I sit on the throne

Hi, I’m a poem, I like to write / right myself

But I’m not / knot a homophone.

Words, you no / know, sit on a shelf

And I sit on the throne / thrown.

As part of a school exercise, Daivik’s class was asked to put together similar sounding words into a sentence of some coherence. He had come up with these lines. I enjoyed the coinage of words and the overall ring they had. I told him that it was beautiful, he gave me a beaming smile, said his teacher thought so too, and went away. 

These words however remained with me. There was something beautiful and abstract in there which I could not quite lay my fingers on. This set me up into a rather enjoyable stream of thoughts. A poem is writing itself, in the process of doing so it is also righting itself, obviously knotting homophones together do not make a poem, if you try that it will end up as a pile of words, which on their own have no place but the shelf, words, whether we know or not, knotted or not, do not make a poem. A poem, when it emerges from these words, takes on the lofty pedestals of the throne, and if it has not rightly righted itself, obviously it gets thrown…could this be what he means? From this pedestal, I was transported to the truly lofty thrones of Subramanya Bharati, and to one of the mightiest of his pedestals, Veenayadi nee enakku. Between the Veena, the instrument, the inert potential, and the fingers that play it, the kinetic, the manifestation, where, exactly, does the music reside? How, really, does a poem, emerge from words, knotted, or not? 

I was thusly immersed when Daivik came back, asking what I was thinking so deeply. “About the beauty of your lines Daivik”, I said. “What about them?”, he asked. “I’m trying to find out what makes them beautiful”. His curiosity was aroused and with a little gleam in the eyes, he asked, “Did you find out?”. “No, Daivik”, I confessed, “I’m not able to”. With a near perfect non-chalance he said, “May be that is what makes it beautiful”, and ran away. 

Lady-Hunter-Tiger

Daivik and me were preparing to watch the Australian Open semis between Federer and Djokovic. I had given sufficient build-up and Daivik was quite gung-ho about it. We were ready before the toss and waiting. The two players were warming up when the referee walked in with a little girl.
"What does she do in the match", asked Daivik. The little girl tossed up a coin for the players to call heads or tails.
"Why does she do that", asked Daivik. "To decide who gets to serve first", I said and went on to explain the idea behind the coin toss. I didn't quite know when to stop and started rambling about the concept of randomness.
He listened quietly for a while and asked, "So, it is like rock-paper-scissors". "Yes, Daivik, that's great. It is very similar", I exclaimed. Daivik got carried away and suggested, "Appa, they can also do Lady-Hunter-Tiger".

This was new for me! "What's that", I asked. Daivik started explaining, "Appa, look, hunter kills the tiger, so he is wins; tiger eats the lady, so tiger wins ", and in the same non-chalant vein added, "lady is powerful than hunter, so lady wins".  I waited for a while for some explanation on the last part, none was forthcoming. I considered this for a second and agreed to its faultless logic.
"So, Appa", Daivik wanted to know, "why don't they do Lady-Hunter-Tiger instead of toss". It was a good question, I had no answer.

But I amused myself for the next several seconds imagining Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic playing Lady-Hunter-Tiger to decide who gets to serve first. 

Pink candy

At first, there is nothing. Or probably a delicate haze, like being in a fog. Slowly, an outline emerges. Hey, this is interesting. As the fog lifts, by degrees, the form becomes clearer and excitement mounts. At some point, the form acquires recognition and gets a name. Quite suddenly, it is crystal clear, unmistakable, undeniable. It's a candy ! A pink one at that ! Aha, joy beams onto you as you reach out for the candy, eyes glittering, grin pasted and soft music cooing in the background. You are almost there, candy is just within reach, when a large hand appears out of nowhere and in one swift brutal unjust motion snatches it away from you.

The cruelty of the act takes a moment to register. At the same moment, you recognize the hairy monster that snatched the candy - it's your father ! The cruelty and the recognition converge rapidly onto a point and you yell out a cry, a deep piercing cry.

Your mom comes running in. "What happened dear, were you dreaming?". Amidst your tears, you manage to blurt out "candy". This irritates the mom. "First thing in the morning, you want a candy...go brush your teeth". Uff, she doesn't understand.  This makes you sob more. Mom softens a bit and takes you in her arms. Reassured, you say, "pink candy". "Not now...", she starts saying. There she goes again. You start crying again, but manage to say "Appa took my pink candy" (and that's your first full sentence of the day!). "Oh, your father took your pink candy in your dream?", mom summarises, cuddles you for comfort, and simultaneously calls out for the culprit.

The father, oblivious to his crime, walks in, sees you awake and chirps in "Good morning". You don't respond, and he finds two pairs of accusing eyes staring back at him with a penetrating gaze. "Where is the pink candy?", mom demands. "What pink candy?", he asks. Ouch, wrong question. Not only does he snatch away the candy, now he is what-pink-candying you. Indeed! You start crying. "The one you took from her", mom declares, with an increasing intensity in her voice. Before he could respond, she adds for his benefit, "...in her dreams".

"Aha", says the father, uncertainties cleared, and now on terra firma. "You know what the pink candy told me?". You stop crying and get mildly interested. "It told me that it will wait for a little girl". He then picks you up from your mom. Her job done, mom returns back to her chores. Dad continues, "Pink candy told me that it will wait for the little girl who brushes and showers first".

And thus, the task of preparing you for the day, which normally takes anywhere between 10-100 minutes, gets completed in record time.

Of course, when you are ready, the pink candy is ready too and waiting for you :)
  

independent together

Daivik was reporting the Independence Day celebration they had in his school recently. “The teacher unfurled the flag, flowers fell from it, we sang the song and then there was party”. As I was listening in, I started wondering what his concept of independence might be. “What is independence day, Daivik”, I asked him. “Appa, that is the day we became independent”, he said. “But what is independence?” I persisted. He explained it with eagerness, “It is being able to do what you want to”, and if that was not clear enough, he continued, “see, if you want to go somewhere, like the street corner, you can just go. So you are independent”. Okay, that was clear enough, I said to myself. But he was in a mood to continue and changed the direction a bit. “But I cannot go wherever I want to, so I’m not independent”, he was saying. Hmmm, this was reaching an inflection point with multiple possible trajectories. Which way was it going to go, should I do some pre-empting? Turned out, Daivik knew exactly how to steer it.  “Even though I cannot go wherever I want”, he continued, “I can tell you where I want to go and you can take me, so we are independent together”,  he finished.

That phrase – independent together – stuck me and instantly offered multiple interpretations and threatened to drag me down its bountiful possibilities. We were in a bus at that point. I laid my arms around his shoulders and let the rhythms of the wheels take over and reveled for a few moments in the awesome simplicity and the pristine beauty of that phrase.

We were together at that moment, and definitely independent !

aliens and oxygen

“What is this”, asked Daivik, pointing to a cement mixer. When I told him what it was and explained the purpose of it, he got into a mood for fun and said, “Appa, cement mixer is made of grass”. I gave a surprised exclamation, which seemed to satisfy him and we got into a game of what things are made of.

“You are made of plants too”, he said.  “You know Daivik, plants and me are the same”, I said, partly in jest. Perhaps this put him in some confusion, he became quiet. So I explained, “Actually, both plants and me are made of the same thing called Carbon”.  “How”, he asked and I gave an explanation of the different elements, which seemed to satisfy him. The game continued, now including the names of some of the elements. “Moon is made of carbon”, he said. I said that it was actually it is made of various elements. We then started thinking of what other planets are made of, and I was telling him that only earth has oxygen and other planets do not and that is why you do not see life there.

I thought by now he was in a listening mode. But the mention of lack of life outside the earth triggered something deeply personal. “No”, he protested with a vehemence that was both instantaneous and spirited. “There is life outside earth, there are aliens”. Then, as if to defer any further doubts on this matter, he added, “They are all my friends”. “Okay Daivik, of course there are aliens. But how do they breathe?”. He made an imitation of how they might be breathing. “But what about oxygen?”, I asked. “If there is no oxygen, they cannot breathe. There is no oxygen in other planets”. “Appa, you don’t know. They need oxygen to breathe, but they don’t need lots of it. A little bit is enough”. “So, how do they get that little bit?”. “Oh, they come to earth. You see, after you drop me in school every day, I actually take a rocket, go to other planets, bring the aliens to my school so they can take some oxygen and then they take the rocket back to their planet”. “Who is sitting in the class and listening to the teacher then?”. “Appa, I don’t sit in the class, I tell my teacher I want to play outside and then I actually go to other planets”.

Hmmm…have to check with his teacher.

Our time, our place

Overtime, a little ritual had evolved between Akshara and me. We found a cozy corner in the kitchen where we would snuggle up for a few minutes before beginning the rigors of the day. It involved the following steps: I will sit on the floor with knees bent. She will come running, climb on the knees, find her way to the lap, hug me and give a very warm smile. The whole thing was so natural and matter-of-fact that it had not even registered.

I happened to be away for a few days and hence the ritual had lapsed. I came back late in the night when Akshara had already slept. The next morning, I was sipping coffee when Akshara walked in, all sleepy eyed.  She saw me, gave a smile of recognition and without a word held her hand out in a very purposeful manner. I set the coffee aside and grasped those little fingers. She quietly led me to our corner.  I was pleasantly surprised as remembrance of our ritual dawned on me.

So, I sat down and bent the knees in the usual posture, this time consciously and with anticipation. It was only after seeing me sit that she relaxed and allowed a faint smile to adorn those lips. She had missed our ritual and was obviously waiting for it for the last days. So, she must be full of excitement. I fully expected her to come running and jump right in.

I was not prepared for what happened next. Is this how personalities evolve, or are you born with it? Here was an event that is evidently much looked for, you have missed it for a while, and here it is again. What do you do? She had wordlessly reminded me of our ritual, she had got me into the regular pattern, and now it was her turn. But she did not jump in. She did not even smile. What was going on here? She quietly turned around, her back to me, took the few small steps backwards and sat on my ankles. Slowly, so very slowly, she rested her head on my knees. There was no giggle, no smile, no words, no sound, no nothing. It was just us, and that moment. It lasted for several seconds, it lasted for several centuries.

When she decided it was enough, she got up as wordlessly as she had sat down, and started walking away, leaving me flummoxed. I was staring at her back dumbstruck when she turned and gave a its-between-us smile. Then she called out for her mummy.   

small things, big things

For some reason, Daivik’s backpack caught Akshara’s fancy and she insisted on carrying it. Convincing Daivik to let her carry the bag was not too difficult (“But she has to give it back to me, promise, appa?”).  So, Akshara sat on her seat with the bag on her lap. I was focusing on the road. Somewhere along the way she started whining. These whinings have a certain signature to them. Overtime one gains a deep understanding of these signatures and learns – through trial and error, mostly error - to interpret them. This whine was persistent, but low intense. Okay, so something is bothering her, but it is not alarming.  Has she removed her gloves again? Was she feeling a bit cold?  

“Akshara, are you feeling cold?”

 “No”.

“Shall I put your gloves back on?”

“No”.

“Is the belt too tight?”

“No”.

My repeated failures must have frustrated her. The intensity of the whine increased slightly, so very slightly. But the new signature said : this demands a solution.

“Have you dropped the bag?”, I asked. The mention of the bag triggered something and she notched up her whine quite perceptibly. Breakthrough! It’s something to do with the bag. I turned to her and asked, “Don’t you want the bag?”. “No”, she said again, and the whine became a proper cry.  The double negative momentarily confused me. But I sensed that I was closing in. “Shall I remove the bag”, I asked, reaching out for it. “No”, she said again and raised the cry up another notch. Tears started welling up. So, that’s not what she wants. 

My hands were almost on the bag when I noticed that the bag had flipped and the front smiley face was turned away from her. “Shall I turn the bag?”, I asked. Her eyes lit up immediately. “Yes”, she said, still crying. I did the simple task of flipping the bag, she could see the smiley again. Her eyes declared, yes, YES, that is exactly what I wanted.

In an instant, happiness poured into her whole being. And then out of her. Those little droplets of tears were still hanging in those twinkling eyes, the chillness of the winter had decorated her cheeks with a natural rouge, her bunny teeth were sparkling in the morning light, and she started laughing…peals and peals of laughter, marvelous glorious laughter.

Who would have thought that that single bag, that simple act, can release so much of happiness? Or, is it the other way round: simple acts, small things can be portals to a universe of happiness.  And that we, the non-children,  close those doors with alarming efficiency as we lose the child in us ?

smile please

Gods and Demons

Who / what is God? And what, exactly, is a demon?  Heavy questions!  I’m not qualified enough to discuss these issues at any length at any level.  Most certainly, I’m not going to.  However, Daivik gave me a lesson today touching upon these areas, a lesson that I will be well served to remember, a lesson that left me pondering. How does a child’s mind perceive these apparently heavy topics? Is there an element of simplification? And in that simplification, can we, the supposedly “grown-ups”, find answers that often elude us?

This is what happened. Daivik got angry when I told him something that he did not particularly like (something like, okay, shall we stop the cartoon now). Now, five year olds are well known for their tantrums, and they can be, well, taxing at times. His anger raised a trigger and I responded to that. Things were getting a bit heated up between us. It was pretty unnecessary. Even as I was realizing that, Daivik stopped his anger show quite abruptly, gave me a lovely smile and said, ”Okay Appa, I will not watch any more cartoon today”. That defused all the tension and we exchanged smiles and pleasantries.

Both the flare up and its defusing were abrupt and left their marks. After the smile, Daivik explained it in the following words. “See Appa, I got angry and the demon in me came out. This invited the demon in you. Then the God in me came out and killed that demon and made me smile. This killed the demon from you and brought out the God in you”. His logic was both simple and astounding. It made for a neat model.  A model where the god and the demon are both within us and neatly partitioned according to a binary scheme of things, each responding to one particular call: good and bad, right and wrong, god and demon. According to Daivik’s logic, the demon comes out more easily and spreads by inviting other demons, but the god has more power. And the god in him can not only kill the demon in him but also influence the demon in me and by virtue invoke the god in me.  How elegant!

This left me wondering. How exactly do children get ideas from? How do the ideas crystallize and evolve? In this case, neither of his parents told Daivik such a concept in so many words. How did he arrive at this? And what gave him the conviction - and confidence - to actually put it to test? It will be the most fascinating thing ever to understand this process! Of course, as he grows older, he is going to realize that at times these divisions are not entirely black or white and could get somewhat fuzzy. How will this model evolve then?

Can’t wait to find out!

Points of view

The way I saw it :

Daivik has mastered some games in my phone and wanted to show it to his friends in the kindergarten.

The way Daivik saw it :

You know Appa, Joudy saw a thief today. He was climbing the apartment opposite our kita. No, he was not using the stairs, he was climbing on the walls, like a spider. No, he will not fall down, because he has special grip shoes but when he is about to fall he will use his rocket launcher and go up. You know, he is a 'cool' thief, because he has a 'plasma gun' with which he can shoot everybody and they will vaporize instantly. So he is now on the top of the building but you cannot see him because he is hiding. He is looking for people who have important things with them, for example, mobile phones. Quick, quick, Appa, give it to me.

'Will he not steal it from you Daivik'

'Uff, Appa, you don’t understand. I will take your phone and run back into the kita. There I can hide from him'

'Can’t he jump from the building into your kita'

'No, Appa, he cannot. Beause our kita door is locked. So, quick, give me your phone. See, when I’m waiting there, I can also play with my friends. When he sees so many people together he will run away'.

logic

Daivik was nibbling away his food, left elbow stationed on the table, head bent slightly, and unusually silent.  Now, quietness and Daivik usually do not go together.  I could infact sense something going on in his brain. Sure enough,  he started off.

"Mummy"
"Yes Daivik"
"You have a watch that is glittering"
"Yes Daivik"
"The coins that the pirates take from their treasures is also glittering"
"Yes Daivik"
Hmmm, I was wondering what exactly was he arriving at when he made the giant intellectual leap. A glittering watch in real life and the image of a glittering coin in a picture book can be pieced together.

"So Mummy", he asked, "were you pirates before?"

Yes, Daivik. We were. That is exactly how we are financing you.

Murmuration

Daivik was excited about the birthday invitation from his friend Simon. It was a fine summer day, with clear blue skies and happy chirping birds. The park was about the size of a large cricket ground with trees surrounding the periphery and a few scattered around in the middle. It was still early in the day and the park was yet to be invaded by the bare-chested, beer loving, sun worshipers. Which meant the kids, about ten of them, had the whole park to themselves. It was supposed to be a 'football' party.  There were two footballs. But there was also : one cartwheel and one large garbage can with wheels, far more interesting than a little ball with no wheels.  So the footballs were abandoned even before the first kick as the kids flocked the cart wheel : some went in, some stood on the sides and some decided to push it. They went up a little slope and then let the thing go. It was scary for us, the parents, to watch it from a distance, but the sounds coming from that direction  were cries of joy, a.k.a war cries. Me, me, let me in, you push, next time I push, no not that way, yeaaaahhhhh....At this point, one of them discovered the large garbage can. They managed to roll it to the middle of the park. Ah, what fun a graffiti laden trash can hold ! It is beyond the powers of imagination of the adult brain...

Daivik, watching me watching him, came running over to excitedly report what I was seeing. Soon he got more interested in reporting  the events that were happening rather than participating in them. I thought my presence there was getting counter productive and silently retired to a quiet corner of the park and started reading. But the sounds carried and I could watch them from a distance. The cart wheel and the garbage can were soon abandoned and they started running around  all over the park, still in a group. From my spot  I could hear the distinct ebbing and fading of their buzz. It was like a swarm of bees in tandem flight. There was no intent or purpose. There was no search for meaning. There was, if any thing at all, that single moment. That moment of joy, of fun, of laughter, of being.

Quite suddenly, they were right next to the tree where I was leaning on. It was a beautiful tree, with a wide trunk and very low leafy branches. Daivik 'discovered' me and came running over. He sat next to me for two seconds, sharing the joy of the moment and transmitting it to me and started running back to his friends. It is interesting to watch him run, with his distinctive way of bending his elbows and placing his hands . He suddenly slowed as the low branches brushed  against his face. He raised his hands and without stopping grabbed a few leaves, came running back to me, deposited them in my hands saying, 'Appa, here is a gift for you', and before I could respond, ran back to join the swarm.

Thank you Daivik, for the wonderful gift. 

Doraemon

“Daivik, come for dinner”

“Daivik”

“Daivik”

“Daivik”

“Daivik, how many times should I call, can you come now?”

“You are watching Doraemon again. Let me find out what exactly is there in that Doraemon that you are not even hearing me ”

Nobita wants to impress Shizuka with his non-existent fishing skills and so goes to a bridge to try it out. Much to his discern, Gian and Suneo join in. The river however is small and polluted. Of course, there are no fishes. An elderly gentleman passing by tells that once upon a time, about 70 years ago, the river used to be much cleaner, there used to be a lot of fishes. Nobita and co cannot believe this. They want to check it out themselves. But how to do it? Turns out that Shizuka is researching about the city and has found a map from 70 years before. Doraemon reaches into his infinity pouch to access the fourth dimension. He pulls out the “map transporter gadget”, a device that transports you across time to the spatial co-ordinates of the said map. So Nobita et al jump into the device and are instantly transported to the same spot 70 years ago. How cool is that ! The city is much greener, the river much wider and cleaner. Oh, look, there are fishes around. They take out their fishing gear when a local boy arrives and guides them in fishing. Meanwhile Gian and Suneo discover a raft and start streaming down the river. Doraemon gets alerted. There is a big problem. The “map transporter gadget” works only within the limits of the original map. And Gian and Suneo are reaching its edge. It is a fascinating problem. They are transported back in time to a restricted spot in space, and are fast approaching its confines. Can they cross it? Will they be able to come back? Will they be sucked into a dimensionless void ? What exactly happens now? It is edge of the seat stuff. These are serious scientific problems, the solutions to which are currently accessible only to imagination. Doraemon, however, has a idea. From his infinity pouch he pulls out another gadget (a map edge extractor, or something like that!). It is a rope that traps the people at the edge of this time warp and pulls them back into safety. The friends are safe again and after catching enough fish, return back to the present.

“Appa”

“Appa”, I hear a feeble voice from a great distance. It barely registers.

“Appa”, it comes again, stronger now.

It is Daivik. He jolts me out. “Appa, how many times to call you, I’m hungry now”.

Gosh, the tables have turned! Instead of getting Daivik up for dinner, I got sucked into the Doraemon universe and Daivik had to extricate me.  

“Yes, Daivik, I’m coming”.

An anniversary (of sorts)

It started off as a mild form of amusement, probably even a little escape. It evolved slightly as a way to share little ‘Daivik moments’ with friends and family (“Daivik moments”, as defined by the “native states” of Daivik, the states that vanish when you pick up the camera to capture them!).  It has now reached its current avatar of this little blog.

 It is unbelievable and almost incredible that it has sustained for a full year now, at a rate of slightly more than one post every week – an incredibly brisk pace by my admittedly lazy standards. Most amazingly, never once did I felt forced to do it, and never once did I have to dig into reserves of memory to hunt for stories. They have come, so to speak, of themselves. Most of them have been real time, some of them a bit lagged.

When I started, I wondered if it was a good thing to do, to put up aspects of his life in the open. There were issues that I had to consider, how will he react when he grows up? (He, of course, is now aware of the blog. “Are you writing about me?”, he once asked when he saw me at the computer. He had had a little bruise at the kindergarten that day. He stretched out his finger, pointed at the bruise and said “Can you tell them that I cut my finger today”). Am I boring people with needless details? How much is too much? But overtime, the responses have been very encouraging and put these apprehensions to rest.  The blog is becoming a sort of, as a friend put it, “diary”. Another friend told me he could “chart the trajectory of Daivik’s growth”. On another note, it has been an amazing discovery that these stories, despite their distinct ‘Daivikness’, have a certain universality about them.

The blog has had some very interesting side-effects too. It has let me reconnect with old friends, it has helped me make new ones, it has given me interesting insights into the personality of kids, it has given me access to new tips on parenting, it has had people asking for updates, it has even served as a conversation starter at parties. The whole process has been utterly charming and I take this opportunity to thank all of you for your encouragement and assuring responses.

Now, as an anniversary special for the blog, here is a little quiz to all the enthusiastic readers :) Please take a moment to respond by email / facebook / comments below. This will not take a long time :)

1) What is your favorite ‘Daivik moment’ ?
2) What is your least favorite thing about the blog?

      3) Anything else (for example, how will you do it differently?)

And, Oh, did I already mention that we like your feedback?

p.s : I’m using “Daivik” as a sort of generic name. Of course, it includes his little sister as well!

p.p.s : I take the liberty to take this liberty until I can no longer take it J

Feeling happy

Jatila had to cross the forest on his way to school but was scared to cross it all by himself.  He told about his fear to his mother who provided a solution. His big brother Madhusudhan, who lives in the forest, will join him from the next day, but Jatila has to call out for him. The next day Jatila reaches the forest edge and calls out for Madhusudhan, who does not come at first but after seeing Jatila’s persistence comes out and agrees to walk with him across the forest.

At this point in the story, Daivik started laughing. There was no obvious reason to laugh, I did not tell any joke, but there he was, laughing away. It was a splendid laughter, a deep throated one, and it was coming in waves. It was the sort of laughter that is so rare for its spontaneity, for its gaiety, for its merriment, for its sheer joy.  It was a laughter that transcended its source and delved deep into the being of the person. It is the sort of laughter that life has an uncanny way of taking away from you. I basked in the glory of that joyful laughter for a moment. But then, reason raised its head. What exactly is he laughing for? As one wave was subsiding, I asked him softly, “Daivik, what are you laughing for?”. “Jatila found Madhusudhan”, he said simply and continued to laugh. I did not understand. I repeated my question. “I’m happy”, he said, without elaborating further.

When I put the two together, I was stunned. Daivik was happy that Jatila found Madhusudhan, that Jatila does not have to cross the forest alone. And that happiness was coming out in the form of that laughter!  

“I’m happy for you”, we say this sometimes. We say this to people who have gained some form of happiness, a new car, a new home, a new job, a new partner, a promotion. We say this as a way to share that happiness.  We claim to feel the happiness of another person partly because we can identify with their situation, we can put ourselves, so to speak, in their shoes. We may even be genuine about it. Daivik’s identification with Jatila was so complete, so unalloyed by any traces of falsity,  that I doubt if Daivik could have been any happier had he himself been rescued from the situation. I seriously doubt if we, the non-Daivik's (and by Daivik, I include all his peers as well), with all our compulsions and complications, can reach this level of identification with another. And Jatila does not even exist!  Daivik’s case suggests that this state is, however, not entirely unreachable. Perhaps it is another instance of things that are innate in us which we “grow out” of as we “lose” our childhood. 

A for Apple

Or, perhaps an Ant. That is how it used to be when I was learning these things.  Apparently, it has changed. When Daivik and me were walking past our park, a supermarket van crossed us. The van had a huge “E”, the logo for the chain Edeka, written on it. Daivik said, “Appa, see, that is the Edeka van.” “How do you know?”, I asked. “There is an E written”, he said, adding, “E is for Edeka”. This sounded somewhat odd to me.  I was taught in school that E is for Elephant. I asked him, “E is for Edeka, Daivik?” “Yes Appa”, he replied with an unnerving conviction. “Like A is for Aldi”. 

Gods must be crazy

Daivik and me were looking at flashcards of wild animals from the Savannah. We went through the habits and habitats of Zebras, Rhinos, Giraffes, Lions ("Daivik, where does the Giraffe live", "At the Zoo"!). Daivik knew most of the animals, but Hyena was new for him. "What does Hyena do", he asked. The flashcard said it was friends with the Lion. When I told this, he had more questions. "Does it eat humans then?", he asked. I remembered a scene involving a little boy and hyena from the "Gods must be crazy, part II", the scene where the little boy increases his height by holding a piece of wood above his head. "If you are taller than the Hyena, it will not eat you", I said. Right away Daivik stood erect, straightened his spine further, and asked, "Am I taller than Hyena".

It occurred to me that it might be a good moment to actually watch the said movie. He might be interested in the little boy and the hyena. I could, of course, watch it again. I asked if he would like to watch the movie 'Gods must be crazy'. He liked the ring of the words in the title. "Gods. Must. Be. Crazy", he repeated slowly but right away realized the apparent contradiction the title held with the conception he had of "God".  "But appa", he said, "Gods are not crazy".

Meanwhile, I was scouting the Youtube for videos of the movie. But Google, in its infinite wisdom, was ignoring my requests for 'Gods must be crazy,' instead showing unsolicited suggestions for videos that we might be interested in. While I managed to find the trailer of the movie, Daivik caught a glimpse of Mr. Beans in one of those suggestions. We watched the movie trailer but Daivik's mind was on Mr. Beans. The moment the trailer was over Daivik insisted on Mr. Beans and we ended up watching his antics in the swimming pool.

But the Gods had not disappeared. After the Mr. Beans video, Daivik repeated his earlier assertion, "Appa", he said, "Gods are not crazy".  But it is not enough to just negate something. You need to provide an alternative too. "Appa", he said again, "Gods are not crazy. Mr. Beans is crazy". 

bribe

The teacher was first showing them how to fall. Bend the knees, fall forward and keep the arms on the side. Then he was making them fall down deliberately. Finally he let them to practice the skating. They kept falling down anyway, sometimes correctly, sometimes not. Either way, it was not a pleasant experience.
There were tears and franatic cries, "Mama!". Daivik kept falling down too and not completely comfortable with the situation.

After the class was over, he saw me and came running, with the skates on, and without falling down. "Appa, I kept falling down", he said, teary eyed.  "The teacher asked us to fall down all the time" he said and declared "I don't like the teacher, I don't want to skate". "But you did not fall down now", I said, to encourage him. This only made it worse. "I don't like the teacher, I don't want to skate", he cried again. The teacher was approaching us with a big smile. Daivik was facing me and did not see him coming. He started repeating his mantra "I was falling so many times, I don't like the teacher, I don't want to skate". The teacher, unaware of his current status with Daivik, patted him on the back, said "Daivik, you did very well", gave him some chocolates and walked away. It took about 3 seconds to happen. Daivik could not believe his eyes.  A heavily rationed item lands on its own accord, right into his palm. He is thrilled. Somehow, miraculously, the tears metamorph into a broad smile. "Appa", he declares, "I love my teacher, I love skating".

truly beautiful

Daivik and me were in a park. It was one of those rare moments when he was playing by himself, which allowed me time to do something else. I was in the middle of it when he came and told me that he wanted to show something. I said I was busy. He went away, but came back immediately saying he wanted to show me something "beautiful". I was still busy, he went away but came back again, tugged my hand and said, "Appa, come, I want to show you something truly beautiful". The use of that adjective intrigued me. Whatever I was doing cannot be more important than finding out what my son considered "truly beautiful".  He led me to a little slope that was covered with Dandelions, some of them were still in their blazing yellows but most of them had dried out, forming neat little golf balls that were sitting pretty on their long stems. It was indeed, truly, beautiful.

After admiring this beauty we went back to our respective things. Later on, we were walking back and Daivik was happily chattering away. As I turned to the right,  my eyes fell on a large area, about the size of a  foot ball field, covered with Dandelions. They were  in direct sun, bigger, swaying gently to the rhythms of the breeze and every now and then dislodging  a puff of the dandelion snow. I tapped his shoulders and without a word gently turned his head towards that field.  As his eyes fell on those Dandelions, Daivik stopped his chatter. He stood transfixed. Both me and the Dandelions were eagerly waiting for a word from him. If that little slope was "truly beautiful", what was he going to say for this vastness of Dandelions ? It was one of those moments, whatever he was going to say was bound to be precious. After several moments of a truly beautiful silence, he looked at me, flashed a brilliant smile and said, quite simply, "wow".

Of course, nature made the Dandelion blooms truly beautiful. It has also devised ingenious methods to enable their propagation to ensure a continuation of that beauty. We tend to think that the wind aids in dispersing the seeds. However, that is only partly true. Nature does not rely entirely on such stochastic occurrences. It wants to be absolutely sure that those delicate seeds are efficiently dispersed . What does it do ? It sends little boys, it sends Daivik. So, after this rather intimate admiration of beauty, Daivik stepped into the field and urged me to join him in what he called as 'Pustebloom race'. The objective was simple : to disperse as many florets from the blooms over as large an area as possible. Before the race began, he initiated me into its intricacies. Apparently it is not quite as simple as plucking one of them and blowing into it. I was astounded by my ignorance in this critical area. You have to hold the stem firmly but not too close to the flower (otherwise it will not bend and the flakes cannot go far), the speed and the angle in which you blow is critical (otherwise many flakes will fall down together, and that is not good), if the wind is against you, you have to blow harder (otherwise all the flakes will fall on you)...

So, we began the race. Soon enough, it was obvious who was going to win. The odds were stacked against me. He was clearly more practiced in this art than me. In order to educate myself better, I picked up a flower, sat on my knees and turned towards him with an objective of  observing his methods more closely.  However, I had to stop my education as the scene I encountered  froze me. It is an image that demands being accurately photographed and carefully framed. I have neither the right camera nor the required skills to do justice to that moment, but its memory lingers : Daivik is on the slightly blurred foreground. His lips are pursed in a delightful joy as he is blowing into the bloom.The still soft late spring sun is somewhere behind his head. It causes the moisture on the lips to glisten and casts a mini-halo around the edges of his hairs. The Dandelion bloom, under the force of his carefully calculated blow, is slightly bent away from him. In the process, it dislodges tens of little florets into the blue sky. The florets appear in sharp focus as they gently parachute down in the still air.

Truly beautiful, indeed.

evolution

Daivik was excited to see the well preserved complete skeleton of the super-large Dinosaurs at the Berlin Natural History Museum. As a souvenir we brought a replica Dino that could open and close its jaws at the pull of a trigger.

And that was how Daivik ended up becoming the all powerful 'Dino-master', who could command the Dino to eat up things or people that did not obey his wishes. Like the tram that did not stop when he signaled for it. Or the Dad that did not turn on the games in the computer.  

When he insisted on having more gummy bears, I  played the Dino game and  told him that there are no more gummy bears in the supermarket because a Dino walked into the shop and ate them all up. It was acceptable to have a Dino under his command, but when I told him about its appetite for gummy bears, he grew skeptical. "But there are no Dinos any more", he said, not very confidently. "Where are they", I asked and he replied,  "they are all gone, they are all dead". What followed was interesting, it would have made Darwin proud. "How did they die?", I asked. He thought for a moment and said, "They got old and died. And there were no more Dinos left". That made sense, but I told him, "But what happened to the baby Dino's then. There are also kinder Dinos. They will grow up and become big again". This idea was new to him. He thought about it seriously. After some intense moments, he declared boldly, "Actually, there are two types of Dinos. One with wings and one without. The one without wings got wings and they became birds. That is why we see many birds now and no Dinos".