abu & rabad

i wake up to the news of my city, mumbai, under attack. the discussion between navin & me and the terrified look on my face while reading the newspaper draws abu to the newspaper too. i try to hide the horrid pictures from him while typing out text messages to friends and family.

abu – mamma, what happened?

me – mmm…

abu – pappa, what happened?

navin – bad uncles are shooting at people and throwing bombs at buildings.

abu – oh…

me (pre-empting his why) – and you know what, we don’t know why (wondering if even they know why)

abu – i know why. they want to kill someone in the building.

me – some times that is not how it is. they do this to scare everybody.

navin – see when you get angry at pappa, you throw a book. you don’t want to really throw a book, you just want to show pappa you are angry. just like that, these people are angry about something and they want everyone to know

me – and neither is a good thing. you shouldn’t throw a book and they shouldn’t be doing this.

navin – yeah, throwing book is -10 (minus 10) points and shooting people is -10,000 (minus ten thousand)

abu (puzzled look) – shooting people is more important than throwing book. it has to be -infinity means -never-ending, means minus till they die, minus when they are reborn also.

you b@$!^*%$, may this 6-year old’s ill-wishes reach you. may you be in the minus till you die and in the after-life too.

and from me – may your death be slow and painful. may the hands that get to torture you be pitiless and the most brutal around.

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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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