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Merry Christmas!

People around here are on a shopping spree. No I’m not the kind to keep tabs on my neighbours’ spendings. Just look at what my two little scavengers brought home.

 
 
I hadn’t been able to spend much time with the kids and we were lagging in our Christmas preparations too. So we decided to put all of those ‘goodies’ to good use and came up with some very quick decorations.
 
We began with drawing some stockings on the sheets..
 
 
Cut them out with a hot knife and painted them green and pink..
 
..and silver and strung them out on a ribbon.

 
Then we did some  bells… which have still to be painted
 
  
 
and some stars and circles too.
 
 
.. and then it was time to do up the ‘tree’.
 
 
 
 And now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be off.
We have to hurry up and clear the way for shy Santa.
Tonight’s Santa’s busy busy night. Besides clearing the kitchen and
dinner table he has still lots of gift-wrapping to do.
 
Merry Christmas folks.
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No means No

Dear Hrit and Naisha,

Today morning as we sat watching the news you suddenly asked “What’s Rape?” and left me completely flustered. I struggled to find an answer even as a hundred thoughts flashed across my mind. You’re just 10, where had you heard that word? Are you even old enough to absorb this stuff? Who had you been talking to? Were there other things you’d heard of that I needed to clarify?

I floundered in the dark wondering how to explain it all to you. How to explain the heinousness of the crime without explicit details? How to reveal to you the horror of the word without scaring you? How to teach you to be careful without extinguishing your carefree spirit? How to help you grow up to face reality without taking away your innocence? I wondered.

I struggled along babbling about ‘good touch bad touch’, about never being alone in washrooms, about being wary of overfriendly strangers.. trying to warn you… yet never really getting to the point.. never really telling you what I was warning you about.

You’d both looked from me to the television a little lost at the connection between thousands of people being bombarded with water cannons and lecherous men in lonely bathrooms. A hundred more questions unfolded. “But why are so many people there?” “Why is the police pushing them?” “Who are they shouting at?”

Oh you were so confused.

And so here I am trying to get some answers for you. Those people, dear children, are angry. Angry at something that happened to a girl and her friend. They were both raped, violated, hurt, harmed by a group of cruel men — the girl physically, her friend mentally. The scars will take a long long time to heal.

Those people are all standing out there in the cold and the rain demanding for those men to be punished. Will they get justice? Is this even the right way to demand justice? Are they doing the right thing? I don’t know. What I do know is that the need to demand why youngsters are not safe in a country built on tolerance, is right.

The anger is right. I feel it too. Anger, frustration, empathy, shame, hurt, worry, fear.. I feel all of that. I wish I were there. I wish you were a bit grown up and I wish you were there too. But we cannot be there. What we can do, however, is to learn to respect people’s right to be the way they want to be, to not force our morality, our sense of right or wrong on them; to look beyond short skirts and skimpy tops; to create and respect boundaries; above all to learn to say as well as to  understand and respect that small word ‘No’, so that no one is raped ever again.. mentally or physically.

Love

Ma
 

This is a part fictional letter inspired by a friend’s inquisitive 10-year-old. The post is written as part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

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A nag? Who? Me?

I hate nags. I hate ads that promote women as nags. I was never a nag. I certainly wasn’t born one. However of late I’ve been accused of being one, repeatedly. Some soul-searching is certainly in order.

First the definition
Nag: To annoy by constant scolding, complaining or urging…

Yes well some of my interractions would fall in that category but so would many others.

Take a look

Annoy by scolding
– Finish your food; I want a clean plate; No you CANNOT get up will you finish; Leave the salt shaker alone and FINISH.
– No maggi, no chips, no maggi no chips, no maggi no chips.
– Wash your hand before you pick that apple; Leave it.. leave it NOW.. Wash your hands.
– Go for your walk; You missed it again today; Why didn’t you go for your walk today?
– Butter? You’re eating bread and butter at 10 in the night? AND a laddoo?
– You’re diabetic; remember you’re a diabetic; have you forgotten you’re a diabetic?

Annoy by constant complaining
– I want a toy; a small toy; just a small toy; please, pretty please?
– get my cycle repaired; when can I ride my cycle; everyone has a cycle; have you got my cycle?
– can you feed me; I can’t make bites of the roti; only for today; I’m too tired; feed me please.
– may we watch TV? You never let us watch; Just ten minutes? Five minutes?
– may we play for five more minutes, five more, just five more, okay last five.

Annoy by constant urging
– withdraw your PF, when will you withdraw your PF, you still haven’t withdrawn your PF.
– Keep your cheque book properly; keep it somewhere safe; why’s your cheque book lying on the centre table?

Consider at the things I (read women) nag about most often..
– food and eating
– hygiene
– health

Mostly life threatening stuff.. right? While I get nagged about money matters (which are important but still – just money). And as for the kids.. I won’t even go there.

The point I’m trying to make is that women aren’t the only nags. Kids, husbands, parents, neighbours, … they’re all nags. Why label just women? Yes.. so I might be a nag.. sometimes… but so is everyone else. A nag has no sex.. if it does, it’s definitely not only female.

Finally aword in defence of nagging.. it does get stuff done.. causes some bad blood, but it gets stuff done.

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A budding reader and a know-it-all

Open house day at school is always an eye opener. Sitting across the table with the teachers each time we wonder, “Are we talking about the same child?” This year was no different.

Naisha got a relatively clean chit. She just needs some help with reading and spellings. That is pretty much down my alley. We went out and bought some new books (even though there’s a host of them at home) because we have a rule here, “koi bhi shubh kaam ke pehele paise kharch karne chahiye, kaam achchha hota hai“. And so Naisha’s reading me a Dora story bit by very small bit every day. I don’t want to push her and put her off reading completely so we’re going at her pace.

How else can I help her? Any suggestions?

Next stop.. Hrit. On a positive note his mirror image writing is almost gone… just a bit of b and d remain to be sorted. Thank the Lord.

Now for the not so good. Apparently Hrit suffers from the ‘I-know-everything’ syndrome. For instance, even if the teacher tells him a spelling he likes to go with his own version, based strictly on phonetics. The dear boy has no clue about the vagaries of the English language. He refuses to listen to the teacher following his own pace, preferring to be ahead of the class. If everyone’s supposed to do two pages, he likes to do four… even if they haven’t been taught, even if he’s not clear how they’re supposed to be done. He’s a man in a hurry. And if his neighbour is ahead of him.. he pretty much freaks out.. right or wrong.. he needs to finish before everyone else in class. Man in a hurry, for sure.

I have been talking to him about the advantages of listening, of being right rather than being first. However, I suspect I’m not doing a very good job because he came home today, yet again, with his homework all done.. done pretty shabbily but done nonetheless.

This is something I’m not sure I know how to handle. Suggestions?

**********


That could be me

The other day we got talking about newspapers and I told the kids I used to work with one long long ago. I reminisced about the night shifts and coming home in the early hours of the morning. Naisha nodded very sagely and said, “Yes mama you must have had to wake up very early to deliver papers to so many houses.”

Nothing like kids to keep you grounded.
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The tooth fairy comes calling

Finally, after much waiting, it fell off.. the very first one.. Hrit’s tooth. For some reason he felt it was a major achievement and insisted I call and tell everyone. He followed me around asking, “Are you H A P P Y?” These days he’s spelling out half his sentences. If you’re wondering why, well so am I.
He showed off his gaping dentures to all his friends and all the aunties he could find reminding me of the hilariously gross character Lugaretzia from Gerald Durrel’s ‘My Family and Other Animals’. Great book, by the way.
Getting back to Hrit.. he was just too thrilled.

Then he got worried if the tooth fairy would consider his tooth worthy of being taken away. He wanted to know if it would help if he would brush it now that he could hold it in his hand and see it ‘properly’. Finally, the tooth, all brushed, bathed and cleaned was laid down reverentially under the pillow.

Had there been a real tooth fairy she would have been thoroughly confused wondering where to check for the tooth considering Hrit changes rooms more than once during the night. Oh we have enough activity between 11pm and 6am to confuse the sanest of minds.. but then that’s another post.

Anyway the ‘tooth fairy’ decided to leave the task to morning and just before she woke the kids up for school, the tooth was smuggled away and some money found its way under the pillow to their immense excitement. Hrit looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes and is planning a major ‘eclair’ treat for his friends with the princely sum of 10 bucks.

I so so love this age. I’ll miss them when they grow up.

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