• Why did God make mothers?
  • [Abu]: Because if mother didn’t exist, you didn’t exist
  • [Rabad]: Because there has to be one person who scolds us every time, otherwise we will not learn
• How did God make mother?
  • [Abu]: Because he is God
  • [Rabad]: There was one more mother who made the other mother
• What kind of a little girl was your Mom?
  • [Abu]: I don’t know. But I guess she was normal. She liked books.
  • [Rabad]: Very sad girl, because if she did one mistake her mother used to hit her.
• What did Mom need to know about dad before she married him?
  • [Abu]: His last name, so that she knows whether her new name sounds alright.
  • [Rabad]: Did he go to college, because some people stop after 10^th and they don’t have any knowledge
• Who is the boss at your house?
  • [Abu]: Dad. Because Mamma calls him ‘Suno,’ and no one calls him by his name in the house
  • [Rabad]: No one. Because no one acts like a boss.
• What’s the difference between moms and dads?
  • [Abu]: Moms are usually kind, and Dads are usually strict.
  • [Rabad]: Mom is really strict, and Dad is really kind.
• What does mom usually do in her spare time?
  • [Abu]: Talks with me
  • [Rabad]: Sits with me
• What would it take to make your mom perfect?
  • [Abu]: Nothing. She’s already perfect
  • [Rabad]: If she gives me a lovely gift

Rabad saw this and insisted that she also wanted to learn how to use the online stopwatch. So I taught her how to go to Online-Stopwatch.com, how to start the countdown timer and so on. That made her happy and she started exploring the features of the website.

Just as I had finished explaining to her, meetu came in the room, and we started discussing some work stuff (related to wogma). Rabad continued playing with the stopwatch while we had our discussion.

After the discussion, I left the room, and Rabad followed me out.

“Daddy,” she asked, “Do you know what I was doing with the stopwatch?”

“No.”

“I was counting how much time you and Mamma talk,” she announced, with what did look like an evil grin.

“Huh?”

“I was counting how much time you get to talk to each other and how much time you spend with each other. So now whenever you or Mamma complain that children don’t allow you to spend time with each other, I will bring the computer and show you how much time you spend with each other.”

So now there are high-tech weapons deployed against us. It’s a losing battle.

me – huh? why? (wondering if she noticed my schoolgirl crush. or if she had one for him)

rabad – then he’d ask “when is your birthday?” and then…

ever since abu and rabad understood what birthdays are, they’ve been told, “see, abu’s birthday is on the 22nd of April, rabad’s is on 23rd, Sachin’s is on 24th and N’s (abu-rabad’s first cousin) is on 25th.”

I think rabad feels bad that Sachin doesn’t know such a cool thing.

We were trying various ways to get her to read, and not getting anywhere. One approach that we thought might help was gamification. It’s easy to find “educational game CDs” in bookstores, but I’ve found that most of them are kind of boring, and I don’t really want to encourage my kid to spend even more time alone with the computer.

Searching on the internet, we found http://www.printablereadinggames.com/ a place with lots of interesting games that can be printed onto cards and papers and played.

So, we created a game based on the 4-in-a-row phonics game described here, and she has been loving it. She can play the game with her friends, or with Abu. The fact that they’re older and much better readers is not a problem, because there’s enough of a luck factor in the game. Even we can play the game with her. Yesterday, I had to drag her away from the game because it was late for dinner. She kept begging, “Daddy… just one more game…”

And no, we’re not trying to trick her. She knows that this game is to help her read better. But that hasn’t negatively affected the perception of the game. A fun game is, apparently, a fun game. (At least at this age.)

“You know, sometimes, our leaders take money from bad people and do bad things for them. That is called corruption. Is that a good thing?”

“No”

“What should happen to leaders who are corrupt?”

“They should get punishment.”

“Correct! They should be put in jail. Who can put them in jail?”

“The police.”

“Exactly… except that they pay the police to not put them in jail. What is that called?”

“Corruption.”

That wasn’t so difficult. With the basics done, I continued with the sordid tale.

“So, many of our leaders are corrupt. And the police who are supposed to punish them are also corrupt.”

“No,” wailed Rabad, the 6-year old, “Why are you telling me these things? I get scared!”

Ouch! I did not tell her that it scares me too.

                 * * *                 

“Well, there is a guy called Anna Hazare who is telling our leaders that we should create a new group of good people, called the Lokpal, which will punish corrupt leaders and police. Do you think our leaders will listen to him?”

“Nooooo” said Abu.

“You know, our leaders did a tricky thing. They said that they will create a Lokpal. And they said that the Lokpal will have leaders in it.”

“Whoa!” said Abu, clearly seeing the conflict of interest. (He’s learnt words like “Whoa” from reading American comics and seeing TV shows.)

“What’s the problem?” asked Rabad.

“Well, suppose I create a group of people who will keep a watch on whether Abu and Rabad are eating chocolates without permission, and will punish them. And this group of people will be Abu and Rabad. Will that be a good idea?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha,” laughed Rabad, “That is such a dumb idea.”

Maybe Sonia Gandhi should spend more time with 6-year-olds. (Or maybe our voters are dumber than 6-year-olds.)

                 * * *                 

“So,” I continued, “Anna Hazare is telling our leaders that at least half the people in the Lokpal should be non-leaders and non-police.” I simplified things considerably, but accuracy is not always worth the effort. This simplification captures the spirit, I think.

“So, Pappa, is this Lokpal thing Anna Hazare’s idea?” inquired Abu.

“No. Actually, various people have been trying to create a Lokpal for a long time. 8 times they have tried, and 8 times our leaders said no. This has been going on for the last 42 years,” I said.

“And, for 28 of those last 42 years, we’ve been waiting for the Cricket World Cup!” said Abu, the 8-year-old.

Sometimes, it is rather difficult to figure out whether a statement is a non sequitur or a profound truth…

when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

Normally, I delete such ‘forwards’ without reading them, but for this one, it occurred to me that this could actually be good education for Abu and Rabad. The history of how some things evolved is so clear to us, that we somehow assume it would be clear to the kids too. But it often is not.

For example, just yesterday someone mentioned this story from some TED talk – basically a kid folded a piece of paper into half, drew a screen on one half and a keyboard on another half, and said that this was a laptop. The kid’s father pointed out that when he was a kid, these things did not exist. The kid, after pondering over this for a while, asked, “Paper did not exist when you were a kid?”

Right. So, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to give Abu/Rabad an idea of what did not exist when I was a kid. And I started reading the email to them. (I’ve reproduced the whole email at the end of this post for your reading pleasure.)

This went well. They were sufficiently interested and amazed by all the factoids. Then they started asking their own questions about the world back then:

“Did you have to wear uniforms to go to school?” wondered Abu.

“Yes,” I said, realizing that schools have changed very little in the last 30 years.

We had a long discussion about the aforementioned ‘card catalogue’ in the library, how books were arranged in the library. “Were the books all arranged alphabetically?” …

“You had cameras,” pointed out Abu, “I’ve seen photos from those days.”

“That’s correct, but our cameras did not immediately show you what the picture had come out like. We had to continue taking photos until 36 photos were done, and send it to a shop for getting the actual photos, and get the photos back 3 days later. And only then we would find out whether the photos came out alright, or out of focus or if there was any other problem.”

“Oh,” said Abu, clearly impressed by how hard the world was back then.

Then he asked this brilliant question:

“Was the world really black-and-white in those days?”

I should point out he is 8 years old.

I was nonplussed for a moment, before I burst out laughing.

“No, only our cameras were black-and-white,” I clarified. But really, when you think about it, if all the photos and all the movies from those days are black and white, would you really blame a kid for thinking that the world was black-and-white?

“Oh,” said Abu, “I thought everything was black-and-white.”

“Except the trees,” chimed in Rabad. “How can the trees have been black-and-white?”

And so it continued for a while. No DVDs. No MP3 players. Had to wait until Sunday morning for cartoons.

Rabad give me a look that brought out all shock and pity that her 6 years could muster, and said:

“The world was so unfair.”

You bet! Kids today have got it too easy…

If you are 40 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning….Uphill….barefoot… BOTH ways Yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of forty , I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn
Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen!

Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take, like, a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3′ s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished and the tape would come undone.. Cause – that’s how we rolled, dig?

We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that’s it!

And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen…. forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel! NO REMOTES!!!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn’t have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled. You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd
*Send this to someone you’d like to make smile, Whether they are under 40 or not.)

“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…

today was bt brinjal’s turn. i tuned in towards the fag end of the conversation between navin and rabad. (i think it was because navin wanted to show rabad’s latest knowledge off and was asking her questions loudly, but that’s only a digression)

navin – so rabad, tell me why do you think bt brinjal is a good idea?

rabad – huu? (buying time to answer the toughie)

rabad (in all innocence) – because ‘b’ is for boy and ‘t’ is for one of good friend’s name…

i controlled then but i’m letting go now….

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA…

- 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.”

so we have some 7 tubes running in and out of her. obviously the nurses didn’t want to take them on and off if she wanted to use the bathroom. so, they put on a diaper for her.

i wasn’t allowed to be with her all the time. the nurses would call me in every once in a while. in one such trip, a nurse tells me, "she just didn’t pee till we took her to the bathroom"

me – yeah, i can imagine that.

rabad called me to her with a broad smile – mamma, they told me that if i don’t pee in the diaper, they’ll give me an injection. right, as if they can do that…they were trying to fool me.

* * *

another one from the hospital. i was trying to comfort her telling her, that it was alright. since both abu and rabad love listening to their birth stories, i told them how i was hospitalized similarly when she was born.

me – see, i’m fine now.

rabad – mamma, i’ll have to come to hospital two times. one now and one when i have a baby

me giving her a high five – yes! just like me. i came to the hospital once for abu and once for you

rabad – oh, then i’ll have to come three times. one now and two for two babies…

yep! i should have seen that coming!!