A Halloween conversation

Bangalore has been beset by November rains. For those who are non-Indians - that is a big deal in India. We normally don't get rains after the monsoons.
 Bangalore is a little unique because cyclones in the bay of bengal that hit Chennai or the Andhra Pradesh coast, come over to say 'yennaDa' or 'yemunDi' respectively.
Besides, I just hurt my wrists with a bad fall playing tennis on a wet surface. So one wrist is swollen, the other is severely limited in it's turning radius. So, I had to get dropped to my office by wifey. Office is a little over a kilometer from home.. so it's not a big deal to walk.

Evening comes but the wife is out at the gym. I could walk home if the rain lets up.
However, I have to walk past a slum, and rain on poop results in an olfactory overload I'm not exactly looking forward to.
I would also have an interesting time slinging my two bags in such a way that my wrists wouldn't be needed to stabilize them on the walk back home.

 Then comes the phone call.
 "Papa.." says my 9 year old as only he can say it.
 "Yes.. " I wait for the inevitable reminder about going to the toy store to pick up another Nerf gun.
And I wait to again remind him that papa can't drive right now.
I also am ready to bring up papa's current priority - the overdue ortho visit to check if there's a fracture lurking beneath the swollen wrist.

"Papa.." he starts again " .. today we're going to celebrate Halloween."
"We are? " I ask - a little confused and distracted. Drivers outside are loudly honking their protests against the rain gods peeing on them all day.
"Yes. I've told my friends we'll celebrate halloween, and I've called them home here. We'll go trick or treating and collect some loot"
I can almost see that half-smile at using the word 'loot' in this context.
He continues " So, I want you to get me some toilet paper "
My honk addled brain starts getting visions of toilet papered apartment doors or even cars in the parking lot.
He thankfully explains - "It's for my halloween costume. I will use it to become a mummy. An Egyptian mummy".
"Cool! Nice Idea!" I exclaim, at the same time realizing walking was unavoidable.
"I'll stop by at a store on the way back. I'll head out by 6 unless your amma picks me up earlier."

Soon, I find a pocket of time where the rain dwindled to a drizzle and started hoofing it back. My residual cold is a boon in disguise as I walk past the slum. It's a small detour to the store, but I go anyway grimacing against the steadily increasing rain.

As I walk to the checkout counter with the toilet paper, my phone rings again.
"Papa! You know I'll be a mummy, no? For that, I'll also need a full-white T-shirt and white gloves too. Can you get those also?"
In India - unless you walk into a big mall, the stores where you buy toilet paper don't really carry T-shirts or gloves.
"They don't have that stuff here, Nishu. And I can't really walk to a clothes store now.. I'll just get these" I said.
He agrees reluctantly.

It takes us more than 20 minutes to wrap him up with enough toilet paper and tape to make a convincing mummy. His red tshirt underneath doesn't make the job easier.
His brother has been in character for the past 2 months. He's been wearing his older brother's 5 year old batman costume every day for the past 2 months. To top that, my friend Shubha got him a batman mask just the day before to complete the act.

I am glad when they finally go out trick or treating. But the toilet paper mummy doesn't last too long. Eventually he just paints some long teeth and goes back out as a vampire.

As for his brother, everybody just said 'hi Nischal'. Mantri Elegance Apartments has had just one batman stalking it's premises for the past 2 months.

There's a lesson here..

I was driving Avaneesh back from his tennis classes. On account of the previous night's downpour,  the court was too wet for tennis. So, they just had exercises and played soccer.
He was playing 'Temple Run' while I was driving. On the Galaxy S III, the game is a little faster than on the iPad or the Galaxy S. So, he was having some trouble playing it.

Saturday morning traffic was reasonably light and I was also driving at a good clip.
In came his first request(?) - "Papa, can you drive in first gear & second gear only? You're messing up my game"
"Sorry man, I can't do that" I replied.
And hence continued the oohs, 'oww's and grumbles as he missed a swipe at each roadbump or turn.

Apart from that, I was now behind a bike that could do just fine with a couple of lesser cylinders - for Bangalore roads. The rider was a studious looking, tortoise shell glasses wearing guy puttering on slowly, taking up the center of the road, and not noticing the empty road ahead of him. It took some skilful driving before I maneuvered my 800 cc Maruti around him, and gave him a maybe-you-should-get-a-tricycle look. The man either didn't notice, or didn't care.
Avaneesh's grumbling meanwhile - having lost more games - had gotten real loud.
So, with his latest 'look what you did!!' coupled with him showing the phone to my face, I just took away the phone.
There was a 30 second silence observed to honor the explorer that he'd let die for the umpteenth time - courtesy his dad.

It also gave me some time to think about what moral I could impart to this sullen monkey.
So I came out with my first jewel.
"You can't do a dance rehearsal on an iceberg"
No response. Maybe it just ricocheted off.
" I said,  'you can't dance on an iceberg'  "   I said.
"What ?" he said and looked around quickly  "where is the iceberg?"
I took a deep breath, and asked him to listen for more than a microsecond. And repeated my line.
"Yea..   so ? "  was the response.
I held back repeating it - it was time to retire that jewel back to the Nile. I fished out a new one.
"You can't play soccer in a battlefield"  I said. I was really getting into this whole pull-out-a-new-proverb-every-second thing. Give me an accent, and I could be a Nat ya nanda.
"You can, if there's nobody there", he said.
"Um..er.. obviously I mean when a battle is going on" I stumbled.
As he started a search in his head about what other battlefield conditions you could play soccer, I decided to try a more direct approach.
"What I was trying to say was, there's a time & place for everything. There's no point you playing this game on the phone while the car is bumping around like this"
And I noticed in the rear view mirror - the puttering mega-biker was almost behind me. I suppose in this traffic .. a few meters gained are also very quickly lost at the next mini-jam you get stuck in.
As I marveled at the tortoise that almost won the race, Avaneesh asked "So, I guess I could play angry birds instead"
As I was about to set forth on the 'there is a time & place for everything' moral, an old man jumped into the road from the median on the right. Apparently he'd decided that lawsuit returns were more important than his remaining days. Or maybe he'd somehow heard my aforementioned proverbs. Sadly for him - I noticed just in time, swerved and  honked.
That did not discourage the brave man even a little bit. He did a small jump back (almost after I'd passed him) and again jumped forward ... into tortoise shell's way. The buddha on the large bike was naturally slow enough to comfortably stop. Two wheelers/rickshaws on his trail also screeched to a halt. The buddha waved the old man across with a comfortable smile. I could see a youtube video titled 'how to scare the heck out of drivers' in the grinning old man's eyes.
There was one extra angry bird in our car as I accelerated onward.

Atleast.. the tortoise hadn't won the race. Or had he?

To Bose or not to Bose

Avaneesh had to write an essay & talk about a hero of his.

So he came home saying he'll write about Gandhiji.
"There will be a 100 'Gandhiji is my hero' essays out there", said his mom.  Subhas Chandra Bose became the hero candidate. Then started the lecturing about Subhas Chandra Bose - after a quick study on Wikipedia by the parents.

The parents soon discovered that a 5 min overview that didn't include a lot of bombs/guns was pretty insufficient to make a person a 'hero' in a kid's eyes.

• "because he got admission into a good college?"
• "because he got 2nd rank in the good college?"
• "Is Cambridge a good college? " 
• "Where is Cambridge?" 
  
• "because he was the Mayor of Kolkata?" 
• "So.. he fought against the British?" 

That ended the 'let him figure out why Bose was a hero' plan, and started the 'here are 10 things to say- write them down' plan.
Finally, on D-Day arrived (er.. next morning, actually). Mom fired off some questions early morning - both waking him up from his morning stupor, and warming him up. And off went the little guy to the battlefield.


Evening, he's busy trying to make Mario catch the rabbits on the Wii.. and mom finds it the right moment to ask about it. Dad - who'd just demoed his son on how to catch the rabbits - also was a little miffed at the interruption. But he did put on his ' I'm interested' look.
"Did anybody else talk about Subhas Chandra Bose? "


"Oh yes.. four of them"


"So.. did the teacher like what you said? "


"Yes.. she said 'good' when I spoke about Subhash Chandra Bose"


"That's nice!"


"But she said 'very good' for somebody else that talked about him. So, maybe mine wasn't the best"


Two weeks later:

Now its time for the dreaded PTM ( Parent-Teachers Meeting). And we sit in front of the English teacher after having spent half an hour in line. Time well spent by the dad playing 'Temple Run' .
Dad hesitatingly opens "I'm the father of Avaneesh .. 4 D .."
"Oh yes!" the teacher smiles " Avaneesh .. he's a smart boy.. "
Dad relaxes a little
"I'm guessing he's a big fan of Subhas Chandra Bose? "
Now Dad has a confused look
"He knew so much about him.. and the poor kids that had chosen to speak about Bose: He kept correcting them whenever they made the slightest mistake about Bose!"

We're a lot alike..

Nishu has this problem where every day he's looking for his things.

Getting ready for school at 6:30 in the morning, he started looking for something.
Having taken 30 years and partially conquered this aspect partially (I don't look for my keys or my wallet anymore), I felt the need to give some fatherly advice.
Since outright telling "Keep your things at the same place"  hadn't worked, I thought a story of sorts would help.

As we were leaving for his school bus, I preambled...
"You know.. we both are a lot alike ...  and so we both have similar problems... "

He cut me short.
"You mean we both are fat?"

I didn't have much to say for the rest of the walk.

Of poetry and sugar bombs

Driving back home, the kannada song 'Ninna Nudiyu (ನಿನ್ನ ನುಡಿಯು, ಹೊನ್ನ ನುಡಿಯೋ)  started playing on the radio. The song is in the Kalyani Raaga (or Lydian mode ) - which I'd once taught Avaneesh on the guitar.

I ventured - "Do you recognize the scale?"
"It's a major scale" he replied.
Encouraged, I continue..  "yes, major scale.. but what are the notes?"
No reply.. so I tried pointing out the raised 4th note.. making him voice the notes of the scale. He nodded, but was more interested in something else in the back of the car.

We had arrived - and started walking to the apartment. I thought maybe poetry in the lyrics might interest him. Also teach him a couple of kannada words in the process. Buy one get one free.

'ninna nuDiyu, honna nuDiyu  ನಿನ್ನ  ನುಡಿಯು, ಹೊನ್ನ  ನುಡಿಯು
jEna haniyu, hridayake'            ಜೇನ ಹನಿಯು, ಹೃದಯಕೆ

'nuDi' means "word or spoken word" .. so "ninna nuDiyu means.. "
 "Your word ?" he says.

Nodding, I go on..  'honna nuDiyu' - where 'honnu' means 'gold'.
So, we have .. 'your word, is a golden word' .
'Golden word? ' he repeats.. with a neutral tone in the voice.

Anxious not to lose him.. I go on:
'jEna haniyu, hridayake' - ' means 'a drop of honey to my heart'
At his look, I realized I'd lost him.
It means 'your every word is golden, and like a drop of honey to my heart'
Again the blank look. I then realize that 'honey' s significance was probably lost on a kid that's grown up on sugar or chocolate frosted cereals.

We had reached the apartment already, and he was now putting his shoes in the shoebox. 
'You know.. honey is very sweet.. so when he says 'a drop of honey to my heart', he means it feels very good. .. like a very sweet thing'
I see the bulb flash in the eyes .
'Ah .. you mean .. like a sugar bomb!'

He left me standing there, pretty pleased with himself on making the connection.

One girl would have been nice, I echo his mom's sentiments.