the Sun is revolved around

Dear Darsh, 

You are 11 years old now. You are in class 5D of the Greenwood Intl School and you recently started going to school for real after a 2 year break. 

You are pretty nervous these days because it's your first time taking exams, that too written. 

So we are making you revise and the subjects are divided between your dad and me. Daadi ofcourse teaches you Hindi. 

Yesterday, you shocked your dad for the first time when doing the solar system revision. You told him that the Sun is revolved by the planets.  He was quiet for a minute but then he corrected you. and looked at me cos i was smiling. cos you both had decided that reading was of no use and so it gave me meany pleasure when you made this horrendous mistake. but i am not always so mean. and you are reading more books on your own these days. 

Soap dispenser and the fight of the newspapers

Dear Darsh, this week has been very entertaining.

On Wednesday, you broke another bottle. Did i tell you that you need a new bottle every months. It doesnt matter if its plastic, sturdy glass, thermos, aluminium, steel... you always break it.

I was so proud of yr father on monday. he had filled in the soap in the soap dispenser. So thoughtful of him to do sch things quietly without asking me where the big packet of liquid soap is kept, or without asking me when will i fill it. It was a bit too thin for my liking so i am asked him which soap was this but he said he didn't do it. We looked at you then. Did you fill water again in the soap dispenser? I asked you. yes it was getting empty again, you told me sweetly. I was so torn between giving  you a lecture and thanking you. So i settled with a wide stary smile. I think that scared you a little :)

Yesterday was the funniest. You wrote such a creative story about glassy frogs and what made them transparent! I never thought aloe vera gel could do the trick. I wish you have finished writing it in class though.

Today morning you told me a classmate got kids chronicle.So you told her that JI is bigger, better and more entertaining. You also told her that JI is written by your mom and when she asked u about ads, you told her that she can see JI ads within 5 years!!! And that's when you started convincing me about the ads. i mean yeah but i am still not earning any money dear. then you had a vision that you shared with me. how we should do merchandise products with JI and specially with your photo... but sadly you still dont want to carry a copy of the paper to school. I think you were a bit embarrassed and maybe think i wnat you to take orders for the paper. Actually i thought you would feel proud of your mom but anyways.

Last week i came late one day and you hugged me and cried. you missed me, you told me. i love spending time with you but its been 9 months since i met Sonal aunty so i had to go meet her.

tomo we are going for the 1st handwriting class. hope it works out for you baby.    

back after a long break...

Dear Darsh,

i became an entrepreneur again last year. Dont know if that got covered in the last letter i sent to you last year but anyways that's the only and only reason behind it. that and the fact that last yr you read some of these letters and got bored and ran away!

so anyways, i started a newspaper for children with Sonal aunty. it was a blog first and it was so good that people wanted to read it so we went into the publishing business. the two of us have been doing everything - writing, editing, marketing, packing, dispatching and collecting the monies so ya life has been hectic but yr bari mosi told me to start blogging again and i love instagram but you need a writing pad with endless limit on words sometimes and so here we are. now enough about me.

last thursday (i.e. on 25th July) you said the 3 golden words that i had given up on. not i love you. i know you do. it was "i am starving" and followed by "what's for dinner?" trust me i was teary eyed at i am starving and the somehow controlled it but when you asked me what's for dinner, i think i did shed a tera or two. i man not being melodramatic. this is how all Indian moms are. dads dont bother so much but lets not go there today. 

the other day i showed you this email id i created for you. i thought maybe you could write letters to you family in usa and miss them less but you didnt want to use an email id created by me. so its back to its stagnant stuff - catching dust and random clicks of your childhood until you decide to use it one day. btw its 24darsh@gmail.com

we went to usa this year for summer vacation because you wanted to meet all your brothers and sisters there. we had a blast. so much so that you didnt want to come back. you wanted to go back even after a month of coming back.

you have finally become a little independent. remember the first time i asked you to beome independent and you told me - "no, i want to be a mexican!"

  

7th bday party

Dear Darsh

I am writing after so long because we have been busy. Let me tell you about your 7th birthday party. Until January you did not want to host a party. By mid january some excitement creeped in and you started making lists: friends to invite, theme, menu, games but you also insisted that we host at home. No amount of bribing, cajoling, begging worked. Infact we told you that at home we won't be able to invite all your friends. So you said you will have a boys' party. After that you sat on all the chairs and couches one by one and guess-estimated that around 25 kids can be invited. We negotiated and the list came down to 20. That's another story that you ended up inviting around 30 kids.
Now for the party. It was the most riotous, noisy, out-of-control party i had ever hosted or even attended. Everytime one of your friends came, the other children chanted his name and hugged as if meeting after so long. The games guy was late and when he came he made children partner up which led to a few disagreements. And then ofcourse wven after telling him several times in advance he made only a few kids win again and again. A few pouts there too. So had to dig out some prizes for them and hand it over to them. You had very nicely handed over your money bank and the password to all your friends so at one point my room was filled with children fighting over real money and who would 'deposit' it in the box. Halfway through the party you sneaked out a few return gifts and handed it over to your friends. Some opened it too and complained about the quality. Some tried to dismantle and assemble it again. A few came to me and asked why this and why not that. And now let's talk about the cake. You know your neha mausi gets the cake since she has started working with chocolat. So this year too she organized it. And a good thing too because no one else could have accomplished it. You wanted a cake with 2 kinds if topping - lego and pokemon. Ofcourse you wanted a third element too - boboiboy but thankfully sanity prevailed. Ofcourse there were tears for the cake topper edible toys too. Too much. So much so that we had to tell your friends that the toppers have to be returned. No really we said that.

SKF, unsuspension of disbelief and other strange happenings

Dear Darsh

Initially, when you were little-r and i didn't know you well (due to your young age of course) i used to wonder if i would have any thing to write about for the next letter. you see, i assumed we would have a very normal life with uneventful days and no surprises. how wrong i was.

You are 6 months shy of your 7th birthday. You can easily spell hibernation, add up numbers with carry over and have been pleading for a video camera to shoot a few lego movie trailers. you have drawn and colored 4 posters to be exact. 

Today at 7 am, you had a craving to watch Bajrangi Bhaijan. We are very used to these early morning variety of carvings so we sorted through some 40 un-marked CDs and founds your favorites movie of all time. You settled down to watch it post breakfast. Wikipedia says (i don't always believe them though) that the term suspension of disbelief or willing suspension of disbelief has been defined as a willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe the unbelievable; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment. Most people adopt suspension of disbelief when reading a science fiction or a historical drame or any movie. The first time ofcourse because after that you know what's going to happen next so nu psurprises there. why am i talking about it? because i think its been an year and a half since you started watching and rewatching "bajrangi bhaijaan" but every time you see it, you gasp at the most critical scenes. But the most amazing think is the genuine look of surprise on your face and the perfect O you make every time Salman does somthing amazing. 

Also today you told me you are SKF i.e. Salman Khan Fan, An acronym you developed on your own.

Last week at 6:30 am (yes we do get a lot of early morning requests) you told me you heard some senior children practicing the song Zombie. and that you wanted to hear it on gaana.com. To humour you, i looked as i was sure such a song must be the byproduct of your over-imaginative grey cells. Sadly the song does exist and you listened to it in a loop for half hour. This was slightly worrisome for me as i found the sound slightly unhealthy for the ears of a 6 year old. and specially because the blue whale is doing the rounds these days and i am already wondering how much enigma music i listened to when i was pregnant, for you to want to listen to such a song... after several consultation with my peer group i decided to delete the song. i am happy to inform you are not obsessed with it.  

The other day you and me had a small argument about a certain notebook and whtehr it had to go back to school o not. i checked with your mam and after reading her response you realized your mistake and quietened down. not us. we got chatting on mail (yes we were still doing that as the phone nos of class teachers is like a top-level secret). anyways your teacher revealed on mail that you told her you chew your food 21 times as prescribed and that's why you are unable to finish your food on time. (on the family watsapp group, there was a subsequent debate on fact after i shared this little piece of information.)

we are sending you for basket ball and table tennis classes before school hours for this quarter. your dribbling has really become good and we do not have any idea about your swing yet. it seems during a basketball class, some senior girls told you to go play with the children so you told them, "i am not a kid, i am studying in class 1. Kids study in kg and nursery so i am big boy now." You have really grown a bit recently. You somehow successfully managed to use the sports bathroom on your own, all alone, doing the sports session and managed to not mess up at all. 

your father is travelling to USA these days. and while you miss him a lot, you are equally shocked and jealous when you realized Eira and your father are getting along so well. 

your have been coming to the gym randomly and a few days you played football with our coaches. the last time you were there you asked for the poster placed there as you want to become a solder when you grow up and have the same expression the man in the poster has - frowning with his strongness is what i would call it... 

did i tell you that i love you? 

Summer of 2017

Dear D

A lot happened in the last few months. So I am writing a longish letter. You ofcourse are the hero of the story though sometimes you want to be a villain. Okay I lied. Most times you want to be the villain.

We shifted out of our home a day after your school closed for vacations. There were lots of renovation projects waiting to happen at our flat so we shifted to your nana naani’s house in kaushambhi.

We made you join a dance class and you learnt some amazing moves within a week. And then you quit because it became boring for you as you had already memorised all the steps. Impressed with your talent (or maybe the joker in you), your teacher kept calling for days requesting you to return but you refused. That could also be because your favorite ice cream vendor (Amul) stopped coming and I guess that was one major factor for your disinclination. We also tried to take you for football coaching but after a while it became embarrassing to see you dancing to silent music while the other children were playing ball. And therefore we quit football for you.

One of the weekends I had taken you to meet Jai Aditya in the Great India Mall in Noida. That was our one and only visit to the mall. Here’s why: Jai is an inherited-friend for you. He is your friend because I am friends with his mom. So this is one meet-up for which we were both super excited. The gaming arena where we were supposed to do the “playdate”  was the biggest and the loudest I had been to. Or maybe it seemed to me so because I was visiting a gaming arena in a mall on a weekend after like years. Anyways in between the games and our catching-up, we lost Jai. What followed was ten minutes of mayhem when we looked for him at the consoles, then in the arms of a potential-kidnappers and we even scoured the areas between the gaming arenas. We asked people around and every time I would turn back to find you trailing after me I implored you to look for Jai, thinking that you will have the vantage point of your lowered height, something that we don’t have. I shouldn’t have done that because afterwards, you told me, you were scared to go look for him on your own. Ofcourse you would have been scared. I shouldn’t have asked you. We found him in the security room where they had safely put him as he was crying a lot. You called it the lost and found day but in the night the day’s stress finally got to you and finally you gave in to tears. The next day you memorised my phone number so that you know who to call now if you get lost. And then we lost the car in the parking because your nana forgot the color of the pillar. The thing is, nobody had asked him to remember it in the first instance. It took us an hour to locate the car.  We came back home so tired only to be met with an excited bat flying inside our bedroom.

Your stay was quite memorable here as the house was often visited by the nearby wild-pet animals. There was a pigeon family in making when we moved there. Infat you saw the egg then were confused when you saw the new born and no egg and then were amazed by the empty nest, all within ten days. We got a bat baby once, which refused to leave but the guard finally managed to catch it. You called him the bat man whenever you met him. And he often teased you with the scary tale of a room full of pet bats in the basement, which you actually believed. Twice we were visited by squirrels. The first squirrel had made herself quite comfortable in your lego container and had to be literally chased out as you were scared of her. The second squirrel hasn’t left the house and we lost track eventually as she was pretty quiet in the daytime and active only after everyone had slept.

Visit to Qutab Minar and Akshardham temple were the highlights of the visit. And you did not go there because you were pious. You went there because of the architecture, I think. The thing is I am not sure I see the beauty in these monuments. It’s been a couple of years since you first went to India Gate but your obsession with the monument has just not diminished. On all our drives to and from Gurgaon, we have to take a detour for India Gate as you have to absolutely see it. Both ways. Even a glimpse is enough for you. It reminds me of me when I tell your father that I absolutely must / have to / need to do window shopping at h&m and zara whenever I visit a certain mall. I realize how puzzled he must be feeling then. And afterwards.

We also went to Kidzania as you absolutely had to visit the place due to the various commercials and hoardings you have been exposed to. It was a different experience for both of us. It taught be to give you responsibility and to watch you from afar. And it taught you how to best use your resources and time and balance it with the fun quotient.

We are back home now and you are amazed at the transformation of our house. You still refuse to move your lego tableaus from the centre table so that is a problem. You still practise summersaulting on the new couches so I don’t know how long are they going to stay new…

April 2017 - nature lover with a twist and other stories

Dear Darsh,

You are 6 years, 2 months and 3 days old today. April 2017 is still not over but it has been an overwhelming time for us as your parents. Because your questions have become stranger. 

Our alone-time was cut short drastically this month due to work but you spend some quality time with your father. You are pretty impressed with your father these days. Especially with the citation and award etc. You did tell your teacher about your father. How he is teaching you to wrestle. You also told her about your new underwear and the designs on it. Maybe you share a bit too much with your teachers.

Request for name change

You asked me why I didn’t name you karush. And why is your name Darsh. Obviously this happened in the morning before we went off to our respective places of fun and mental peace. Then you told me you would like to change your name to karush but how worried about how to inform the teacher about it. But by evening you had probably decided that Darsh was good enough for now. Btw I looked up Karush as nobody I knew was aware of the word. It means dry and hard. We still don’t know how you got this name…

The multiple voice syndrome

I don’t know if it is a thing common to all kids obsessed with Lego but you are always playing with lego and talking in multiple voices. I once listened in and heard a damsel in distress, a police man, a super hero, several villains... lately you have started making background music scores too. Is it normal?

The nature lover with a twist

In the last one hear I have bought and borrowed so many books on a singular theme that I have lost the count. They all are about nature’s most horrible creations – cyclones, storms, typhoons… We read these books but only the parts that interest you i.e. Infact the other day you compared the books and Dr Binocs video explaining the natural disasters and told me Dr Binocs is wrong. Last week I asked you to make me a beach scene. You drew a pretty scene and then drew in a tsunami. I asked you to draw a snowy day with your friends and you did that but with a blizzard as the central theme. Even a sunny day became a cyclonic sunny day. Even our lego people have to suffer a lof of weather issues. I don’t know if that is your take of the global warming scene but I have taken the number of a child psychologist and maybe one day I will ask her how to make you slightly less morbid in your imagination. In other news the matchstick characters you draw have become slightly fatter. They look squarish now.

When a boy does not love a girl

We went to a birthday party and I asked you to draw a card. You drew a beautiful card with cakes and decorations etc but you signed it ‘Like Darsh’. Because you said I don’t love her and she is not my friend so I am writing like. And that’s how it went to her. Did I tell you her mom is a good friend?

Drooly Icky Larva and what's your street name

Again I don’t know if its boys in general who like creatures who fart gases, play with the mucus and swim in their saliva but you do love these larva cartoons where the protagonists love to do just that. You have downloaded all kinds of “free” larva games and videos on my phone and your father’s but I guess your hunt continued because today in the morning my phone showed me a half-filled form for payment details through Vodafone for a new larva game download. The place where you got stuck was street name. Maybe next time I won’t be so lucky.

You and Nana

You guys have a stormy relationship. Mostly because you both are so similar - you both like to tease, dominate, watch tv, play in the park and talk the loudest. Obviously sparks will fly.

Last summer Advay accidently crushed his fingers in the car window but you blamed my father for it and publicly denounced him several times. He does feel guilty about it you know. Anyways you reminded him again about it last week and kicked him too. Did I say the incident happened almost a year back?

A few days back we asked you who is favourite nana and you placed my father at the end. Ofcourse he was sad and slightly shocked about it even though you said “I was joking” several times.

You told my father that you would never be his son. You are too young to understand that he lost his baby boy long time back and saying such a thing could be quite hurtful to him but what can I say. I guess one day you will understand how words, even spoken by a young person like you can sometimes hurt.

Now your nana with the travelling pants is out of station and even though you said all these vicious things to him, now you are missing him and want him back. But I guess a little space will really help you both bond better. Or not.

Your “loving” mother