school admission

My dear son,

Both your kaakis think you are a prodigy. One of them says because you were saying z for zucchini last year. The other said because you can pronounce r for refrigerator. I am not sure you are a prodigy. Analytical like your father maybe you are…

Anyways I wanted to tell you about something very important that we recently concluded. Your admission to a ‘big’ school. While I love your current school, it was limiting you in extra-curricular activities, stage performances, sports. It was also getting too expensive. And you are getting pampered like anything by your teachers, friends and the faculty as you were the naughtiest and the youngest in your class. And I would really miss this school. But from a small but exclusive school which has one section per class you will be moving to a school which has 8. From a class strength of around 20, you will be sitting in a class of close to 32 kids. Ofcourse it will be a big change. But I am sure it will be easier for you to adjust now when you are still a slightly wild enthusiastic kid, ready to mingle and learn. So we chose Heritage for you. Or more like heritage chose you. But you are not ready to go to a different school yet. I know you will miss all these friends you made in the last three years L

We went to close to 8 schools in the last 2 months and the funny thing is, none of them are teaching as much as your current school. You are not yet 5 but you already know about nouns, adjectives, architecture of different countries, vowels, rainbow colors etc. I checked at all the schools and some of them don’t even start half the things you already know like addition, subtraction, writing 5 letter words etc. To be honest, I would be happier if you become a bit more sporty rather than being grammatically correct at this age.

And in other news, you are the only kid in class who refuses to practice Hindi and English alphabets in class. So much so, that your teacher actually scowled at us while ranting about your errant behavior in class. It seems, instead of practicing in the journal like the other children, you draw. About family holidays in Hong Kong and other countries where we are yet to go… Of puja ceremonies in which you make stick figures of your favorite uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins and cosmic rangoli drawings in which, very strangely, you insert Hindi alphabets.

Last weekend, we went to the mall and I was assuming you would ask to go to the toy shop or even the gaming arcade. How little do I know you! You insisted for half an hour so we had to go to a hypermarket. You picked up detergent and dettol from there for your father. I fear stranger things might happen still.

It was Ganesh Chauth last weekend and we went t a couple of house to pay our respect to the God. At the first place you were missing your prayer book. At the second place you smeared lots of tika on your forehead, several times. You ate the Prasad on your own and while the other children touched the deity’s feet, you did what we call a dandwat pranam. You lied down on the floor to seek God’s blessings instead of just bending over.

Signing off now because the next one is going to be longer as it will include metro, train, flight, helicopter and maybe a horseride.