alas, the brat is now a jaded, cynical, birthday party veteran. And this at barely seven. Which might be a good thing, mamma thinks, it might get her out of throwing a birthday party next birthday.

Remember the Bournvita Quiz Contest?

2011-05-16T02:26:00.001-07:00

Thanks to his dear Chanda Bua being on Kaun Banega Crorepati, the brat developed some sort of a passing interest in quizzing. Much to my delight, me being an inveterate quizzer in my college days, with trophies and medals and certificates to my credit, and my general knowledge (back then, of course, now I have the mind of a seive, everything falls out), the stuff that legends are made of. Ah, a chip off the old block, I thought. I brought out the encyclopedias and the atlases and the visual dictionaries and attempted to get the tyke interested some more.
Unfortunately for me, his interest lasted only till the next cartoon serial on the cartoon channels and Amitabh Bachchan as a host was too senior to engage his interest beyond the mandatory first few questions. Consequently, the brat still has a GK quotient of the levels that has me quail with embarassment when he decides to air his knowledge in a public situation.Of course, if you put him to a rapid fire round on the Batman movies, or any superhero movie, he would win hands down no dispute, given that he's watched each around one million times. This despite my best efforts to get him to up his GK quotient. All the quotient he wants to up are Beyblade Metal Fusion and Justin Bieber. I believe he knows Justin Bieber's fake phone number by heart. Anyway.
I remember, back when I was a mere chile, and this was just a bit after the dinosaurs roamed the earth in search of new hominids to devour, there was a show called Bournvita Quiz Contest which had school children being quizzed on various topics by a quiz master called Derek O Brien. Yes, the same Derek O Brien who today has plighted his troth with Mamta Di and TMC and is currently painting Kolkata green, metaphorically speaking of course. To me then, the ultimate in coolth was to be one of the kids up there, on television, taking the rapidfire questions. Unfortunately somehow our school never made it. Me being the retiring wallflower violet kind of person, I didn't dare get into quizzing until I entered college, had ditched the soda bottle glasses and gained a micro smidgeon of self esteem. Ergo, when I received a mail asking me to support the bringing of the Bournvita Quiz Contest, I was all for it. So here below is the mail asking for public support to bring the BQC back. I for one, would love to have it back, purely for the brat to watch and start loving quizzing the way I did.

What about you? Would you want the BQC to come back?

Here's a mail I got from Rahul, who is spearheading the movement to bring BQC back.

Let's Bring BQC back!

Childhood friends and a nostalgic conversation over tea brought all kinds of latent memories to the surface and interesting conversations to the table. Right from old flames and tree-houses that we built, to TV shows watched together amidst shrieks of excitement. In fact, the one that usually got us the most excited was the Bournvita Quiz Contest, a TV show with a purpose. I still remember the healthy competition it brought out between us: we pretty much had our own BQC session at home. Now that I think about it, that session was what encouraged us to pay attention and learn so that we would know the answer the next time. I wonder why they stopped the show. It was such a sure-shot way to get children to develop their mind without it seeming like too much work. I really would enjoy it if the BQC returned – better for us and better for the next generation.

At a time when television programming has hit an all-time low, the world seems to think they've hit jackpot – the profusion of shows that clutter today's TV are taken to mean variety and superior programming. What people fail to realise is that the actual content of these shows is mediocre at best and quite terrible if you tell the actual truth. They seek only to entertain, not impart any kind of knowledge. I think, like always, we should look at history to replicate success and engineer learning at the same time. An immediate example that comes to mind is the Bournvita Quiz Contest, a show that amply demonstrates programming that is beneficial to all viewers. The BQC had a simple format: student participants were asked quiz questions by a dynamic host. But it served its purpose so beautifully because it served to entertain and educate at the same time: edutainment! A celebrity was thrown in on every show for excitement, while the question-answer session brought in the teaching element. If you ask me, that's the kind of programming that kids need today: interactive learning on a mass scale. Any idea how to revive the BQC?

Derek O'Brien has joined our movement now its time you do your bit in taking this movement ahead and bringing back intelligent viewing on television.

Derek O'Brien's letter to Cadbury!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?bid=200395089982040&set=a.200395053315377.46249.168969106457972&ref=nf

The fans have taken this movement to another level! This started off about 3 months ago and the response has been amazing, with almost 148,000 people wanting BQC Back. It started off as something simple - an experiment of sorts. They are also sending out banners to people who want them - so far 70 people have written in asking for them. If you want your banner or if you have any suggestions on how we can spread this movement together you can email them on bringbqcback@gmail.com!

I definitely want BQC back - Come join in the movement! http://www.facebook.com/bringbqcback

It was started about 3 months ago & on our Facebook page we're targeting everyone who watched the show, likes to quiz & is smart! The goal is to Bring BQC back.

Let's start the golden days of BQC again!

Thank you for your interest!

The brat watched Stanley Ka Dabba

2011-05-12T23:21:00.000-07:00

When I told the brat we had been invited to watch a movie, he was all agog with excitement thinking it was a superhero movie that had been so kind as to request his presence. His enthusiasm was a little deflated when I named the movie for him, but since it was a preview and something that none of his friends had been invited to, he was definitely a trifle chuffed to be on the guest list.
Ergo, one day before the preview I caught him strutting around in the lobby, intimidating the younger ones about how he was invited for a special preview, ergo he had rights to bat until he damn well got bored of batting. Don't ask. The logic didn't fall into place, and he was swiftly verbally clouted (have to add verbally before ye hordes of brat defenders come out and bash me to senseless pulp in the comment space) and asked to hand over the bat when his turn was up.
Yesterday, we spit polished ourselves, put on our new tshurd and digital watch with the time set wrong and sauntered off to watch Stanley Ka Dabba.

The recliner seats were an immediate success at the preview theatre and he liked this movie before it even began. And then the chirpy Adi boy came in along with his mom, the lovely Parul and accomplice in crime happened. The brat, though, frankly, needs a new nomenclature. He is no longer bratty. Quite heartbreaking, the boy has grown and actually, shudder, is behaving in public.
The movie, as the title suggests, is about a boy called Stanley and his dabba. Or rather, the dabba he doesn't bring with him to school everyday. As a hyper-mom, I noted with concern, the bruises on Stanley's face, the dirty school uniform, the torn pocket, the frayed bag, the fact that he had no water bottle and, blasphemy, no dabba. The boy's friends all adore him, because he is a real delight, and are keen to share their dabba with him, but for Khaddoos, played by the director Amole Gupte (the man who conceptualised Taare Zameen Par before he had that big fallout with Aamir Khan), who prowls around looking to scavenge off everyone's dabbas, teachers and children alike. Finally, the children decide to avoid Khaddoos and hide from him, getting him into a rage and ordering Stanley not to attend school until he gets a dabba because in his misplaced rage, he assumes Stanley is the reason he can't eat one of the kids' (Aman Mehra's) dabba. No, no, this is not a story about a dabba or a school, this is a much larger story, one that delivers a message to you in a simple, heartbreaking yet simultaneously heartwarming way. Any more on the storyline and this would be a spoiler so I leave the synopsis here. Now for the performances, Partho Gupte as Stanley, Amol Gupte as Khaddoos, Divya Dutta as Rosy Miss and Divya Jagdale as Mrs Iyer, the science teacher were outstanding. Raj Zutshi as Raj Zutshi came in as an interesting cameo but did nothing to either add to the story or drive it forward. The nitpicker in me wondered why fourth grade kids would be learning A anaar ka a in Hindi when this was something the brat has done in grade one.
But apart from that and a couple of other little nigglings, the film was impeccable. Go watch it. Now. Take your children for it, children above five I would say, who would understand and get sensitised to the message the film is trying to convey. And as for the brat, he came away a little worried. Asking questions. And needed a lot of reassurance before he finally went off to sleep in the night. I'm hoping he does realise after this movie that he really does lead a privileged life, and understands that he needs to be grateful for it, and learn to be more giving.

And honestly, because I've been asked this question, I think I need to address it here. There are similarities in terms of treatment with Taare Zameen Par, but Stanley Ka Dabba is a film in its own right. But I cried in Taare Zameen Par. I didn't cry during Stanley Ka Dabba. That could have been because I identified with Ishaan Awasthi and his mom, struggling as I and the brat were with Learning Issues at that point. But you go ahead, draw your own parallels and conclusions.

So is this the next fast bowler phenomenon in the making?

2011-05-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

What with the ICC World Cup and the IPL, the brat has just about started watching cricket and figuring out the game. He also recently got his first official wooden bat and ball (the latter of which he promptly lost in the very first couple of hours after mamma had handed over hard cash for its possession).
He spends a better part of the evening, pre-Beyblade and darkness playing cricket in the compound and has friendly matches with the next door neighbour in the corridor between our flats.
Mamma had never, ever, taken the trouble to actually watch him playing, assuming naturally, that the child having just begun and with his spatial perception issues, would be still getting a grip on things. So imagine her absolute open mouthed surprise when she saw him bowling like this:

His run up, his arm action, his little jump in air before hurling the ball, and his bang on hitting the three lines drawn on the wall stumps all had mamma staring in a curious mix of shock and pride.
So now, he has three career options open to him, Doctor- thanks to the handwriting which qualifies him for the career without any debate, Bollywood chorus back up dancer and fast bowler, as is evident above. Of course, if all else fails, thanks to Karate class, and his innate, err, aggressiveness, he might just set up dukaan as a 'Hire-A-Goon.'

The history of the Manrals...

2011-05-09T02:30:00.000-07:00

Since I have an, to put it politely, complicated ancestry, I decided to dig out the ancestry of the brat's paternal side last year given that one had heard tales of them being among the noble clans of Kumaon.

I meant to post this up for the brat to look at whenever, in the future if ever, he decided he wanted to know who he was, and what his ancestors were, given that I have no documentation to pass on to him for any information he would want from his maternal side of the gene pool. As for me, err, I discovered I have more in common with Kate Middleton than I realised.

This is the source of reference: http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/1258321/

And these are the paras:
It has been shown that excluding the Doms and the Bhotiyas, there are two main classes of Hindu population in the Himalayan Districts : (1) the early settlers and conquerors represented by the Khasas, (2) the late settlers from plains who are a very small minority.
9. It is obvious that the Manrals with whom we have to deal are neither the aborigines nor the early settlers and conquerors represented by the Khasiyas, but the late settlers from the plains. At page 8 he observed:
Nearly all the high caste Brahmans and Rajputs claim to have migrated to these parts, at the earliest, a thousand years back, with the exception of Suraj Bansi Thakurs who have a tradition that they came from Oudh 2000 years back,
and at page 10 he says:
Rajputs who claim descent from the immigrants from the plains are in Kumaun, (1) the Suraj Bansi Katyuris represented by the Rajbars of Askot and Jaspur, the Manrals and others, (2) the Raotelas.
10. From his book it appears that Manrals are those Suraj Bansi Thakurs who came from Oudh two thousand years back. At page 28 he says:
The earliest ruling dynasty known to authentic history is of the Katyuris. The Katyuri Raja of Kumaun and Garhwal was styled 'Sri Basdeo Giriraj Chakra Churamani' and 'the earliest traditions record that the possessions of the Joshimath Katyuris extended from the Satlaj as far as the Gandaki and from the snow to the plains, including the whole of Rohilkhand.
11. A description of the Manrals is to be found in Mr. Walton's District Gazetteer of Almora and at page 94 the following passage occurs:
By far the most illustrious in descent and the most respected at the present day are the Bajwars and Manrals or Manurals. Both families are descended from the Surajbansi Katyuri rajas who once ruled in the north of Kumaon. The Rajwars now live in Jaspur of Bichla Chaukot and Askot to the extreme east of the district, where they hold an impartible raj. The Manrals represent the branch which on the deposition of Birdeo, the last Katyuri King, and the annexation of his kingdom by the Chands, settled in Pali. Their name is connected with the Manila peak in Palla Naya above Bhikia Sen, and the village of Sain Manur on the same ridge in Walla Salt, The families are said to hold sanads granted by various members of the Chand dynasty, and by the Gurkha governors of later days.

The husband's village? The Sain Manur as mentioned above. Their native goddess? Manila Devi. Isn't history fascinating?

Happy Mother's Day to you too!

2011-05-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

So it was Mother's Day yesterday. I had zero expectations from the brat, based on the fact that I was the one he turned to whenever shopping for anything is required, specifically with my wallet to be one for dosh to be handed over to pay for whatever was to be bought.
The previous night, I took myself off to sleep after the brat took himself off to his room from where he shooed me out unceremoniously, doing some wizardry that he obviously didnt want me to catch a glimpse. He was probably writing out and drawing out another of his long and elaborate Ben 10 stories I assumed and drifted off into deep REM sleep. I vaguely recalled the brat coming into our bedroom and keeping something by my bedside, whispering something in my ear, before wandering off to daadi's bedroom where he sleeps these days.
I woke in the morning to see a double page foolscap sheet on my bedside table, on top of the unequal piles of the 'to read' books shouting for my attention.
'Dear Mom,' it began.
Written in red. In the big indeterminate script that has his special educationist telling me to take him for Occupational Therapy and me resisting firmly, because, by God, that child has been through three years of therapy and it is quite enough for him. As long as his handwriting is legible, I refuse to take him to therapy clinics-even visiting them is heartbreaking given the various cases one encounters there, god bless those poor children and their strong strong parents.
"I want to say sorry to you for all my mistakes. It is my mistake. I have spoken bad words to you. I have been a naughty boy. Please forgive me. I will get you a watch for your birthday.
Your loving son,
Krish Manral."
My jaw thudded to the floor. Morning dogbreath slayed all the viruses in the room. I picked myself up and tried to remember what it was that he had got a dressing down for the previous day. The best I could remember was me telling him in most disappointed manner that the use of the word 'Saala' conversationally was not what I expected from him. What made me even more delighted was that he had written out this missive on his own. Punctuation and spelling perfect. I did a cartwheel. I smothered him with kisses while he slept.
It was perhaps my best mother's day gift ever. That he, who needs to be dragged by wild horses to his desk and to paper and pen, wrote this out by himself.

We spent the day at nana's house. Nana asked him what he had got for his mother for mother's day (Mamma had picked up a perfume for Nana and Daadi) when he insisted on handing over gift to her for said day. Nada, he said, or in his colloquial speak, thenga. Nana fished out a couple of crisp notes and handed them over to him instructing him to buy something for his mother on his way back home. He tucked them carefully into his pocket and promised me the sky, of which specified were perfume, chocolates and a watch. We trotted off home in the evening, with him asking me what it was I wanted.
We got out of the gate and turned onto the main road. We walked past a sportswear store which had hanging outside Tshirts of the various IPL teams, the child practically salivated, he stared goggle eyed, his feet rooted to the spot and he could not be persuaded to be dragged away.
"I wanta Royaaal Challengers Tshird."
Mamma deflected this with the standard statement she has these days for such sudden demand situations. "I'm not carrying enough cash."
"Den use d card."
This generation of children with their concept that an unlimited credit card can pay for all their whims and fancies.
"This shop doesn't accept cards, let's go."
His eyes twinkled, he fished out the crisp notes Nana had handed to him. "I god money. See. Nana gaveittome."
"Err, brat, wasn't that to buy something for me, for Mother's Day."
"Id was to buy sumping to make you happy. And if I will be happy, you will be happy, correct."
He got his Royal Challengers Tshirt. An illustrious career in law or politics awaits him.

The camps are done with...

2011-05-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

The brat is now swimming a dog paddle, without a float, and in the deep and consequently walking with chest stuck out rooster style. Ergo, he called back on a promise mamma had made when he needed to be dragged to the pool with a lasso round his neck and physically pushed into the pool, with mamma steeling her heart to the shrieks of terror that rent the air once splash contact had been made. "Anything you want," mamma had promised, "If you learn how to swim once the camp is over."
Anything, Mamma thought, would at the max be a Beyblade. And a Beyblade she could deal with. But no, the brat had other things in mind. Namely, a Beyblade stadium. For those of you, similarly suffering mothers with kids in complete thrall of the Beyblade mania, you would recognise what this contraption is. A Beyblade stadium is basically a glorified deep plate like thingie in a violently radioactive shade of orange in which these pintsized Beybladers can play their universe decimating Beyblade battles. Its a huge contraption. Given that the home is already littered with boxes on boxes of the boy's 'stuff' I quailed at the thought of this huge thing entering the home. And then thought maybe I could use it as a bird pond once he tires of it, and decided to get myself to a store and pick it up. Remember, thin plastic. Horrible orange colour. The kind of stuff those disposable plates one has at kiddy birthday parties. Rs 749. I fainted right there at the cash counter in most unseemly fashion. I picked up the glorified plastic paraath and looked at it closely to check if precious metals had been used in any manner in its manufacture. Nada. The plastic was of such quality I wondered if it would last the journey home without cracking. Nonetheless, the joy of anticipation in the child's eyes made me hand over my debit card with nary a moue and sign for said item. The boy danced in joy, he informed every passing stranger that he had got a 'Beyblet' stadium and now he was going to be the king of Beyblet matches.
He landed home and got on the intercom immediately and within five minutes the home was swarming with pintsizes of various denominations all come to play in the new stadium. For yesterday, the brat was the King of the Pintsizes. I must try this kind of incentivising for the next skill I need him to master. Maybe a Beyblade arena if he finally gathers up the nerve to cycle without the side wheels? Yes?

And the brat gets the itch to read

2011-04-21T23:35:00.001-07:00

The other day we went to a birthday party of a fren who is barely six months older than the brat, but much more 'mature' as the phrase goes. This boy is an avid book reader, and when Mamma, who being the scatty type she is, asked him what he wanted as a birthday present, being the one who had landed up without one in hand and planned to use the time at the mall waiting for the party to get over to pick up said present, replied promptly, "Books". Mamma was delighted. Being a bookaholic herself, and beamed down approvingly at the child. "Which author would you like, do you know the book titles you want?"
Promptly, the birthday boy rattled off, "I want Witches and Matilda by Roald Dahl."
Mamma trotted off to Landmark next door and bought the boy the books he wanted and could not contain her admiration of the same, and voiced said admiration to the brat who when asked what he wanted at any given point could be guaranteed to reply "Beyblade Storm Pegasus."
The brat pondered and pondered and finally declared that he wanted a book too. Make that two books. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Witches. Both by Roald Dahl. Dahl is an author he is familiar with, since he has had Fantastic Mr Fox as part of his curriculum this year, and has googled up Dahl, his childhood pictures and his cottage and even assumed the Norwegian spouse of my aunt, who admittedly bears a striking resemblance to Dahl, was the man himself. Ergo, when he began whining about wanting these two books, Mamma picked up bag and hotfooted it to Crossword and procured said printed copies and placed before him. He flicked through them with zero modicum of interest evident on his brow. And then he put them down and picked up his Beyblades again and began spinning them through the vastness of space and time aka the living room floor, in decimating battles that shake the universe, read bang into the dining table chair legs and leave scratches.
Mamma hopped and yelled and grumbled about his lack of interest in the books purchased and frothed at the mouth for a bit, before Pappa calmed her down, applied ice to her brow and led her away to another part of the house where she could be calm and collect herself. "Let him be," the pater advised sagely, himself having discovered the joys of the printed word only after his head of hair had gone grey.
And so mamma did. Let the books lie on the bedside table without insisting that the brat read them, ignoring the pricks of anger that the brat could be so enriching his mind with the wonderful words of Dahl rather than whooping with joy over two tops dashing against each other for what seemed like almost the entire day.
And when the day's play was done, and the brat returned home, wrung out and exhausted, Mamma went into the kitchen to get him his solid nutrition, and found this when she returned. The brat, sitting crosslegged on the bed, reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And chuckling to himself. And reading bits and pieces aloud to his pater and yours truly whenever he found anything of interesting, like the pater and I keep doing. And so we sat, parents and child, each reading their book, until our eyes drooped and the lights were switched off, reading in blissful camaraderie.
This morning, in the fresh sunlight, I asked him how he had enjoyed the book. "Is boreding," he declaimed from the vantage point of one having grown up on Japanese manga and anime cartoon serials. "Dere's no fighting, no battles, and only funny peepuls wid orange hair and wurking in a factory. And I don like wat happenz wid d udder childrens. Is not good to do bad things to the childrens even if theyre nod nice childrenz." Has this politically correct generation has outgrown Dahl.

And so the brat learns swimming

2011-04-18T23:17:00.000-07:00

The brat, much to the dismay of his swimming champion father, has been mortally terrified of water. So much so that when he was little, washing his head would ensure that banshees would quail at the amount of shrieking that ensued when water was poured on his head. And then, the father in a sink or swim moment threw the barely two year old into a swimming pool to get him to learn to like the water. The brat never quite recovered from the shock of impact, and would shiver knockkneed when confronted with the prospect of getting into water.
Every holiday, the pater would take him into the swimming pool at whatever hotel one was at, and he would shriek and yell and wriggle out of his clutches and run off to the kiddy pool, belligerent about not getting his head under the water or letting his feet get off the floor.
Ergo, when he was assigned swimming in school this year, we thought, yes, now he would learn.The fear of the water would be erased. But each term came and went and he was still cycling in water holding the rod and with the float tied firmly on. His grades for swimming came back with a shameful 'U'. This summer, therefore, was mandated as the summer in which the brat would learn swimming.
He was enrolled in swimming camp, timed in such a way that he would need to attend swimming camp if he wanted to attend the karate camp he had set his heart on. Cmon. He is now the zillionth incarnation of Bruce Lee. Never mind if Bruce Lee is Kung Fu.
So we have the swimming camp going on for one week. Pappa is taking a keen personal interest in the coaching and strides all around the pool, thankfully not being permitted to get into the pool, demonstrating action, movements and generally superseding the coaches, who defer to his medals and his knowledge of the sport, with little grace.

The brat is now actually swimming, a rough dog paddle, and has garnered up enough nerve to get into the deep without a float or a coach right next to him. He actually did two laps of the pool today without a float. Deep end to shallow end. To me, that's his equivalent of scaling Mount Everest. The father, I must say, is walking around like a rooster, puffed with the pride that his son has learnt to swim (in dog paddle style no less) within a week.
As for mamma, all she wants is for the brat to learn the life skill. Without screaming the suburb down.

How safe are your children in your own building premises?

2011-04-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

It is something most of us parents take from granted, the child will be playing with a group of friends, there will be people all around, where is the scope for a potential abuser to get to a child and wrangle the child into a situation where abuse is possible. And then too, we think, mistakenly, that this happens in other kinds of building complexes, in places where folks are maybe, of a certain SEC, not ours, with professionals and a HNI profile.
Is this something you think about? And of course, the maids are down there supervising the children, aren't they, the kids are safe. Think again. This is what actually happened in our building complex.
A few children were down playing hide and seek, well past the darkness setting in. Two little boys, and one girl. Barely six or seven each, they must be. Suddenly, an uncle from the next building spots them playing and insists that he will join them in their play. The gaggle of maids and other adults were in a different part of the complex, it is a huge complex and the kids scurry around so quick, it does get difficult to keep track of them and I speak from experience, because I am down every single evening, trying my best to keep the brat away from scraps.
The 'uncle' from the next wing, joined the game apparently and insisted one of the boys give the den, the other boy go and hide in the park, and took himself and the little girl to the construction area behind, which is dark and isolated in the nights. We don't know exactly what happened, nor is anyone telling us, but the child came screaming out and ran to her parents and this man fled. The parents tracked him down and confronted him. And obviously he denied everything. But no one believes him, because three children corroborated the sequence of events. And this is a man with two young kids, a good job in a reputed multinational company, and a very sweet wife. A perfectly normal, everyday, educated person. Someone you think is such a nice man, always polite and pleasant and well mannered.
Did it come as a shock to us? It did. We are infinitely more concerned now if the children are out of sight for a while, we go look around for them. The children have been warned that adults are not supposed to play in kiddy games, and if any adult insists in playing with them in non sporty games (cricket, football, etc, many of the fathers do come down to coach their children) they are to promptly come and tell us.
Ergo. Be careful. Be on your watch. Your children are safe nowhere. We've seen through the CSAAM month of survivor stories that the children are not even safe in their own homes. You owe it to your children to watch over them as much as you can.

When another parent bullies your child

2011-04-14T01:49:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of this blog might remember a post circa Navratri in which I mentioned a woman who has been haranguing the brat. The haranguing has been continuing and with no lessening, in fact, getting worse by the day. Her issue, she feels the brat is targetting and bullying her son and beating him up when the fact of the matter is that both kids are equally aggressive and the brat, while no angel, is perfectly non controversial when it comes to other children, but only has his hackles rise when it comes to this particular woman's son.
Strangely enough, the brat and her son are good friends, who often come to blows over trifling things. My philosophy when kids get into scraps is to separate the two and give them a firm warning. Give them both warnings. I donot believe, as she does, that a child should be publicly yelled at and humiliated. Which she does often enough with her own son, and sadly had begun doing with my son. The brat, before I could intervene on one occasioned had already backanswered her, much to my shock, given he is not a child who back answers, and while he got pulled up for the rudeness by me later, at that moment I was rather stunned that the child could very well stand up for himself from verbal assault by an adult, a rather Virago-ish adult at that, on a rampage (details of the backanswering: She tells him I'm giving you the last warning not to fight with my son, the brat replies, without missing a beat, Who are you to give me a last warning?)
This had been going on for a while, and things reached a head the other evening when she screamed so loudly at the brat and indirectly at me, that the entire building complex came out to watch (Incidentally, this is a lady who has chased a watchman with a stick to beat him, so one doesn't put anything past her). At that moment, I did not respond. I ignored her. I collected my child and moved off. I asked the other children present about what had happened and gathered the facts. The facts were that her son had started the fight, the brat was merely playing on his own. If the brat is assaulted he is too much of a mard ka baccha to accept being hit without retorting in the same manner. The brat had a bump on the back of his head where the other child had banged his head on the slide. The trouble being the brat doesn't cry. Her son begins wailing loudly at the slightest pretence.
The next day I had decided something needed to be done. I was not going to do a similar fishmonger style screaming in the compound exercise with her. I worked out a plan of action. I would invite her for a conversation in the presence of two trusted and sensible friends in a neutral location. I would try to figure out what her issues with the brat are. I would try to resolve the issues. I would also warn her off. Simultaneously, I also made letters to the chairman of her building society, and took legal counsel on filing a harassment and intimidation of a minor case against her. Because the last incident had her using abusive language against the child. Something all the children confirmed when asked independently.
At first she refused to meet for a discussion. Then she did a volte face and agreed. We sat down and I tried to approach the topic as calmly as I could without spitting in her face. Her issue, she said, was that I was not 'controlling' my child that is why he had gone 'out of hand'. I thanked her for her concern and informed her that I was a parent who was doing my job and she didnt need to do it for me. And if she had any issues with my son, she was to bring it to me, and not to yell at my son. I spelt it out very clearly that she had no legal or moral authority to shout at my son and use abusive language and that she had crossed boundaries. She of course, denied using abusive language and insisted all the four five kids who repeated her sentence verbatim were lying, including of course, my son. Never mind. Even without the abusive language, she has no standing on which she can keep periodically yelling at my son. Even if he and her son are fighting. Kids fight. They fight and are best friends the very next minute. Now ever since she has been targetting my son, none of the children in the building want to play with her son, for fear that he will run off complaining to his mother and she will come abuse them in similar manner. The child cycles alone in the compound, children run away from him. I pointed it out to her that her child was being ostracised by the rest of the children because of her attitude and was she going to fight his battles for him right upto college. I dont think she realised it till then, that no other child was playing with her son. I pointed out to her that the brat has never in his life answered back either me, his father, his grandmothers or his aunts. Nor his teachers. Nor any other adult he has come in contact with. Why did he backanswer you, I asked. It is because he has no respect for you. You cannot command respect from a child because you are an adult. You have to earn it. And at that moment, the way you were screaming at the top of your voice at MY child, I am glad he replied to you. Because it shows me HE can fight his own battles, unlike your child who you are mollycoddling. I hated making it a my child, your child thing. But I was pretty furious.
She has now agreed to bring her issues with my son to me now. I am waiting to see if her promise lasts. If it doesnt, I have my letter ready and Plan B on standby. I gave her a chance to redeem herself and get over her uncondonable behaviour. What would you have done in my place?

Of the thali ka baingan

2011-04-05T23:25:00.001-07:00

The brat, as anyone who has seen him would aver. Looks exactly like me. Or exactly like his father. Depending on which biased pair of goggles you wear. Seriously though, ever since he has been a child, he has been examined closely for evidence of his nose growing to respectable proportions like mine own fine one and unlike the rather squat version the father has been blessed with. Or whether he was going to lumber over all his playmates like the father who stands out broad and tall in a crowd, unlike me who has to resort to subterfuge and stilettoes of a minimum of three inches in order to make myself visible and stop my chin from dragging on the ground. Or whether he would show athletic or academic inclination. (Ah, well, the father's the athletic one, I'm the academic one, and the brat thus far, is neither).

The given obvious features apart, I insist he has my eyes and eyelashes (of yore before 20 years of inserting and removing semi soft lenses ruined them) and chin, and his father's face structure, the brat surprises me sometimes by behaving like either of us. He is a democratic soul, and ergo distributes his behavioural traits with an even hand to both sides of his genetic code. His distate for all activities of the sporting type he gets undoubtedly from me, and his dislike for the written word, he draws completely from his father. In fact, he's gone a step further and sifted out all the undesirables from both of us, and chosen to inherit only those. His love for drawing and sketching he gets from me, and his penchant to vegetate in front of the television set and his love for martial arts, err, from the pater. He sleeps on his side, like his father, he walks like his father, the second toe nail of each of his feet are like his father's and his paternal grandfather, I am told. His hair. That is the only aberration. His hair is like neither of ours. His bua. The middle one. She has hair like that. No one from my side of the genetic pond has hair like his, straight, silky and smooth. The mater has a frizz that can only be tamed by much oiling and tying back, I have, like my pater did, wavy hair with texture that behaves only after much supplication with conditioning and the like. The husband has a thick head of lionine waves. The brat, he reached out to his aunt for this bit.

Given that he is constantly changing, there are some days when I look at him and catch my breath, thinking that he is the reduction xerox of his father. And at others, I get the feeling he is the spitting image of my father, of whom I am the spitting image, ergo, by extension the spitting image of me. I often wonder how it could be possible that the child looks like both of us, and much minute examination of his appearance has happened and the features have been analysed in great detail. The central triangle of his face is all mine. The nose, it is advancing beyond the paternal limitations and seems to be promising enough to take after mine, the eyes are mine, the lips, the chin. All mine. But he is still so much his fathers son. In the way he walks, in the shoulders which are already broader than the hips, in the solid length of his legs, in the sudden stormy face.

I remember all my life, looking radically different from my mother. And it often getting commented on by folks. With the brat, it has been a pleasant debate always of whom he resembles more. Now, I've decided he's not the spitting image of either of us, but his own person. A lovely blend of the best and the worst of both of us. And that is exactly how it should be.

CSAAM April 2011-How soon is it to begin teaching your child about the touch to be avoided

2011-04-01T22:44:00.000-07:00

The brat was all of around three something or nearing four when I took matters seriously and sat him down for a detailed conversation on the touch. "Brat," I told him. "Your nu nu and your bum are places where no one should touch you. Nor should you touch anyone's nu nu or bum."
He nodded wisely. I soldiered on bravely. "If anyone touches you there, say no. Dont let them. Shout loudly. Scream. Tell them that you will tell your mamma. Okay?"
He nodded again, in familiar wise manner. "Okay."
"Did you understand me?" I asked again. "Yes, mamma," he said and bounded off to play with some action figure who I had heartlessly employed in being demo model for parts of the body off limits to any adult. Apart from Mamma.

A few days later I got a frantic call at work from Nana who was babysitting the brat for the day. "Talk to him," she said in a resigned tone. "Tell him I am allowed to wash his bum. He's been sitting on the pot for almost an hour refusing to let me touch his bum."

I hastily informed the brat that Nana and Daadi were allowed to touch the bum for post potty washing sessions or to bathe him if mamma was not around. The lesson, I was glad to know, was clear. He had assimilated it.

Now that he is older, he has been sat down with the Visual Encyclopedia and shown the parts of the body which are offlimits for any adult to touch. Any adult. And any older child. Because we have had instances within the building complexes of the older children preying on the younger child. But that's another topic and another post.

This post is about when is the right time to start talking to your child about the good touch/bad touch or the safe/unsafe touch as the NGOs these days are calling it.
I would say as soon as the child begins to understand the parts of the body, can understand what you are trying to say and can inform you if anything happens.

This link: http://www.thomashaller.com/PAwhatchildrenshouldknow.html
has some interesting age appropriate points made and I quote:
Age 2 to 3
Between the ages of 2 and 3 (the toilet training years) is a good time to talk about bodily function and to foster positive attitudes about body parts. How you react and respond may have the greatest impact on what your child learns during this time. For example, young children think that bowel movements are part of their bodies. If they are told that bowel movements are bad, they may feel that they are bad too (ACOG Patient Education Pamphlet). This age is also a time to teach children about who can touch them and where and how to tell a parent or adult if they have been touched in a way that has made them uncomfortable.
By the end of this stage children should:

have a positive attitude about bodily functions
have an understanding of bodily functions
know about “good touch/bad touch”
know who can touch them and where
know how to tell a parent or adult if they have been touched in a way that has made them uncomfortable
know that they are lovable and why

It is never too early to teach your children about their bodies, and that no one has the authority to touch their bodies. The earlier the better I say. Don't ever be the ostrich with your head in the sand assuming that sex abuse will not happen with your child. The statistics out there prove that 53 percent of children have been sexually abused, boys as much as girls. The age of abuse starts from as early as 2 and the maximum abuse happens between 5 and 12, and this is the age when the child understands and can communicate. Talk to your child. As much as you can. Use a doll, use a visual image of the human body, gently talk about body parts and explain that if someone does touch them on the parts which are their private parts they should not allow it and they need to come and tell you or whoever is the closest adult-maybe a teacher if it happens in school. Empower your child to say no, I dont like this.
Remember the three best words you can teach your child are No/Stop/Tell. They might just scare off a potential molester from harming your child.

CSAAM April 2011

2011-03-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

Through the month of April, across the blogosphere, we will be talking about Child Sexual Abuse Awareness. Over 40 blogs will be participating, survivors will tell us their stories, some of them anonymous, child counsellors and educationists will write in, NGOs working in this field will post on the subject. All aimed towards teaching us to be aware, alert, and be able to empower our children to resist child abuse. To give us the strength to tackle it if it does happen, and to create the awareness about the fact that yes, it does, with over 50 per cent of our children and very often the abuser is not a stranger but someone from within the family itself or someone who is a close family friend or relative and has unrestricted access to our children.

We are welcoming posts, stories and opinions on this topic.
If you would like to share your story on your own blog or this blog, do mail us at csa.awareness.april@gmail.com.
You could post on your own blog using the code from our blog and insert our badge in your post. Do let us know about your post on the above email id so we could link it to our blog.

You can follow us on twitter at @CSAawareness
And do join our Facebook page here to join the debate and stay updated about the latest posts and discussions.
Visit our blog here to read our posts, a new one every day through April.
Be aware. Be informed. Empower your children to say no, to come and tell you if something is wrong. Remember, we owe it to our children to keep them safe.

Wolverine, here I come!

2011-03-24T23:59:00.000-07:00

So Hugh Jackman was in town as an attendee at the FICCI Frames. I got to know of it from a social networking site I seem to be spending half my life on, and did a prompt rolling on the floor, err, keyboard tantrum right then and there demanding why no one had informed me about his arrival and that this was a conspiracy to keep me away from his macho-ness.
At home, I informed the brat that Wolverine had landed in his city. "Why he's come here?" he asked pragmatically.
I informed him that he was here to attend a film festival.
"Who he knows jaan ke pehchaan ka in Bombay?"
Tough one, I assumed he had people doing bookings and things for him and an entire entourage which would accompany him and make his stay comfortable regardless whether he had friends or family here in Mumbai.
"Lets go meet him today. I wantu do shake hand.Bud how I'll do shake han, My han will ged cut!"
I informed him that this might be a little difficult to organise and if it had been organisable, wouldn't mamma have landed up screaming at the venue, her hair in a braid, wearing her Sunday best?
"I wantu meet Wolverine. Lesh go to his hotel. Which hotel he's staying at?"
I had no clue, I had to admit shamefacedly to the child. He tchaed me into further shame by stating practically, "See on googils. Type W O L V E R E E N and type B O M B A Y."
I auto edited the content typed to Hugh Jackman and Mumbai. Pictures of an innocous firang in regular clothes sprang up at me.
"Whuz dis?" commanded the brat. "That's Hugh Jackman, the man who acts like Wolverine in X Men," I informed the pintsize.
"Wherez his nails? His knives?"
Oh he isn't really like that all the time, that was just make up and costume for the shoot.
The brat looked a trifle disappointed. "He's like this now in Bombay. Widoud the nails?" Yes, I informed him, to see his face fall further.
"Den I don want to see him. He's lookin like any uncle. He's not looking like Wolverine."

And so we played Holi

2011-03-22T00:49:00.000-07:00

The brat loves Holi, That's a far cry from me who shuttered herself in behind closed doors every Holi while the hordes banged on the doors, pouring buckets of water into the house in frantci bids to get us to open the door and be converted into a scary faced creatures from the living dead. The brat, on the other hand, revels in drenching in compatriots in crime and getting bedraggled himself. Ergo, come holi and the celebrations for him begin from one week in advance where the critters chase each other round the building compound shpoting wild arcs of coloured water from their scuba tank back packed new age Made in China pichkaris which were stocked with enough water to drench a couple of adults from head to foot. And this would result in me keeping stocks of towels and spare Tshirts at the watchman's counter for him to be periodically changed and towelled off.
Ergo, on the day itself, I had to tie him down to the bed to prevent him running off down to play pichkari at daybreak. By alternating threat and guile I managed to hold him back till around 11 am, after which he was off like a rocket down, with his water tank strapped securely to his back, intent on decimating all the pintsizes who came in his path.
Holi celebrations are rather lavish in the society. For one there is a DJ belting out popular dance numbers and for another there is an inflatable tub filled with water put down for the express purpose of keeping all the knee highs concentrated in one spot so that the adults can keep an eye on them given that they would all be fair unrecognisable from the colour dousing they would get. And then there would be the mandatory raindance. Ah yes, water conservationists, please throw the stones at me another time, but we do have a few tankers worth of raindance every year.
Ergo, the brat was busy playing holi with his friends and I was busy getting drenched and dancing with mine, periodically casting an eagle eye over to where he was to check on him, and extricating him from the kiddy pool to change him into a dry set of clothes and towel him off, hang him out to dry in the sun for some time before sending him right back into the water. After a while, he emerged voluntarily from the tangle of kiddy arms and legs fighting for space in the little inflatable pool and sat down on a chair with a loud sigh. I hurried to him, "What happened, brat?" I asked, a little concerned.
"Nudding," he replied with yet another long drawn out sigh.
"Arey," I pursued with my line of questioning. I am nothing if not persevering. "Why did you come out of the pool."
He gave me his usual, scathing, "Moms Can Be So Duh" look. "I'm tired of playing. I want to take a short break now. Before playing again. I'm taking a Kit Kat break."
Errr. There was no Kitkat in sight. I looked around. "Okay. Take a break."
"I is taking a snacks break. Is the short recess. Where's my tiffin box?"
A passing waiter was hailed and the pintsized one was plied with enough starters to quell the rumbling in his stomach. And then he felt thirsty, so he meandered to the counter where the thandai, the cold beverages and the restricted access for children beverages were. "I wantu have water," he informed the person manning the counter. A sealed glass was duly produced for his consumption. He poked at it with the proferred straw and sipped thoughtfully. Finally fed and sated he marched back to his gang.
"Mamma," he warned me sternly. "Don get wet. You'll catch a cole and fall sick, then I will habtu take you to the doctor and you'll get a big injecshun."

About Facebook for the kids

2011-03-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

I was taking my customary evening constitional in the society premises when I was hailed by one of the brat's pint sized friends, a girl, all of seven, sharp as a button and with a penchant for coordination that had me hold my breath when I once spotted her with a bandaid in similar shades to what she was wearing.

"Aunty," she said. "Add me to your Facebook."

I gasped. No, I wasn't about to give her a grammar lesson then and there, but the thought that the child could be on facebook had me shocked. "Are you on Facebook?" I asked gently, trying hard to stem the fumes of disapproval emanating from my every pore and skunking up the air in the immediate vicinity.

"Yes," she trilled. "Add me to your Facebook." She repeated. And spelt her name out, along with her surname in the event that I needed help finding her.

I nodded vaguely and walked off, determined to accost her mother and inform her of the forays into social networking her just out of diapers child (in my head) was making. The perils of the internet flashed in my head and built up scenarios so scary that I was hyperventilating by the end of ten minutes and had to call her mother. "Do you know D is on Facebook," I barked without the preamble of a Hello, How are you when she answered the phone.

"Yes, I know, I opened her account for her," replied the mom in calm dulcet tones which made me feel like I was the harridan here.

"Don't you think it is a little too early for her to be on facebook." I ventured hesitantly. "No," she replied, "All her friends are on facebook, and I wanted farmville points."

I ended the conversation abruptly and swore on all that was holy that the brat wouldn't get within inches of Facebook while I had life left in me. And then I got on the computer and opened my facebook account to hope folks had said nice things about a photo of self I had uploaded (Yes, I'm rather vain like that. I need constant validation that I haven't morphed into one of the Ugly Sisters) when I found a friend request from another just turned seven year old who plays Beyblade matches with the brat in the lobby. He earnestly requested me to add the brat onto facebook so they could chat together and play blasted Farmville. I explained to him as patiently as I could that the brat was not getting on Facebook if I had anything to do with it, and that I thought he too was too young to be on Facebook and did his mother know. She did, he replied. So I left it at that.

The other day, the brat came up after an evening's play and asked me, "Mamma, yu are on Facebook?"

I replied in the affirmative, steeling my heart for the request which I thought would invariably follow this question. "Even A is on Facebook, and D and P. Everybody is on Facebook. Such boreding peepuls. They wantu be in a book. I tole them you sit inside a book, I will play Beyblade."

What is your take on kids being on Facebook? Do you approve of it, and would you allow your child below 14 to be on facebook? If yes, how do you control his or her online presence? Am curious. Maybe, I'm missing the bus here.

The brat as a photographer

2011-03-15T22:52:00.001-07:00

The brat has a thing about clicking photographs. And more often than not his favoured subject is me. At any given point when the mobile if left unattended, you could bet your heirloom stamp collection on him crawling all over the place looking to click random pictures of me. Having said that, I find he clicks the best pictures of me, and have tried to analyse it. Is it the fact that he clicks me from a lower angle than the spouse does? The spouse, actually, when handed a camera and asked to click when one is all dressed up and pancaked will move his elbow maybe an inch above its resting position and click from whichever angle he happens to be at which is, on a regular basis, comatose in front of the television. That doesnt make for good angles, nor for good photographs. Add to it the great reluctance with which he takes the camera from one's hand, or snaps irritably when asked politely to please click my divine self, grumble for the first few seconds about the need to preserve my image in posterity before condescending to actually getting activated to do the necessary clicking. And then refuse to do second shots if the first doesn't come out too good, which of course it doesn't and will inevitably feature me with the fan above at ceiling level looking like a lopsided halo, or be clicked at just the right angle to make me look even more pyramidical than I am, with all the multiple chins and stomachs in full view.
The brat on the flip, will fuss around, move himself here and there in a bid to get a good angle, ask me to turn to face him, exhort me to flash them pearly yellows, tell me I'm looking priddy and click and then decide it isn't good enough and click again. And again, and again till he gets something he is satisfied with. Sometimes he goes on a total rampage and clicks me looking like the Axe Murderer, or when I sleep drugged and can barely leverage the lids of my eyelids open or worse still when I am eating, making me out to be a competitor at them Guinness Record type things.

And then show his work of art to me for praise and show it all round for appreciation. It is rather flattering. And it is a sign of times changing that this reminds me of courtship days when the spouse would finish an entire roll of film (what? We were young in the days when one had to buy a roll of film, put it into a camera and click, and then unwind the damn film, trot across to a photography studio where the damn prints would be made, and die chewing our nails about how the pictures would turn out until we got them prints with the mandatory photo album after a couple of days) just clicking me at shutter speeds that weren't meant for the instamatic camera in his hand.
I guess I should enjoy being the focus of the brat's viewfinder until a girlfriend comes on the scene, right?

About Very Bad Words

2011-03-15T00:50:00.000-07:00

The brat siddled up to me last evening.

"Mamma," he asked, in the curious tone that presages complicated questions which will undoubtedly have mamma refer to google or the complete visual thesaurus and such like.

"Yes, brat," said mamma, still calm and confident that she could handle any question of whatever category thrown at her.

"F U C K is a very bad word, no?" he asked, his eyes gleaming with the thrill of having said something that he knows is verboten.

"It is a word that children should not be using," I replied, refusing to go into the semantics of the word.

"Bud Pappa says it sometimes. Like wen we was watchin the Cricket Match with Saoud Africa and India. He said F U C K many times when peepuls were gedding oaud."

Mamma debated internally on how to tackle this. "He did, did he? Let me tell him that it is not a nice word to say and then he will stop saying it."

A lopsided grin split the brat's face. "Arey, he's nod goin to stop saying it. Today he's wearing it on his teeshird. F U C K. No no. F C U K. He changed the alphabeds bud I could still read it. Is a bad word to wear on the teeshird no?"

Mamma resolved to hide the pater's said brand Tshirts at the bottom of heap.

Of being allowed allowances

2011-03-14T00:11:00.001-07:00

Sometime ago, totally eardrum pierced with the brat's incessant whining about various wants, including, "A new Beyblade, Lays Kurkure, Gems Surprise Ball," ad infinitum, I had decried to the brat that he would now on be endowed with a monthly allowance. Of a princely hundred rupees. I thought it was appropriate, given that his counting skills stopped at hundred and could not be forced to go any further despite my best efforts.
I also thought it was princely, given I remembered growing up in the dark ages, when exact bus fare was handed over to me every morning before I made the long journey alone from home in Goregaon to school in Bandra, and me barely a year older than what the brat is today. The brat, on the flip, had just been allowed independence enough to make the long journey from the 15th floor to the ground floor, with much trepidation, beating heart and standing outside the lifts watching to make sure it didn't get stuck at any floor, followed with a call to the lobby security to ensure he had emerged from said lift and was headed towards the park.I've got my rotors on overdrive on my helicopter parenting.
Anyway, I digress. As is the norm. The discussion was on the Rs 100 I had earmarked to be the brat's pocket money every month, which he promptly put into his blue and green Ben 10 wallet, slipped into his school bag and ended up dragging me into the supermarket to blow it all up on multiple surprise balls in the hope of getting some elusive character which inevitably would never be there, and thereby start the nagging for the next round of pocket money to be advanced immediately on the spot.
I think he didn't quite get the concept of pocket money and immediately cancelled the idea, informing him that pocket money was not something he was likely to get his mitts on for a while now given that he seemed to think he was owed Rs 100 by me for each day of the entire month. Much whining ensued and a stern deaf ear turned to said whining.
The brat, being the brat, he turned his attentions to the grandmothers and began wheedling out funds from them in order to fund his Beyblade habit despite mamma's protestations to the contrary.
A talk on the value and importance of money being in order, the brat was settled on the maternal knee for a discussion on materialistic goods and the importance of earning money to pay one's bills, and how he needed to earn his allowance in the same manner that mamma and pappa went to office to earn their money. Mamma elucidated on the potentiality of him getting cracking with his studies, making the ye olde maternal ticker burst with pride at him coming home in filmi style telling her he came "First Class First" in class, and she could crack her knuckles over his ears and do the thali with diya business around his face, taking care not to singe his overgrown hair. He listened gravely, in the manner that a brat mind ticking has.
"Okay, I will be responsible about my money." Mamma, reached for the earbuds to clean out her earwax convinced she was having auditory hallucinations. "I will earn my money."
Mamma continued to nod sagely, thinking about arrangements where room kept neat and tidy, homework done without mamma needing to break into song and dance of threats with wildly swinging rulers as deterrents to making Ben 10 sketches on home work sheets. "I will stop going to school and come wid you to offiss. And I will sit on d computer hole day and watch Justin Bieber songs."
Mamma decided the lecture on money and financial wisdom could wait a bit longer. As for now, mamma will continue to be the brat's wallet. And a sinking feeling tells her, this state is going to continue for a long while to come.

How do you push your child off from the 19th floor?

2011-03-09T22:47:00.001-08:00

When I read the newspaper yesterday, this question kept haunting me through the day. How could life seem so full of despair that you would kill yourself and kill your two innocent children as well, children who trust you for every single thing and have accompanied you unquestioningly to the 19th floor. Is it an act of desperation, or an act of pure selfishness, a statement that since you have brought the child into the world, it is your prerogative to take the child away from it. Or is it a gesture of defiance against the people who have led you to take such a terrible step, defiance that states, well, you got rid of me, but I'm taking my children with me too. Or a sense of hopelessness that there was nothing in the world for either you or your children to look forward to and therefore you needed to kill yourself and your children.

What could cause a mother to kill her children?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I know for sure when a person gets into a depressed state of mind, irrational thoughts dominate the mind and the thought process. I will not comment on Nidhi's domestic situation, it seems to my mind, like what a majority of Indian women go through, nothing that merits jumping off a building and taking two innocent lives with her. I would see this as an act of cowardice.

She was well educated. She could have walked out and earned her living, and supported her children if the domestic situation was so intolerable. She could have stood up for herself and her rights if she did not wish to be 'dominated' as the newspaper reports go. She could have see a life with her children out of the marriage, given that she was surely capable of earning a living.

Or was it that she had been so conditioned by family pressures that she couldn't contemplate a divorce and raising her children on her own. Or was it that she was in the grip of an irrational overwhelming bout of depression that wasnt allowing her to think rationally. I'd like to think it was the latter. We do crazy things when depression grips us. We women are conditioned to keep things quiet, not talk about issues that are upsetting us, sweep things under the carpet. Our anxieties build up within us until we implode. Maybe this was what happened with Nidhi.

I can only feel my heart breaking at the thought of the two innocent children who willingly and trustingly accompanied their mother to the 19th floor only to be hurled to their death.

Kaan pakad kar uthak baithak

2011-03-09T19:51:00.000-08:00

I've been lax in replying to the comments all you wonderful people leave. In my defence, I mainly post from my gmail account. And am on a regular day running around like a headless chicken. Which is no excuse. Please keep commenting. Will try, cross my heart, to reply promptly.

Am I forgiven? *Makes puppy dog face*

All about pimples...

2011-03-08T22:56:00.001-08:00

The brat looked at his maternal face with great scrutiny last evening while mamma was laughing at something totally ridiculous, involving how the second little pig was busy hanging picture frames on the wall of his twig home while the Big Bad Wolf was all set to huff and puff and blow his house down.

"Mamma," he said, stabbing his index finger into my cheek. "You have one pimple here. And another there," stabbing the other cheek. Mamma sprang up from the bed and sprinted at Usain Bolt speed to the mirror and examined her visage under the clear flourescent light. There was no vile acne eruption to be seen.

"Where brat," she asked in pained tones. "Where are the pimples? I can't see any."

The brat lounged on the bed, reluctant to rise to his feet and point out said offensive collection of bacterial Vesuvius.

"Is on bod sides of yer face. On yer cheeks. See properly."

Mamma went closer to the mirror, and examined herself again, and reached out for the Salicylic Acid Foaming Face Wash by Neutrogena that promised to make her skin behave its age. She washed said visage and peered again. No pimples to be seen. A few scars left by pimples of yore but no fresh eruption.

"Come here brat, show me the pimples," she commanded. And added in a sharp, not to be disobeyed tone, "Now."

He hauled himself to his feet like an asparagus left out in the sun. And trundled across to the mirror. And looked at mamma looking at herself.

"Is not dere now. You habtu laff very loudly. Laff," he commanded. Mamma complied meekly and smiled wide enough to split her face in two.

"Dere," he jabbed again in mamma's cheeks. "Dere see, the pimples in yer cheeks."

Mamma breathed a deep sigh of relief and began the tutorial on how those crevices in the cheeks caused by smiling are called 'dimples' and not 'pimples'.

Dividing our sleep routine

2011-03-04T00:31:00.001-08:00

The brat has been summarily chucked out of the parental bed, with much
handwringing joy and thanksgiving on the part of the pater, and his
designated sleep space is with daadi.
Inevitably, he emerges, like a cat burglar in the stealth of the
night, after pappa's snores have begun to shake the ground. He pokes
his head in around the door, tip toes in, or squirms on his belly on
the floor right till he reaches the other end of the bed where mamma
is and insists on sleeping down on the floor until he is sure that the
pater will not be woken up by his presence in the room. Occasionally
he camouflages himself in the laundry basket until the father begins
snoring and then emerges, and sleeps on the thinnest sliver of
bedspace ever.
If he decides to sleep with daadi, as he often does, he pokes his head
in, says his goodnights loud and clear to pater and mater and clears
off with not a moment's lingering. And occasionally he will take it
into his head to sleep in his own room, which is unfortunately,
located at the other end of the home, and ergo, is terrified of being
mauled by ghosties who might take it into their heads to pay him a
visit there if he sleeps unsupervised. Consequently, he will march
into mamma's bedroom, pick up, with proprietorial air, her pillow and
blanket and deposit them on the bed in said room. And mamma must
follow him there and spend the night falling off the sliver of a
single bed, which was meant for a single child but which now must
occupy an overgrown adult and one child.
This morning, after having spent all night being crunched into a space
which was not a centimeter more than my actual dimensions, mamma asked
the brat seriously to come to a conclusion about where he planned to
sleep every night.
"One day wid mamma and pappa. One day wid daadi and one day in my room."
Why can't you decide where you want to sleep and sleep in one fixed room brat?"
"Is boreding. You get different dreams in different rooms."

And this is how we celebrate a birthday party....

2011-02-28T21:09:00.000-08:00

With some mock fighting...

With genuine tashan

Being all smarmy and chocolate pie when hauled up for it

And then being best friends all over again

Being all gallant and gentlemanly...

And finally swiping off all the balloons from the walls to prick with toothpricks resulting in permanent migraines for mamma.

(In Parul's words, this post is protected by Suraksha Nazar Kavach as bought from Teleshopping network)

What happened when mamma took off over the weekend

2011-02-28T20:32:00.001-08:00

And so mamma took off to the distant climes of Lavasa over the weekend, ostensibly to follow the women rallyists who were driving down from Mumbai to Lavasa to celebrate International Women's Day (A little in advance albeit), and as also to satiate mamma's curiousity about the hilltown under construction, rumoured to be as pretty as a postcard and almost like a mini Switzerland transported to the Sahyadris (which it is, almost, but more on that in another post).

The brat was left behind in the very meticulous care of daadi and the not so meticulous care of pappa. This was the first time ever that mamma has, in seven and a half years of the brat being in existence, stayed away from him for a night and a complete day at a stretch and mommy guilt kept striking occasionally.

The brat also had his annual dance performance of his dance class company and mamma was going to miss it. More cause for mommy guilt to take up permanent residency in mindspace. When mamma left early in the morning, the brat was snoring his baby snores contentedly, so she pecked his cheek gently and went off. Unfortunately a misadventure with a medu vada sambar at the Expressway Food court led to immediate food poisoning and she spent most of her first impressions of Lavasa heaving into whichever nearest basin or plant holder seemed available. A quick trip to the Apollo Hospital located in the vicinity and she was back right as rain, and decided to call the critter, but realised he would have left for his dance performance. She called later in the night, on daadi's phone and was treated to a rhapsody on how wonderfully the brat had danced. Mamma teared up a bit in pride and regret that she had missed it but looked at the sparkling lights on the lakefront promenade and was soothed a bit. The phone was duly passed on to the brat, who was immensely curious about the hotel mamma was put up at. "Mamma, you gotta beeeg wall TV?" Like there are no wall TVs at home. But the hotel wall TV is something else in his books. Yes, I replied. "You gotta swimming pool?" No, I replied. "You gotta fridge fulloff juice and choclits and cashews and pappa's beer and small boddles?" No, I replied. "Dere's a beeeg buffet fer dinner wid lods of chikken mutton fees?" I replied, no, yet again. He lost complete interest in my holiday, and any lingering regrets at not accompanying me disappeared. "Okay, bye."

The next day on the way back, Mamma's phone was ringing multiple times. "Yes brat," she replied. "Ger fer me a Beyblade. Metal Fusion. Dark Wolf. Because I wuz a good boy an I dint trouble daadi." That deserved rewarding surely, mamma agreed and hunted down a Beyblade Metal Fusion Dark Wolf in the little bylanes of Goregaon station market where she had been dropped, lugging her travel bag with her. Finally, she found the one she wanted, paid a price she knew was double the actual cost, these being China wares and therefore no fixed price, and found herself an auto to get home. She entered the building and saw the brat hunched around the Beyblade stadium with his cronies. "Brat," she called out in joy, he looked up and came bounding to her. "You got my Beybladet?" She handed it over, hugged and kissed him, he squirmed out of her embrace, wiped the kiss on his cheek with the back of his palm, and bounded towards his friends bearing the new Beyblade aloft.

Mamma picked her bag and trudged home, feeling a little bereft that there was no further joy demonstrated upon her return. Daadi assured her that the brat had been exemplarily well behaved and hadn't shown her the T of trouble, nor had he seemed to miss her. The brat, mamma blinked back the pricking tears forming at the back of her eyes, had truly grown up. Mamma was not needed anymore. Mamma was torn between feeling proud about having raised a non clingy child and bereft at not being needed.

The brat then returned from playing down. And threw himself into mamma's lap. And hugged her tight. "Don go again. Okay." Ah well. Even big boys can miss their mammas I guess.

After Spiritual Parenting, it is now Spiritual Pregnancy

2011-02-24T23:31:00.001-08:00

As every mother and expectant mother would agree, pregnancy is the one time in our lives when we truly begin to understand and experience our own little miracles. From the sight of the pulsating foetus in our womb during the ultrasound examinations, to the growing roundness of our bellies telling us that new life is burgeoning within to the kicks and hiccups the baby has within the confines of our uterus making us acutely aware that we are hosting new life.

A new book titled Spiritual Pregnancy, from the author of the best seller Spiritual Parenting, Gopika Kapoor talks about just how spiritual an experience pregnancy can be.

The author shares her learning from her own journey as a mother of twins and the spiritual insights that guided her. Her pragmatic and reassuring voice not only tells you how to deal with surprise pregnancies, crazy hormones, overbearing relatives and tired sex lives, but also gives great advice on baby showers, alternative birthing methods, post-baby body image, and how to stay energized and positive through it all.

For all those pregnant, or planning a baby, this sounds like an interesting read.

Of a mom who deserts her only child on the weekend

2011-02-24T00:23:00.001-08:00

So this weekend mamma is off on something that she has never done before, and the daadi and the pappa have kindly consented to take charge of the brat for the couple of days that she will be out of town.

The brat has been duly informed that his mater will be unavailable to regulate his movements and mamma honestly thought that he would throw the metaphorical cap in the air, like the inmate of some incarceration unit released into fresh air and sunlight.

Instead, the brat has been moping around like a toad who lost his tongue reflex. "Don go mamma," he whines while mamma tries to get out the cement he got into his hair after a cement throwing session down in the compound the previous evening, which seems to have solidified in the night despite all her attempts to brush it out. "Don go," he whines, flinging both arms around mamma's legs, eyes glistening with tears, lips quivering with sobs.

Mamma hushes him and assures him that he can play down till longer hours with mamma not around to scream about him getting himself back home on the double. About no one yelling at him to brush his teeth at bedtime, nor anyone sitting with him and taking him cruelly through many worksheets of Present continuous tense and three digit multiplication.

At night he crawled into bed with mamma, and clung on for dear life. "Mamma don go. Mamma take me wid you."

Mamma realised that for the past seven and a half years she had not spent a single night away from the child and decided that, no matter how earnest the pleas, she would stay away for the night as planned. It was time the brat learnt that mamma was dispensable.

The next morning she caught the brat shoving in his Beyblades, a couple of pyjamas and some tshirts into a duffel bag. "What are you doing brat?"

He looked up, embarassed to be caught. "I is packing. I'm comin wid you.I is nod staying behind widaoud you.Is boring to be Saturday Sunday widaoud you."

Hmmm.

Of the boy who forgot his dialogue

2011-02-22T23:48:00.000-08:00

The brat had his culminating activity yesterday at school. Now what is the culminating activity, you might wonder, gentle reader, and a very valid question that is too.
The culminating activity at the brat's school is a performance and presentation event which has the kids put up a skit and performance based on the topics they have learnt during the semester, it is basically meant to recap all the topics learnt and the parents are meant to attend and applaud violently.
And so the brat was assigned the job of describing posters on Health and Hygiene and Air Pollution and as was to be expected he was running himself into dogged little circles mixing up the two very separate spiels he had to rote off for each.
Ergo, with a couple of days to go before the big day, mamma earnestly requested the teacher to shorten the paragraphs to something that wasn't quite so much of long, unending sentences with 'difficult' words and convuluted construction. The teacher took one look at his abashed face and jotted down shortened versions of both paras which mamma proceeded to reel off to him morning, evening and night. By the end of two days of repeating it ad nauseum to him till I dreamt of Air Pollution charts flying down from the sky and attacking me, he had finally got it down pat. Mamma was proud of him, and despatched him in civilian raiments, comprising striped footer jersey and dark denims for the momentous occasion.
Then came the moment, the swarm of parents moved slowly down the narrow corridor listening patiently to the children posted on either side explaining the charts and posters that had so obviously NOT been made by them and were rather the result of arduous hours of afterschool waiting back by the class teachers. All the kids were spit polished and rattled off their lines perfectly. We moved expectantly to the brat. He looked at all the faces towering over him and gulped. And then gulped again. And looked at me, and looked at his class teacher. We both prompted him. He began bravely, stuttered through one sentence, trailed off in the second and completely shut down by the third, pointed to the wrong charts with the wrong dialogue, and then finally gave up all efforts at saying it right and just grinned cheekily at everyone, saying, "Is all written here, read it!"

He got away by getting his cheeks pulled and getting chucked under his chin, and getting his hair ruffled. None of the others who did their bits perfectly got anything apart from applause and well done.

Mamma asked him later, "What happened, brat, you knew your dialogues, why did you not say them correctly?"
He looked at her with his most bechara expression, lips quivering with fear, "I god frightened. Eveybody wuz looking at me." Mamma couldn't help but pull his cheeks and ruffle his hair herself. The ticking off was reserved for another time.

Would you be able to live in a 11 by 11 room?

2011-02-17T21:52:00.000-08:00

The first time I read this book by Emma Donoghue, Room, I speed read it. It is the kind of book that can be speed read. Also, it is the kind of gripping that compels one to speed read through it with a kind of twisting in the gut feel that overwhelms you for the five year old protagonist.
To get the summary out of the way first. Jack is a five year old boy who has always lived in a 11 by 11 room, he has never seen the outside, his only exposure to the world outside is through the television which is on constantly in the Room he shares with his mother. Who we are told is pretty and scared. She has good reason to be. She has been kidnapped and held hostage against her will in a lead and steel encased backyard shelf with a special electronic door code by a man Jack only knows as Old Nick. The story is about how Jack and his mother make a plan to escape Old Nick, how they succeed in their plan and the most painful part of the story, their reintegration back into regular society. For Jack's Mom, a world she is familiar with, a world she has grown up in, until that fateful day when she got pushed into a truck and kidnapped. For Jack though the integration into a world he has never known is much more complex, because he must deal with many more people than just his mother and old Nick. An a vaster, infinite sense of space, compared with the cramped confines of the 11 by 11 room.
When Jack emerges from his incarceration, it suddenly does hit us as readers that this is a malnourished child, a child deprived of sunlight, ergo, with stunted growth. A child who has long hair and skin pale from being indoors for his entire life, and eyes that cannot take the brightness of sunlight, nor skin that can bear being exposed to sunlight. Jack's only references to the world he has now been thrust into is the world of Dora and television he has been exposed to in his entire life in captivity. Not only this, he has spatial perception and other developmental issues having been deprived of social contact through his formative years. Much like the wolf children of myth of legend, the Mowglis and the Tarzans, Jack is a child who has been out in the wilderness, and must retrain himself to adapt to a world which is familiar yet unknown.
The child, his precociousness compounded by the fact that he has grown up with a single adult, is astonishingly adult like in his sense of logic. The characters are built with empathy, the voice of the protagonist, is amazingly adult like and the personification of all the objects in 'Room' create an intimacy with the claustrophobic environment the boy and his mother lived in before their escape. Thankfully, the narrator does not detail any abuse, and the repeated rapes of the mother are implied by creaks of the bedsprings, rather than viewed by the child. While parts of this novel might seem improbable, we do have the real life case of Josef Fritzl to know that truth can inspire fiction.
At the end of the day, this isn't a story about captivity and confinement, and rape and all its horrors. This is the story of a mother's love for her son, and her determination to get them out of the helpless situation they are in. The mother is not perfect, but one has to admire how she has protected her child from her captor, and how she has created a semblance of a scheduled life even in captivity for a child to have a routine to look forward to.
The voice of Jack, who is the narrator of this tale, which does seem older than his age at first, haunts you. And as a mother of a young brat, as I hugged my son to sleep at night, I prayed a little prayer for the untold Jacks in the world today.

About my best friend in Canada

2011-02-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

The brat and I sat the other evening flipping through the atlas.

"Mamma," he asked. "Were iz Canada?"

I turned the pages to North America and pointed out requested country, delighted that the child was showing some interest and showed him the national flag, and how it represented the maple leaf, and how Canada has French and English speaking people and how the Toronto TV tower is (was?) the tallest in the world. And how Sikhs from India are probably the densest ethnic minority there.

He listened gravely, and nodded.

"Who's our jaan ka pehchaan ka in Canada?"

"No one actually," I replied. Plenty of family friends and aquaintances are in Canada but no one the brat really knew.

"In my summer holeedayz I'm going to gotu Canada. For entire vacation."

Err, okay, I replied, but where will you stay?

He looked unperturbed. "I have my fren dere. My bes fren. Justin Bieber. I will stay at his house. You don worry Mamma."

So, its me again.

2011-02-10T21:00:00.001-08:00

And probably by now you are at the point where you might barf if you
hear me say the words 'Tiger Mom" and "Amy Chua" in a single sentence
again, so I will just leave you with this link, and keep the barf bags
handy.

http://www.livemint.com/2011/02/10194059/The-Indian-tiger-mom.html?h=A3

The new Math champion

2011-02-10T20:10:00.001-08:00

In deference to Amy Chua, I must admit that I began kicking serious
brat butt when I realised that he was having a problem doing simple
addition and subtraction and was unable to count mentally.

Translated this meant I was tying him to his chair, not allowing him
to pee when he needed, and yelling like a banshee over his head. Err.
No. That was what I would have liked to do. Instead, I was insidiously
pushing worksheets at him, making him rote his tables at any free time
he had.

Ergo, mornings in the Manral household went something like this,
"Brat, tell me your seven times table."

And the brat, while seated on the throne, would rattle off the said
table and conclude, "Mamma, I finished."

"Yes, I know you finished."

"Bud I finished."

"Yes, you finished. Now tell me the eight table."

"Arey, Mamma," the brat would say, exasperation high in his voice, "I
finished potty."

Ermm.

And during his bath, "3 + 5, cmon fast, count in your head."

And he would reply, "8" and add in confusion, "Now I forgod which hand
I pud soap on."

Consequently, the other day, he came home with around 20
multiplication problems, all correct, marked with a star, a smiley and
excellent on his worksheet. Mamma hyperventilated. She twirled around,
she danced a clicking feet dance. She smothered him with sloppy kisses
which he promptly wiped off with the back of his hands, saying "Yuck
phtoeey."

"See brat," Mamma said, "The more you practise, the better you become."

The brat listened his face on serious mode.

That night, after dinner and Beyblade Metal Fusion which is his dinner
entertainment, and probably the one programme he gets to watch in a
day, he trotted off to his room, with serious intent writ large on his
face. Mamma trotted off behind him. He took out his Math worksheet
book and began solving pages on pages of the sums he could tackle. The
clock ticked. It reached 10.30 pm. Mamma's eyes were shutting down,
she pleaded with him to stop. "Only two pages more," he begged. Mamma
pinched herself to check if she was hallucinating. She lay down on his
bed and drifted off into sleep. She woke up with a start sometime
later to find the brat still hard at work. "Enough brat," she pleaded.
"Go to sleep now."

"Arey," he looked confused. "But you only tole me to take Maths
seriously. I am taking it very seriously. See! I'm not laffing."

Birthday party at a playzone

2011-02-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the brat was invited to a birthday party in the playzone of Inorbit mall. As any parent who has been within a 100 meters of these infernal zones knows, these are the zones where it is mandatory to enter with ear muffs and having downed a couple of tequilas and wearing sensible shoes like the ones made for top athletes to participate in Olympic level track and field events given that you will be spending the evening running at track speed through the maze of whirring, screeching, singing games, your eardrums minutes away from handing in their printed on plain paper resignations, trying to locate the spawn of your womb who was, just a second ago, just next to you while you replied to some message or some tweet and has now, inexplicably disappeared into the crowd.
I have, to be honest dear reader, not taken the brat to the playzone at any mall for well over a couple of years now. There was a phase when we went every single day, but those were the days when he didnt have any playmates in the building we lived in and yearned for the company of other kids and was happiest pummelling some other similar sized critter in the play pen. Ever since we moved to this complex, and he found hordes of critters ready to pummel and be pummelled in his own compound, the fascination with the playzone diminished. And add to it, honestly, my migraines cant deal very well with playzones, they start acting up, it begins with a sudden tight band around the head, then one eye begins throbbing and before I know it, the entire right half of my head is a throbbing, aching, shooting pain factory churning out more grief than I am willing to take without downing medication.
Apart from the physical discomfort of the playzone for me (Of course, the brat is most thrilled to be scooting around trying out various shoot and kill games and flying aeroplanes), it is the concept of it that worries me. Anyway, when this invitation came for a party in the playzone I accepted with much trepidation, steeled my nerves with many shots of caffeine, which made me jittery enough to be laughing for no reason other than that I found a reflection funny. Surely, folks were looking at me asking and wondering whether to report me to the authorities and have my kid placed in foster care. We reached early, the hosts had still not landed (am I the only person left on the planet who believes in reaching at the precise time mentioned on the invite?), stray children were running from game to game, the noise levels were surely not within permissible limits and could definitely lead to an increase in the sales of hearing aids.
The child, dapper in jeans and leatherite jacket, despite my protestations that Mumbai's summer was on us, was already darting from game to game, rolling on the floor tantrumming about wanting more credit on his card than I was prepared to give, considering that he would be playing the infernal games on unlimited credit for the next three hours once the party began. My calves began aching with the totally unsuitable to chasing kid around mallzone kitten heels I had slipped my feet into in the morning through force of habit. A brainwave struck me like a bolt of lightning and I despatch him happily into the jungle gym, then put my feet up and sipped a cappuchino at a table in a desperate bid to calm my nerves.
The hosts arrived, the child was extracted from the inner recesses of the jungle gym, tagged and given his card which had unlimited credit for a specific period of time. As you can well imagine dear reader, it was like letting the bulls out at Pampalona. After a little bit of teetering around, my feet completely gave up the ghost, and I grabbed a strategic point near the exit to ensure that the child did not exit the playzone without me noticing. And smacked self on the head for not thinking of this wondrous solution earlier. When I was finally called in for the cake cutting, I was confronted by a biker kid who claimed to be mine own offspring, with his hair gelled, spiked up and resplendent in neon hair colour, a snaking Ed Hardyish tattoo. I almost demanded to check his person for identification marks before claiming him as mine own. The cake was cut, the pizza eaten, the return gift taken into custody and we said our goodbyes and marched off home. The child opened the wrapped return gift, twas a toy basket, lay down on the bed and was asleep within a couple of minutes, the exhausted to the bone, mouth open wide and snoring kind of asleep that lets errant insects inspect your adenoids.
This morning he woke up fresh as a chirping bird, on his own, without the effective sprinkling of water as is generally deployed to get him up and awake.
"Mamma," he chirped as I set his mug of milk down before him. "Can we go to d playzone again tuday?"

Of being watchdog to pintsizes

2011-02-04T03:27:00.000-08:00

The other day, due to some quirk of fate and infernal bad timing, I ended up being the only responsible adult down in the compound supervising a tribe of around 15 sweating running hellions who were playing the scariest game ever, aka, hide and seek. Ergo, I would be minding my own business, walking around at the speed of elephant, replaying all the fattening things I had consumed through the day and berating myself for having ladled out that extra bit which was totally unnecessary and totally avoidable.
Suddenly I realised the noise levels of 15 children squealing at the top of their voices was nowhere to be heard and there were no chest highs zooming past me every alternate second making me trip on my laces. I looked around in concern. Silence and calm greeted me. I yelled out names of the children in rapid succession, the silence continued. Palpitations began in earnest. I ran the length and breadth of the premises which comprises three completed towers, huge compound and parking and two towers under construction. I yelled to the best of my yelling ability which in medieval times could have found occupation as town crier. The older kids gathered that I was in some distress and joined forces yelling with me.
We went into the dank underconstruction parking area where some faint distant voices could be heard piping up and figured the critters were all there, hiding from whoever the unfortunate was who was the den. They were all summarily hauled up, lifted by their ears and deposited on lighted surface of the ground. And soundly yelled at by yours truly for having ventured into a construction zone, with building debris falling down, open iron rods lying around not to mention a very scary open septic tank which was spot bang in the middle of it all. Not to mention that it was way past sunset and the area was beyond dark. I did a swift head count, all the critters were in attendance. They were frogmarched back to our premises and informed that should they dare step beyond the boundaries, they would be drawn and quartered.
That night the brat came home, a little smirk on his face. I narrowed my eyes and looked at the smirk and realised that he was quite chuffed with something and I would need to pry it out of him.
"So, brat," I began gently, "You seem to be in a happy mood today."
He grinned widely, exposing all his teeth growing back at unequal lengths. "Today all my frens felt very sadly fer me."
Why is it, I asked. There was no need to feel any sympathy towards him, in my view, a little lack of sympathy would do him good.
"Everyone telled me, yer mudder is so strick. So sad fer you. Dey was all feeling very sad fer me becoss I have a strick mudder."
Err. And why is that? What made them conclude that I am strick mother, I asked, hoping to get to the bottom of this common consensus.
"Because you dint shaoud laoudly, but still eveybody got scaredof you."

All hail the Karate brat

2011-02-02T00:27:00.000-08:00

The Manral household has been in a stage of upheaval for the past few days. At any given point you can hear short swift cries of indeterminate origin causing me to rush out in horror expecting something of calamitious proportions to have occurred only to find the brat standing in martial art pose in front of the mirror, glaring in evil manner at his reflection like he was Bruce Lee incarnate facing evil whiskery mouched number with bad teeth and horrible dubbed voice.

And then he will administer two random rotating kicks to said mirror while I scream my protests in volumes so loud that surely someone will report me for child abuse to the authorities.

"What is this brat?" I will ask, when I have managed to get him to a decent distance away from the mirror to ensure he doesn't crack either said mirror or his foot, "I thought you were going to do your drawing?"

He raises an eyebrow and casts a look at me that has me quail. "Drawing is for gurlz. I am a karate champiyun. I do karate."

I retreat to a safe distance in the event that he decides to demonstrate the skills learnt in two lessons on poor hapless me.

"I will get a blackbelt and fight wid everybody."

I took it on myself to explain to him that karate was a sport, and he could use the techniques for self defence when assaulted by other bullies in the park but that he wasn't supposed to be the aggressor.

"Okay, I will nod start fighting. But if someone starts fighting wid me, I will do karate and break their bones."

The bloodthirsty vocabulary scared me. I wondered if I had done the right thing and whether I could go back to school the next day and demand my money back, and put the child in more gentle pursuits like art and craft.

"An when I get my black belt, you will be so proud of me, mamma..." he asked his eyes crinkling up as he looked at me and all thoughts of cancelling karate promptly disappeared in a foundation garment hook threatening chest swell of maternal pride.

Yes, of course, I will be proud of you, I replied in all earnestness. He quickly demonstrated what seemed to be a ferocious flying kick at an invisible opponent. "And then I will go for he competition in the ring and I will be the champion, and I will get a trophy."

I pleaded with him to take his karate one class at a time.

"When I grow up can I be a karate champion forever?" Well, that is a choice you have to take, I said. "But can I do karate with my Ben 10 costume. Dis white shirt and pant is very boreding."

And its now Rocky Balboa!

2011-01-27T23:33:00.001-08:00

Which flicking through channels the other evening, the brat chanced up
a tiny logo in the corner of the screen on Times Now which told us
that Rocky Reloaded would be telecast the next night at 9pm. Now, for
some history. The spouse is a fan of Rocky Balboa. No. Make that he is
the world's greatest fan of the Rocky Balboa series. Ever so often he
gets into Rocky mode and will watch his collection of the Rocky series
back to back and emerge in a daze slurring his vowels and looking
hooded eyed, if that were possible given the chinky hill tribe eyes he
has been genetically endowed with. And he will enlist the support of
the brat, and point out the high point of the movies to the brat,
shouting so excitedly during the bouts that neighbours call in
concerned that violence is erupting in the household, needing a Bell
Bajao intervention.
Having seen this logo, and knowing his father, the brat immediately
dialled his father. (The brat knowing our numbers by heart is proving
to be a bit of a pain, he can put any telemarketer to shame with his
persistence the days he is at home and a new Beyblade is desired).
"Pappa, tumorow in d night at 9 oclock is Rocky Reloaded."
The father replied, ostensibly expressing his excitement.
"We will see it. You and I. Led mamma see her udder boring movies."
Pappa was a faint rumble on the instrument.
"An I will see how Rocky hits and practise on you."
That's when Pappa discouraged further conversation and said they would
discuss it later.

*******
The next night, Pappa and brat completed their tasks for the evening,
which newly draconian mamma threw in one page of Math to be done, and
which was promptly dismissed as being a potential delayer towards the
watching of Rocky, and the duo settled down to watch the movie, dinner
dispensed with to allow for clear mouthed shouting at appropriate
junctions.

"Look at him training brat, look at him," yelled the Pappa.

"Right, left, right, left," the brat danced on his feet and jabbed
around furiously, shadow boxing at the reflected on the varnished
wardrobe.

Mamma sunk her carcass into the far corner of the bed, and put a
pillow over her ears and tried to get some shut eye.

A few seconds later the brat shook her shoulder.

"Mamma. I decided. I don wantu be a Justin Bieber. I wantu be a Rocky
Balboa. Get for me shorts and gloves. And give the hoodie jackids to
the poor chillun."

The new karate champ

2011-01-26T20:13:00.001-08:00

The brat's best friend, second best friend, third best best friend and
dear chaddi buddy all are enrolled as part of the post school activity
Karate. The brat, naturally, feels left out. He's probably at that
place non smokers are when the smoking public rush off hidden corners
in public places to grab a quick, furtive smoke. Ergo there has been
much whining for the past few days about, "I wantu do karate. I wantu
get a black belt."
Like black belts were being flung into the air for the grasping hordes to grab.
Finally yesterday, mamma and pappa sat him down and spoke with him
indepth on exactly why it was that he wanted to make Karate an
afterschool sport.
He got into full drama queen mode, Meena Kumari was nothing on him.
His lips quivered, his eyes welled over, his voice broke, "Everybody
teases me. Dey make funofme. If I know karate, I will bash them up."
Mamma, having been unimpeachable witness to umpteen occasions when the
brat has been sole instigator and basher up of many hapless victims,
with a ferocity which has led to mothers stepping into the fistfights
which have broken out with the entire pile of tykes a total rugby
scrimmage, demurred softly.
"No brat, tell me the truth, why do you really want to join karate?"
The face was back to normal, the voice had stopped quivering and sole
tear flickering on his lashes had dropped off. Maybe I could
investigate a career in theatre for him.
"I want to stay back after school. All my frens are dere. We will have
fun.An I will be cool like Jaden Smith. Widoud the hair."
That was, in a nutshell, the gist of what had occssioned the sudden
fascination with karate. Mamma is signing him up for the activity. Her
reasons are selfish too, she gets an additional hour at work. But now,
she needs to be really, really alert when the brat gets into a scrap
down in the park, lest he start implementing his new found karate
skills on unwary pintsizes.

So the brat performs tomorrow

2011-01-24T23:22:00.000-08:00

.. for Republic Day. And I did my little pushy parenting bit (apologies to Amy Chua) by calling up school and demanding that they audition him for the performance knowing that he would never raise his hand when asked who wanted to perform, he being the retiring, wallflower kind of person, or to be more specific, the one busy getting into fisticuffs at the back of the class when important questions were being raised. Therefore, he was taken for the audition. And selected, and ergo he will perform at the Republic Day function being held at school. My maternal heart overfloweth with pride.
He's been kept behind at school for the past few days for rehearsals, something I am enjoying as a working woman because it gives me one entire day at work. I go pick him up at five, by which time he is about as squeezed out of energy as a lemon post juice making. He troops down with the rest of the kids who have been selected to be part of the performance.
Moves sulkily towards me and raises his foot up. His shuffling gait as he traipsed down, which I had attributed to tiredness was due to him wearing a pair of shoes which were two sizes bigger than his foot. I just needed to stick him into a badly sized black suit, a black bowler and paste on a mouche and I would have had my own wee Chaplin.
"Someone wore my shuz!" he hissed.
He hisses when he is truly angry. "An I don know whu wore it. Everyone is gone now."
I choked back some laughter as he struggled to move a few paces without his foot coming out of said oversaized shoe.
"Dont worry brat, I will get this sorted out tomorrow."
"NO!" he hissed in capitals. "Go buy a new pair for me right now. I canna walk in this shoes."
I raised my eyebrows and insisted he divest himself of them, and walk in his socks to the car if they were so uncomfortable. There was barely ten steps of walking to be done.
"How can I walk in my socks? Everyone will laffatme! Dey will say he has no shoes. Den no one will be my fren."
I was, to put it mildly shocked. "Why would you think that no one will be your friend if you aren't wearing your shoes for two minutes, brat?"
Isnt there more to you than shoes, I asked. "No, I don wantu walk in socks. Everyone will laffatme. You only walk in socks in the temple. You cannot walk in socks in school."
Anyway, we managed to make it to the car by extreme slow and measured movement which was, incidentally much reminscent of the Chaplinesque shuffling to ensure the foot stayed in the oversized shoe. We sat in, and I asked him what he was performing to. "Is a ShahRukhKhan song."
I persisted. "Which song is it? Sing it to me."
"Bud I don habtu sing it. I have to dance it."

Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother

2011-01-20T21:07:00.001-08:00

Battle Hymn of The Tiger Mother
By Amy Chua
Bloomsbury
(Kindly sent in to me by Penguin)

The first I heard of this book was through the article in the Wall
Street Journal about Amy Chua's forthcoming book, which was discussed
hot on twitter and on the mommy blogosphere. Quills were bristling and
moms were quickly taking up posts on either side of the divide, and
some struggled to maintain a median position on the debate. I was then
invited to be part of a panel discussion on BBC World's Have Your Say,
which included a UK based mom and a BBC producer, a NYC journalist and
mom, a professor in American and a Chinese parent, and me,
representing the pushy Indian parent. Only, I am not the pushy Indian
parent.
But never mind the self pimping, the fact is I was very very keen to
read the book. While the precepts in the extract were a little
extreme, the fact remained that the book did make me feel a little
uncomfortable about just how lax I was with the brat's academics and
skills. I needed to pull up my socks and how.
So when Penguin kindly sent me in the book, I went through it in a
couple of days, reading like I had a gun held to my head. I would take
tips I thought, I would take what would work for me and keep the more
extreme stuff aside. I swore to myself that I would keep the fact that
Chua was a little extreme at the back of my mind, and not get fazed by
any stuff I read. But the book was strong. For a parent like me, who
has spent all of her seven years of parenting trying to build the
child's self esteem, this comes a complete shocker.
My impressions of the book. Firstly, what comes through very strongly
in the entire book is that Chua is trying to live vicariously through
her children. Her decision to raise the children the Chinese way,
while allowing the kids to follow the Jewish faith seems like a happy
compromise on the surface of it, with Amy's husband Jed, struggling to
make sense of Amy's bootcamp method of raising their kids, and playing
referee most times. .
According to Chua, the Chinese way of raising kids is tough love, love
that doesn't hesitate to criticise, love that enforces a regimen so
strict that it allows the children no childhood to run around and just
be children.
Her daughters, Sophia and Louisa, weren't allowed to have playdates,
sleepovers, or anything less than the top grades of their class — and
that they were expected to excel at the instruments Mom chose for them
(this is interesting, the children had no choice in the matter), the
piano and violin, respectively. Interestingly, while Chua's elder
daughter Sophia, was a docile child and went along with her mother's
plan for her, her sister Louisa had different plans, and went along
till a point, kicking and screaming, until one day things finally
broke and she completely went off the violin and took up, surprise
surprise, tennis.
Honestly, the reader sees the rebellion coming, it is surprising that
Chua didn't see it staring her in her face. The accounts of how she
bludgeons (metaphorically speaking of course) her daughters into hours
of music practice, (Interestingly the music seems to be the dominant
part of all her child rearing anecdotes) are downright uncomfortable
to read, especially as a parent. While she might have got one daughter
into Carnegie Hall, and that definitely is something to be proud
about, she's got there through an enforced regimen of hours of
practice, no down time, no sport, no school plays, which makes one
really feel sorry for the child.
Among the many anecdotes in the book, one that really horrified me was
the time she rejected her daughter's handmade birthday cards, because
it really seemed to me as a reader, that she was basically miffed at
her husband not making reservations at a better restaurant. To me,
that is sacrilege.
I don't know how her daughters turned out, and I'm hoping they are
well balanced young ladies right now, but I do know the line between
adoring your parents and hating your parents is a thin one, and
adolescence is a phase where most kids quickly go onto the other side.
What I did not enjoy about the book particularly was the vigorous
manner in which Chua puts down Western parenting, with their focus on
building a child's self esteem, giving the child an all round
childhood full of experiences with an appropriate focus on sport.
She writes "Western parents are concerned about their children's
psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility,
and as a result they behave very differently….That's why the solution
to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame
the child."
While name calling, and even calling the child 'garbage' something
that almost got Chua ostracised at a dinner party is definitely
unorthodox to say the least, the takeaway I did get from the book is
that children need to be pushed beyond the comfortable limits they set
themselves, they need to be handled firmly and not be allowed to sink
into pleasant mediocrity. The methods each parent might use to achieve
this might differ, I might use a blend of no nonsense you have to get
this done, along with some gentle encouragement but the base premise
does remain the same. One wants to encourage the child to go beyond
what they think they can achieve.
While Amy Chua's method might have worked for her, with one daughter
at least, it is not a route I would follow or even advocate. Childhood
prodigies and academic overachievers to the best of my knowledge and
reading have not had very happy lives. And I'd rather my son has a
happy childhood. And if he has a spark of genius, in any sphere, it
will manifest if he has self esteem, and confidence enough.

Save water campaign

2011-01-16T06:43:00.000-08:00

The brat is learning about water conservation at school. Consequently, he is the current water police at home. Self appointed. Would that all the police on the roads would be that earnest about enforcing rules of road discipline and so selflessly at that.

"Brat, why is your waterbottle still full?"
He looks at me with the kind of expression one reserves for one celled lifeforms on the evolutionary scale. The kind that reproduce asexually and ergo have no social life to speak of.
"I am saving water. We must not waste water!"
Mamma hastened to reassure him that water ingestion was crucial to metabolic efficiency and his waterbottle would not contribute to the water deficit in any substantial way.
"Okay, den I'll not take water to school. I"ll take Frooti. That will not waste water. Is also liquid."

*******

Mamma is now trying to get the brat functioning independently and as a consequence of that effort she insists the brat bathe himself on Sundays, without assistance from Mamma. Finicky readers might note the backs of the ear and the neck are duly checked with magnifying glass for traces of dirt when he emerges.
So it was that this morning I instructed the brat to divest himself of his raiments and enter the bathroom where toothbrush, bucket filled with hot water and a clean towel awaited him.
He rolled around complaining to deaf ears about the injustice of a small child being forced to clean himself without adult assistance, exhibiting the same reluctance the pater exhibits towards bathing on Sundays and national holidays. Well, all I can add is that they're both probably high in the stakes to Godliness on those days.
Mamma barked ferociously and got him scampering into the bathroom. He was out barely five seconds later, no part of his person showing any evidence of having made any contact with water and soap.
"Brat, did you have a bath?"
He clambered on the bed and began pouring himself into the clothes laid out.
"Stop, brat," said mamma, in firm decisive tone that brooked no disobedience. He finished his toilette calmly and took comb to hair.
"Did you have a bath?" Mamma repeated sternly. The Pappa added voice to mamma's query.
"I hadda sponge bath," he confessed gailyn much to mamma's horror, because it probably meant he had dry rubbed his body with the towel.
"I is saving water no?"
Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel

So should we all be Chinese mothers?

2011-01-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

This article by Yale professor Amy Chua is what had caused a furore over twitter and the mommy blogosphere a couple of days ago. Professor Chua, undoubtedly a very determined and focussed parent, had listed out, what in her books was the secret behind why many Chinese and Indian mothers produced offspring who are overachievers in academia. That, is something I cant debate with. But Chua's method's for getting her offspring to overachieve, though she did speak specifically that it was something specific to the Chinese culture and mindset. And she did include the Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents too.
The things her daughters weren't allowed to do, and I paste herewith:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.

had my jaw drop wide. For one, I admire the tenacity of the woman. I would not have the heart to be as focussed and as determined as she is. For another, the brat is a different child.
Lets talk about how I grew up for a start. I was the quintessential nerd, nose and thick spectacles buried foot deep into a book at any given time, I did no sport because primarily I had no athletic skills and was too overweight (a vicious cycle) and I can imagine the agony my father, a national level kabaddi champion and a state level cricketer could have gone through.Thankfully, my parents let me be. I grew up okay. I focussed on my love for literature and languages, and drifted into advertising and then journalism. I did pretty okay for myself. I remember I was horrible in Math. The mater got me admitted to a Maths class for my Class X boards. I quit in a couple of days after the professor insulted me in class for not being able to follow what he was saying. My mom didnt pressurise me to return, but just told me to ensure I did well in Math in the Boards, and guess what, I scored the highest in Math, not in Literature. Post Class ten I scored pretty high, in the 80s and at the time, higher than 80 percent meant one got into Science. But I got into Arts, because I was keen on studying literature. The mater didnt stop me. I might not be a high achiever today, but I definitely did have the potential, I know that for sure, an IQ test in my school days pegged my IQ score at 142. Its probably fallen to idiot level now. Reading Chua's article I wonder how different things would be had my mother applied some serious kick to my butt. Do I regret it? Not one bit. Not one moment.
I made my decisions. The consequences of my actions were explained to me. I was motivated enough internally to drive myself in things that mattered to me, and I had and still have oodles of self esteem that sees me through my lowest phases. If my mother had told me I was fat, I would have got an eating disorder.

Now for the brat. He is a very very different child from what I was. He started off with having delayed development. At that point, what I did could be considered pushy. I took him to speech and occupational and physiotherapy, three a week each for one hour each. The child lived in the car and he was not yet two. For three years, I took him regularly for therapy, I made him do the exercises at home, took him out in the evenings to get him to interact with people, and my happiest day was when I was told he no longer had any need for therapy. He was fine. I wanted him to be a regular child. Then I relaxed. He goes to school, he has tuitions and his grades are far from A. He plays for a couple of hours everyday, he watches television, plays on the computer, doesn't learn a musical instrument, participates not only in school plays but also society complex plays and events. He is a natural dancer, so the only class he attends, in this hyperparenting age of multiple classes is a dance class. And he will join swimming in a month, when the miniscule Mumbai winter gets over. He still has to learn to cycle, and he does not go for Art Class even though the only subject he gets straight As in is art. I am so not the Indian mom Chua speaks about. But I do see them all around me. And know that there is a reason they are so paranoid about their children not meeting high standards academically. Look at the competition for seats in colleges, for jobs, for professional courses, children who fail to make the cut will never make it. Plus we have a culture of rote education, rather than understanding. I see children committing suicide when they dont pass an exam and wonder why they would think failing one exam makes life not worth living. I hear of mothers committing suicide when their children dont make the percentage they want from them, and am horrified.

Maybe the brat will be mediocre. Maybe he will end up being a non entity. I would be happy if he graduates and is able to earn himself a decent living. If he has a talent which needs nurturing, I will push him for sure towards it, the way I drag him down for the dance class, but I'm not going to make him practise three hours a day, unless HE wants to practise three hours a day. And no way will I ever call my son garbage, but simultaneously I will never tell him that his Bs and Cs are acceptable. But it will always be, "You can do much better. You can do better." I will sit with him for an hour, but after he has played his heart out with his friends in the park.

I may not be a pushy mom, I may live to regret it later. But I want to be a mom who knows she has let her child have a childhood, he has the rest of his life to grow up and not have any fun.

What is your take on this debate?

(I was part of a panel on the BBC World Show Have Your Say on Amy Chua's article on Chinese Moms being better moms than Americans. Listen to the podcast here http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/whys)

The Maa Exchange

2011-01-10T02:26:00.001-08:00

The first I heard of this new show was when I was contacted to be on
it. I heard the concept out and promptly froze and made hurried
excuses. I had seen the American version of the show on Star World,
and I had absolutely no desire to be on a similar show, no matter how
tempting the prospect of having a camera and crew tail me 24 x 7
making a total ass of myself in someone else's kitchen.
Then add to it, the format. If this was for a day, I might still have
been tempted. But this was for an entire week. One week during which I
would take care of someone else's home and someone else's kids, while
they come and take charge of my home. The prospect was gut twisting.
And one week of letting someone else take care of the brat. Nope. Not
happening.
Then the promos started on the channel. Seeing the promos, whatever
little niggling doubts I had in my head were promptly erased. I could
deal with my own spouse, but living 24 x 7 in another's house, dealing
with someone else's fusspot spouse, thank you very much.
The other day, the brat and I were happily watching totally
inappropriate Bigg Boss Finale when the Maa Exchange promos came on. I
decided to check whether the brat was keen on having another mom for a
week.
"Brat," I said. "Should I go for this Maa Exchange programme?"
"Huh"
"I will go to someone else's house for a week, and another mamma will
come to this house."
He looked up at me, as if to double check whether I had not completely lost it.
"Bud wai? You don love me anymore?"
"Of course I love you darling, but this is just an experiment."
The next round the promos were repeated, he watched them intently.
"Dats a preedy mamma," he said when Pooja Bedi came on the screen. "I
want like dat new mamma."
The old mamma's heart sank to the bottom of her flabby butt. "She's
Pooja Bedi," I said. Keeping my voice neutral. "She's an actress."
He thought hard. "Dat's okay. Den she can do the new mamma acting
properly. Bud mamma, how you'll do acting in her hauz.Yu donknow tu
ackt."
The skirmishes began in the promos. He looked at them with eyebrows raised.
"Nah I don want a new mamma. How I'll ask her to wash my bum."

Edited to add: Yes, Divya, you're right, we were switching channels between Jhalak Dikhla Jaa and Bigg Boss Finale...

Of Dark Room games

2011-01-05T00:56:00.001-08:00

The brat has an entourage of pintsizes of approximately his age who run around the compound like pack dogs terrorising the little girls who come in their path.

They gather, foaming at the mouths with tiredness, in the lobby where steel plates or wide tubs or actual genuine Beyblade arenas are deployed to play their fearsome Beyblade matches, their primary contribution to which seems to comprise loud shouts of "One, Two and led id riiiiippppp!" Given the cavernous vaults of the lobby, the sounds echo so fearsomely that people with weak constitutions have been known to pass out in fear.

In the past couple of days though, the brat has been, with his friends, disappearing into friends homes (only after due permission granted by me, and only to homes where the mom of the house is a friend), to play dark room. What is this dark room I asked, understandably wary about having the throng enter my premises.

"We pud d laights off in d room, and we habtu hide in the dark and whoz d den he hastu make us aoud."

It sounded, frankly, scary. I invited the lot, my heart in my mouth to play the game at my residence the next day. They trooped in docilely, giving me no indication that within the next half an hour I would be reduced to a screaming banshee losing my dignity and composure in front of a group of seven year olds.

It started off benignly. One pint was sent out of the room to be the den, while the rest found places to hide. I, being good hostess, put two packets of popcorn in the microwave. Before the first packet was done, I heard an agonised scream come from the closed room and hotfooted it there. One kid was bawling hot tears accusing the other of stabbing him in the eye, which surely looked suspiciously red. I frogmarched the victim into the bathroom, splashed water in the eye, checked for further damage and he looked none too worse for wear. I closed the door. Returned to the popcorn, took one packet out, and popped the other packet in. Heard a scream, ran in to find one pint had bumped his head on the washing machine in the bathroom while trying to squeeze into the dry area to hide. Iced said bump, exhorted him to go home to maternal care, but he bravely soldiered on. I went back to the kitchen and heard a loud crash. I ran in to find a rolled up Persian carpet, propped between the wall of a cupboard and a beam had been summarily thrown onto the floor to make for hiding space for one pintsize. The carpet was picked up and put out into the balcony, where it could not be further harmed. The access to the balcony was closed. I went back to retrieve the popcorn given the microwave was making beeping sounds very insistently.

I opened the microwave and heard little voices floating from beyond the window calling out to other little voices from other wings to come join them in Dark Room, and ran back into the bedroom to find that some athletic pintsize had managed to reach the latch at the top of the grill and accessed the balcony and now eight pintsizes were hanging onto the railings. My heart skipped a beat. I went silently behind them and hauled them off individually off the railings. Did a hopping on the ground Rumpelstilskin act and dismissed them from the room which was now looking like Hurricane Katrina had taken up permanent residence.

The brat sobbed in embarrassment at this virago mother who had put his stock down amongst his friends. Another pert pintsize exhorted the others to come to his house because, "Meri mummy sab allow karegi."

The rest of the pack gang trotted off to the magnanimous mom's home. I dragged the brat down to play in the park. I would settle the room later, when I had more courage. For now, Dark Room is not a game the brat will be playing anymore.

And school reopens

2011-01-03T22:52:00.001-08:00

After around ten days of waking up at hours odd enough to have
breakfast morph into lunch, the brat had to be roused at the ungodly
hour of seven am yesterday.
He was stretched out, the way kids who have nary a care in the world
stretch out and sleep, with his arms thrown wide across the bed,
sleeping on his back, snoring gently. It seemed criminal to break into
his dream and snatch drag him out for the cruelty of a quick bath and
then on to school. I tarried a while. I looked at him. Looked at the
features which were such a fabulous blend of mine and the spouse's. I
stroked a gentle hand on his brow and smiled. He opened his eyes.

"Mamma, why yu're nod waking me up. Is skul tuday! I will be late for
skul an ged a laid remakk in my diary."

Err. Yes. The moment was quite broken.

We ran through the milk, the potty, the bath and the Pappa took charge
of the dressing up. And at the point of shoe wearing the dwaddling
began. First the effort was to push the feet in without opening the
velcro straps. Naturally, the effort was doomed to failure.

"Open your straps," the pater bellowed from the newspaper he was
browsing through at the kind of supersonic speed which ensures nothing
worth reading is really read.

The brat dwaddled and dithered and dathered and began a litany of
complaints, both real and imaginary against the various peers in his
class who were put on the good earth for the express purpose of
harassing him, stealing his chikkin nuggeds, breaking his pencil
points, robbing his erasers moving on to the gorier stuff like
punching him in the stomach and kicking him in the head. Mamma and
Pappa listened to the litany with growing impatience, having heard it
all before.

The pater bellowed for him to speed it up yet again. He slowly sank
one foot into the shoe, and looked up.

"Pappa, yu'll come to my class. Can you defeat (random classmate)'s
father in fighting?"

The pater was not amused. He is, and has always been, a stickler for
being on time. "Put your shoes on and come quick," he stated again in
stentorian tones meant to make graves rumble in distant cemeteries.

"Can you defeat my swimming sir in swimming?"

The pater nodded.

"Can you defeat my dancing sir in dancing?"
The pater's patience was running very thin. I ran and put the second
shoe on the foot before the bull in the china shop explosion happened.

We tripped merrily to the car, unaware of the apocalypse averted.

"Pappa, you can defeat George Soros in the market?"

The pater allowed himself a thin crack of a smile. "I wish, beta," he
conceded grudgingly.

"Don worry," the brat advised him loftily. "Keep practising."

The Pater nodded. "And now I'm going to defeat today P in fighting. I
practised in my dreams."

And here I was thinking school was for studying.

And wish you a Happy 2011 too!

2010-12-31T02:47:00.000-08:00

Conversation between Mamma and brat in the pitch dark bedroom.

Brat: Mamma, it will be newyear tomorrow?

Mamma, being dragged through the Stgyx by the horses of Hades and therefore not concentrating too well on the questions being asked of her. "Yes, son, tomorrow will be the New Year."

Brat: Den wat will happen to the oleyear?

Mamma: 2010 will get over and 2011 will begin. It will be a new year, we will put up a new calendar.

Brat: An in Oktuber I will hab a new budday?

Mamma: Err, yes.

Brat: An den in the New Year, I can get new Beyblades.

Mamma: No. No More Beyblades.
Said in tones that made the snoring pappa stop snoring momentarily and open one eye to survey the discussion underway.

Brat: Den wot is the point of having a newyear.

Absolutely Everybody....

2010-12-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

The brat had his annual day yesterday. In keeping with a new trend set by the school since the previous year, the annual day concert is held in an open air ground which is practically next door from home, and given that it is the thick end of December bitingly cold (for cold blooded creatures like me, am surely descended from the reptiles) and with the mossies in full biting mode, this is not an experience I enjoy. Spare the five minutes that the brat will be on stage, shaking his booty.

The costume this time was a black satin shirt with ruffled sleeves in multicoloured layers of sequinned fabric and black leatherite pants. Like any mother would, I thanked my stars it was full sleeved and long trousered. I remembered one year when the brat played an African native and his costume comprised a short skirt and a garland of leaves, and I spent all my time going backstage to ensure he had clothed himself in a pullover and proper long trousers I had given the teacher, given that they spent the better part of two hours in the wings waiting for the show get going and their moment under the spotlights to arrive.

Still for all, mamma wasnt going to take a chance this time around. He was bundled into a full sleeved body fitting tee under the black satin ruffled shirt much to his disgust and given a hoodie to wear over both until he was to get onto the stage. And mamma kept walking the entire distance between the parents seating enclosure to the shamianas where the kids were herded, busy engaging in fist fights of the most vile order while the teachers tried vainly to bring them to some semblance of order.

The show? I wasnt impressed. I'm a tough critic. I thought the script was the work of a writer smoking something illegal. The speech and drama part of it all had uninspiring dialogue and performances that were at the best stilted. The songs chosen for the dances, in keeping with the rather vague theme of 'A world without boundaries" (which according to me should have focussed on communication, starting from wireless, to telephone and then to the internet, and the miracles of a true world without boundaries, but since no one asked me I'm keeping zipped) were rather dull. But the kids danced their hearts out. And the brat came on. His eyes twinkling, a huge grin splitting his face. And I forgot the chill seeping into my bones, the mosquitoes buzzing in my ears, and the irritation at feeling my stomach growling. It is a clench your heart in your chest moment when you see your child up there on stage. God help me, my eyes were tearing over so much I could barely see him. He danced, he jumped, he had a great time.

And when I went to collect him, "Mamma, where's Pappa? He seed me dancing? You seed me dancing? How I danced?"

"Very well, my son! You danced brilliantly!" Mamma hastened to reassure him and simultaneously get him into a hoodie sweatshirt given that he had discarded the ruffled shirt because "Id was scatchy on my hans."

"I have decided. I'm going to become a dancer when I grow up. Like Justin Beeber. You make my video and put id on Utoob and sen it to Usher. Den I'll become famuz."

Err. You also need to know how to sing and play a musical instrument, child, for that. He looked at me incredulously. "Is so easy to sing," and belted out the entire lyrics to Love Me at one go.
Now, he insisted. Make the Youtube video and send it to Usher. Or who is the Usher of India? I'm still asking around for an answer to that one.