“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.

“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.”

- 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.”

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?

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 – :-/

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!!

rabad (in the sweetest of tones) – i don’t want you as mamma, i want a different mamma

me – ok

rabad – pappa too. i want a different pappa

me (feeling a tad better) – ok

rabad – and you know what i’d tell the different mamma and pappa?

me – what?

rabad – the same thing, that i want a different mamma and pappa

now, can anyone capture the essence of life better than that?

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.”

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.“)

rabad (she’s sitting and hugging my feet while i stand)- mamma, i like you very much. i like you more than i like myself.

who said i wont be using this forum to brag?

but seriously, can’t believe the layers that that one sentence has. obviously, the brag. but then the fact that she likes herself quite a lot. and that she has enough confidence to say that out loud. 

then again, maybe i’m reading too much into this. damn, i need some confidence lessons from this 4-year old.