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.

Kung fu & Bey blades

Find me a kid who's not crazy about bey blades, and I'll find you an alien masquerading as a kid.

It looks like its all these kids can talk about. There's the bey blade itself, and all the associated mythology.

Another thing that Avaneesh is currently crazy about, is Kung fu. Bruce Lee's life history has been absorbed through dad (yours truly). I'm also subjected to daily tests in the form of atleast 5 trivia questions a day. I'm probably spending more time on wikipedia's Bruce Lee & Jackie Chan pages than on work.

One day he's practicing Snake style, and tiger style another. And dad involuntarily ends up being the monkey style opponent at times.

After seeing youtube videos of 'the Drunken Master', there's some interest in drinking too.

The 'put me into a kung-fu class' rhetoric has died down after I convinced him that its a little too early, and he should get into one after he grows a little older, and puts on a little muscle. But for a couple of days, I was subjected to 'look how much muscle I have here' sessions in order to convince me that he's ready to join a kung-fu class.

We're walking together and suddenly he breaks out into punches and kicks. And there's also this set of weird stuff that comes straight from master Jackie Chan.

A Pro on the Mac book ?

Mom presented Dad a MacBook Pro on their 10th wedding anniversary. But that being a 15" screen, Dad was rather slow in putting that together. Finally after a lot of ribbing from mom about lack of appreciation, feeling, ya da yada yada, he finally took it out, turned it on, and set it next to the windows laptop.

Avaneesh came around sniffing to see if it was a new toy.
He indeed found the iPhoto application a blast. After clicking N photos, and finding that somehow tickling, he decided to pose with every movable item in the house.
This photographing frenzy had happened with dad's new mobile phone too. And dad was found wiping tears of frustration clearing thousands of images off his phone. Dad did panic.. after seeing this. He tried many tricks to dissuade his son.

So, 145 pictures so far. His companions include the MacBook's cute white box, his favorite box of cereal, every Cars movie vehicle, Uno cards( different photos for different cards) , key chains, lego blocks, Tintin comics, Mom, dad, his brother, all his trucks, his favorite Ben 10 T shirts, the Kannada alphabet chart (huh? ) , chess pawns, his brother's babysitter.. the list goes on.

No, not a 'whale ship' .. a 'well ship'

Papa: "What is this, Son? "

Son: "You guess.. "

Papa: "A ship? "

Son: "No, a well ship"

Papa: "A whale ship?"

Son: " No.. no... its a 'well' ship"

Papa: "What does a well ship do? "

Son: "You see.. the water in the sea is salty.."

"So, the well ship carries water for other ships to use. It goes to other ships and gives them water"

Papa: "hm.. cool! .. Where is the well ... water "

Son: "Its inside the ship.. can't you see all the blue stuff inside ? "