abu & rabad

As I walked into our apartment complex yesterday evening, Rabad was playing in the parking lot with a bunch of her friends. Upon seeing me she gave a whoop of joy, and came hugged me. Then, she got serious.

“You know, Pappa, the earth is going to finish.”

My first instinct was to say What Rubbish and follow it up with an admonition that she shouldn’t listen to any crap that any of her friends tell her, without clearing it with Pappa or Mamma first. Wiser sense prevailed, and I decided on a gentler approach.

“Really? When is it going to finish?” I asked, in the spirit of scientific enquiry.

“In some weeks,” said Rabad, as if delivering a diagnosis of terminal cancer to concerned relatives.

Now her friends joined in.

“You did not see that TV program, uncle?” accused one of them. This is the one who has apparently educated Rabad about this latest crisis afflicting us.

Apparently I don’t watch the right TV programs.

“No, I did not,” I said and asked, “How is the world going to end?”

“All the trees,” Rabad said, pointing towards the trees around our building, “are going to get cut.” She made a chopping motion with her hand, and had an angry frown on her face.

And the girl who was apparently the source of this knowledge pointed out, “Then all the leaves will be gone. Then there will be no oxygen. Then we’ll all die.”

You really can’t argue with that. It is true.

“I think what you should do is to plant some trees” I suggested.

“Yeah!” said all of them, almost a chorus, their eyes lighting up.

Encouraged, I continued, “Each of you should plant one tree. And you know what, you should go to Shaligram aunty on the 10th floor, and tell her that each of you wants to plant a tree. To save the earth.” Mrs. Shaligram is one of the residents who takes an interest in the gardening of the apartment complex, and is the kind of sweet person who would love to encourage the environment awareness amongst the kids.

So I finished with, “I just want to point out to you – the world is not going to end in a few weeks; it will take many, many, many, many years. But you’re right, it will end if all the trees get cut down. So go, and plant trees with Shaligram aunty’s help.”

So they did go to Shaligram aunty. And they’ve now scheduled a formal tree plantation session for Saturday afternoon. And I’m proud of myself for having handled the situation positively, rather than my usual cynicism. There will be enough time for them to get acquainted with the cynicism when they grow up…

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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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“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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I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education

- Mark Twain

These days, I am telling the kids stories of Shivaji, and I happened to be talking about the fact that Dadoji Konddev was Shivaji’s teacher, and how he taught Shivaji horse-riding, archery with a bow and arrow, fighting with a sword etc. And for effect, I asked Rabad, “Does your teacher teach you fighting?”

A little crestfallen, Rabad said, “No, they only teach A-B-C-D and things like that in my school.”

And after a little pause, she added, “But I learn fighting from watching Ben-10 on TV.”

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“What shall I do now, Pappa?” asked Abu.

In our house, this is usually code for, “Can I watch TV, Pappa.” Of course, he knows that watching too much TV is frowned upon, so he will not directly ask the question. Rather, he asks “What shall I do now.” And if I suggest any thing other than TV, he will say, “No, I don’t want to do that.”

In turn, we keep suggesting more and more non-TV / non-computer things for him to do, in the hope that he will will say “Yes” to one of them.

Anyway, today we started this ritual again:

“What shall I do now, Pappa?” asked Abu.

I definitely did not want to allow him to watch TV, so I asked,

“Do you want to play Monopoly?”

Even he must have gotten bored of saying “No” over and over again, so he got creative this time.

“Pappa,” he said, “in my mind, there is a game, with a circle around it, and a slanting line.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I asked him to explain. So, he said,

“Pappa, see. In my mind, there is the game Monopoly” – at this point he gestured in the air with his hands, drawing a square, and continued, “and around that game, there is a circle.” And he drew a big circle around the imaginary Monopoly he had just drawn. “And then there is a slash,” and he slashed the air, pretty much smashing the imaginary monopoly.

I believe, what he had in his mind, was this:

“That means, no Monopoly,” he explained.

So instead of playing Monopoly, or watching TV, we sat together, photoshopped the above image, and composed this blog post. Problem solved!

(By the way, the title of this post has been suggested by Abu. Also, he corrected some of the dialogue, “That’s not what I said, Pappa. I said … etc.“)

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Earlier Meetu wrote about how Abu wanted to give minus points to the terrorists.

We’ve had a few sporadic conversations about the terrorists in the following few days.

Often, I read newspapers at the breakfast table. And sometimes Abu and Rabad want to know what I am reading, and I try to tell them the “news of the day” in terms that they can understand. (Just want to clarify, this is on “normal” days too, not just those marred by terrorist activities.)

So on Friday, Abu asked me, “What is in the news, Dad?”

“136 people have been killed by the terrorists in Mumbai,” I told him.

“Oh. That’s too many,” he said, and then after a slight pause continued, “Thank God, they didn’t kill Rabad.” He was very casual, and natural. Not at all worried, or afraid, or “affected” in any other way, as far as I can tell. What I found most interesting is that it wasn’t “us” or “me”. It was “Rabad”.

* * *

On Sunday, we were just driving somewhere when we passed a “raddi paper” (old newspaper recycling) shop. They had huge stacks upon stacks of old newspaper ready to be taken away. It looked interesting and impressive, the kind of thing that Abu would find cool. So I told him, “See Abu, how many newspapers.”

“Wow! Cool!” he said, and then added, “All of them are about terrorists?”

“What? Why? Why would you say that, Abu?” I asked.

“I’ve seen the newspapers at home Dad. They are all about terrorists all the time.”

* * *

Later, we were talking about the news again, and I told him, “The terrorists have been killed. The situation is now normal. The problem is over.”

“Over?” he asked, “Have the dead people been reborn?”

I was flabbergasted. I swear I am not putting words in his mouth, nor did I prompt him in any way.

But he is right. The dead people are not going to be reborn. It is not over.

* * *

I just want to point out that Abu is not obsessing about the terrorists. In the last few days, we have talked about Harry Potter, and birthday parties, and restaurants, and teachers, and snakes-and-ladders, and tennis, and badminton, and cricket and all the other things that kids normally think about. Right now he is very excited about having reached level 3 of BlockABilla (don’t ask! some computer game.) It’s just that I have picked out the few conversations about terrorists and posted them here. I guess maybe I am obsessing about the terrorists.

The aftermath of the Mumbai terror is a very confusing time. One is sad, because the “dead people will not be reborn”, and at the same time, one is thankful because “it wasn’t Rabad”.

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Yesterday in the afternoon, I was walking Rabad to the daycare. It was sunny and hot.

“Pappa, is winter over?”

“No baby. It is still winter, but for some reason it is hot today.”

“Oh. I want winter back. I like the cold”

Later, in the evening, unexpectedly it rained. The kids were playing downstairs, got wet in the rain, and had fun.

Today, Rabad asks me, “Pappa, is it rainy season?”

“No. It’s winter.”

“Then why did it rain?” she wanted to know.

“By mistake,” is what I could manage.

She thought about this for a while, and said:

“God is great, no? He decided to mix together rain and winter, so that we can enjoy both at the same time.”

I like her explanation better than mine…

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“I wanted to be a boy,” said Rabad to me, out of the blue, a couple of days back.

This is a common refrain with her.

“Why?”

“Because I want a pee-pee like boys.”

Mamma and I have had this conversation with her before, so I knew what to say.

“But then you would not be able to have a baby in your stomach, right? Boys can’t have babies in their stomach.”

I think the sentence was a little too long for her, and she got confused.

“But Abu came out of mamma’s stomach, na?” she protested.

“Yes, but Abu will never be able to have babies in his own stomach,” I corrected her.

That seemed to satisfy her. She stopped complaining.

But then there was a new problem.

“Who will be the father of my babies?”

Uh-oh!

I was thinking of a good answer, when she continued.

“I want Abu to be the father.”

“Abu can’t be the father of your babies.”

This is also area that we have been over before. In fact, I have pointed out to them (Abu and Rabad) that if brother and sister have babies, there is a possibility that babies might be born deformed. I’m sure she remembered that, but was just trying her luck, because she did not press this point further. But…

“But then who will be the father of my babies?” she said plaintively.

“It can be anybody,” I said, trying not to tell her more than she wants to know.

“I’ll never find a father for my babies,” she said in a sad sort of a voice.

“You’ll find one when you are older. See, right now you are in school. After you grow up, you will get out of school,” I started.

“Yes, and I will be a teacher,” she said brightly.

“Correct. And, when you are a grown-up teacher, you will have a lot of friends. You can choose one of them to be the father of your babies.”

She chewed on this new information for a moment.

“Can I just go to one of my friends and ask, ‘Will you be the father of my babies?’” she asked. She had this air of “this is too easy to be true” about her.

“Exactly!” I said triumphantly, glad that we had all the logistics worked out.

She’s just 4, and we’ve already had 50% of the birds-and-bees conversation. In another 4 years, I am expecting to have the full 100% of the conversation with Abu.

Parenthood. It comes at you a little faster than you anticipated.

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