abu & rabad

Abu and Rabad’s cousin Pr___ (who is 18) was with us this weekend. She is starting college this week, and she will be staying in a hostel. Abu/Rabad’s friend Sw___ (who is 9 years old) was also with us on Sunday morning, and when we were all together, I asked the kids this question:

“Pr___ is 18 years now and going to stay in a hostel. Do you think she feels like an adult?”

“Yes…,” they said tentatively, not really understanding the question.

“Actually,” I clarified, “I think that Pr___ does not feel like an adult. I think she still feels like a kid. Can you guess why?”

This question made a lot of sense to them. Answers came in quick and fast:

“Because she still has school stuff to do” (I guess engineering college is “school stuff”)

“Because she still does not have her own money.”

“Because she still cannot stay in her own house.”

Pretty impressive, I thought, especially since I hadn’t though of these answers myself.

“Do you want to become adults fast?” I asked

“Yes,” said Sw___. “No,” said Abu. Rabad said “No,” first and then changed her answer to “Yes.”

“Why?”

Sw___ rattled off the answer, “Because I want to do whatever I want, and I want to go whereever I want, and I don’t want any parents bossing me around.”

“You don’t like parents bossing you around?” I asked.

“Of course not,” said Sw___, and then suddenly put two and two together, “Oooh. Pr___ doesn’t feel like an adult because her parents are still bossing her around?”

Pr___ nodded her head tragically in response.

“So, when do you think Pr___ will feel like an adult?”

“When she finishes her college and gets her own house and a job,” again Sw___ had an answer ready.

There was a pause while everybody digested this new thought. Then Abu countered:

“No, after that, you have to get married. And then your husband or wife bosses you around.”

At this point, I had to step away for a few minutes. When I came back, they had apparently had a conference, and Abu told me: “First your parents boss you around. Then you grow up and get married and your husband or wife bosses you around. Then you get children and they give you a headache. After that your grandchildren give you a headache.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

I decided to neither draw any conclusions, nor to prod the children into any conclusions. So there was another pregnant pause.

Then Sw___ spoke: “If you are an adult, you cannot sit on swings, and you cannot jump on the trampoline.”

“You cannot make somersaults,” added Abu, “and you cannot jump around.”

I don’t know whether the kids drew any conclusions at this point; I’m just reporting the facts.

(This post has been read by Abu and verified for accuracy, after a few factual errors were corrected.)

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One morning, I was reading a Hardy Boys’ adventure to Abu. There’s a part where the Hardy boys visit the mansion of a rich man. When they’re about to leave, the rich man asks them to stay for some more time – he wants company; he gets very lonely in the mansion alone.

“What’s ‘lonely’, Pappa,” wondered Abu.

“Lonely means he feels alone and bored. He lives alone in the mansion, that’s why he is lonely.”

“He lives alone? Where are his wife and children?” Abu wanted to know.

“I think he’s not married.”

“How can that be? He is a rich man!” Abu declared.

Where did that come from, I wondered. I decided to poke and prod a little bit more, on the theory that it is always good to know where your children are getting their knowledge from – always research the competition.

“You think all rich men are married?”

“Yes, it is very easy for them to find girls.”

O…K… I wonder who’s teaching him this stuff. This needs to be stopped.

“Really? Who said that?” I inquired.

“On TV,” he said, with an air of obviousness around him.

I’m fairly certain that I know what TV programs my kids watch, and I couldn’t think of anything that would be teaching kids something like this. Certainly, they’re not watching any dating game shows, any variation of “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire,” or The Millionaire Matchmaker.

“On, TV?” I asked dubiously, “Which show?”

“Tom and Jerry,” said Abu, and went on to describe some episode where Tom and Jerry and some dog and some other cat are all interested in dating some girl, and for that reason they’re trying to get some money, or gold, or something. I don’t remember the exact details. I wasn’t really paying attention to the story, partly because he rambles when he’s telling a Tom and Jerry story, and partly because I was already composing this blog post in my head.

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navin, abu, rabad and i went out for dinner a couple of days ago. i’m the only vegetarian in the foursome.

abu confirms – mamma, are you vegetarian?

me (confused, he already knows that!) – yeah

abu – you know what? if everyone on this table was a vegetarian, this would be a vegetable!

HA HA HA HA

abu made this one up all by himself.

Now with a humor like that, who would want him to be an engineer, or a doctor or worse a chartered accountant?

Hello world, watch out for your next stand-up comedian!

okay, before i get carried away any more…

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it has now become customary for abu to ask me “what’s it about?” every time i watch a film.

turns out, dil bole hadippa, is playing on one of the tv channels soon. so,

abu – mamma, what’s dil bole hadippa about?

me – well rani mukherjee plays a girl who absolutely loves cricket and can bat very well too. she want’s to play for india. but, she cannot.

abu – why?

me – because only men are allowed in our indian cricket team na. so she dresses up as a boy and enters the team.

abu – oh, ok

navin – what do you think happened then?

abu – they find  out that she’s a girl. what else? but in the end they must have found out. not in the middle.

there you go creative story-writers of our era…howzzzat!?

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abu – accent speaking people

* * *

this statement of abu’s reminded us of an observation he had made some 2 years ago.

a friend of ours was visiting us from the US. she had come with her kids. now her older son is as old as abu. And abu and he were good friends till they moved to the US.

after playing with him for a bit,

abu – mamma, why does he speak like the TV people?

Yes, my child is guilty of watching too many cartoons in English.

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“Pappa, don’t give me milk today,” Abu announced this morning while getting ready for school.

“Why?”

“Because then I’ll vomit.”

Kids learn random things like these from their friends, and we have to fight very hard to reverse the thought process once they get it stuck in their head. Telling them that am a more reliable source of information than their 7-year old friends is no use. It takes a lot of hard work and constant repetition to convince them otherwise.

“Who told you that?”

“My teacher said that.”

My heart sank. If it is difficult to counter the statements of their friends, it is almost impossible to counter something that the teacher said. Teachers are God. This could mean the end of milk drinking – an absolute necessity in a largely vegetarian household. I knew I had to fight this, but I felt like David taking on Goliath.

Looking for a loophole, I asked for details: “Which teacher? When did she say this? Why?”

“Xxx ma’am said it. Ishita vomited in the bus yesterday. Teacher said it’s because of the milk. It churns and churns and churns in the bus and then we vomit. Even Yyy ma’am said the same thing last year.”

Two of them saying it is even worse.

“Abu, but you don’t vomit when you drink milk, so I think you can continue drinking. Let Ishita stop.”

“I felt like vomiting yesterday. And I had vomited once in Senior KG.”

Senior KG was 2 years ago, and he had vomited because he had an upset stomach. He probably did not even have milk that day.

I was clearly losing. I was thinking of whether it would help to write a letter to the teacher. Or maybe to the principal. Then I decided to try a long shot. I’ve always had good success by quoting “results of research studies” to adults. So I wondered whether an appeal to science and statistics would work in this case.

“Abu, how many times have you had milk in your life?”

“I don’t know”

“See there are 365 days in a year, so there are more than 1000 days in 3 years. So you’ve probably had milk more than a 1000 times. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“So out of 1000 times that you drank milk, you did not vomit 998 times, vomited 1 time, and felt like vomiting 1 time. Right?”

“Yes.”

“So if you drink milk now, which do you think is more likely?”

“What is the meaning of ‘likely’?”

I wasn’t sure how to explain what ‘likely’ means. So I decided to simply rephrase the questions.

“Out of 1000 times that you drank milk, you did not vomit 998 times, vomited 1 time, and felt like vomiting 1 time. So if you drink milk now, which one do you think is more possible.”

This time he understood.

“The first thing is more possible.”

“Right. So I think if you drink milk, you will not vomit.”

“Yes.”

Victory!

“So will you drink milk now?”

“No.”

Damn!

Remember, when you are in a position to crush an opponent, the best thing to do is to concede some small point, something that they can take solace in, something that they can hold on to as a consolation prize. The winners of World War I ignored this important point, totally humiliated Germany, and then paid the price in the form of World War II.

“Ok,” I conceded, “You don’t have to drink milk today. But you will drink from tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Yes!! I had taken on the invisible “foreign hand” of the teacher and defeated it. Victory never tasted so sweet.

You have to be a parent to understand why this is such a big deal.

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“Do you have any homework today, Abu?” I asked.

“Yes, I have to draw some sea animal. But I can’t draw.”

“Of course you can draw. Let me give you an idea.”

So I showed him a picture of the Manta Ray from a book we had, and I gave him tips on how could draw that; later I gave him ideas on what else he could put in the picture (seaweed, smaller fishes, etc.) He did an OK job.

The next day I asked him if he gave his homework to the teacher.

“Yes. She said it was very nicely drawed.”

“See, I told you you could draw well. Right?”

“Yes. But I don’t want to draw. I think teacher wants me to be an artist.”

“What?”

“Yes,” he said in a pained voice, as if all the woes of the world were on his head, “She is always asking me to draw this, draw that. She wants to make me an artist. I don’t want to be an artist. I want to be a cricketer. I want to be a bowler.”

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abu – which movie did you watch yesterday?

me – Kambakkht Ishq

abu – how was it?

me – BAAADDD!

abu – why?

me – it didn’t have a story.

abu (all tense and worried) – then what will you write?

me – i will write about the acting, the jokes, the story – not what, but that it didn’t have any

abu (still tense) – but if there was no story how will you write

me – i’ll write "you won’t find a story even if you looked with a magnifying glass"

abu (sudden gush of relief) – ha ha ha ha ha.

mamma, how did you decide you want to write reviews?

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abu-rabad are in mumbai with their grandparents for the past couple of weeks. no this is not about how i’m missing them…geez!

anyway, so cricket and thus ipl comes up in our daily phone conversations.

me – so, will you be excited if mumbai indians wins today or the deccan chargers?

abu – i won’t be excited if anyone wins.

me (nirvana, already?) – come on, one must be little exciting than other?

abu – mamma, both are India only…

me – :-/

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Now Abu and Rabad are both aware of this blog, and every once in a while, they want to see the site. Abu can actually read the posts with help from us on the more difficult words.

So now, apparently, they want more creative control. If you remember, the title of the last post was dictated by Abu. Now this whole post has gone up on the insistence of Abu.

“Pappa, this story is too funny. You have to put it up in Abu-Rabad site,” he told me a few days back. Partially because I was busy, and partially because I did not really think the story did belong on the site, I did nothing. So today, he asked me again, “Did you put up the story I told you on the Abu-Rabad site?”.

So, here is the story.

We had all gone to a hill station for a vacation with extended family. Abu and Rabad had gone with their cousins for a walk among the hills. n didi is one of the cousins. When they came back, Abu told me,

“Pappa, a funny thing happened. n didi went into the hills and found some shiny stones. After that, she saw a white thing. She thought that thing is a bag. When she picked it up, it was a diaper! Ha ha.” He is giggling even now as he repeats the story to me.

When Rabad found out about this, she insisted that she wanted to see the “white thing”. No amount of persuasion would dissuade her. She rested only after she had made her cousin go back into the hill, and find the diaper, and had said “Eeww.”

Now Abu wants me to print this so he can send it to his friend TQ. “Because he’ll laugh also.”

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