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

    

scientific experiment goes very very boink

Dear D

when you were inside my tummy, i used to read a lot of calvin & hobbes. maybe i shouldn't have. i think while reading about his pranks and his devious acts, i passed on a little of his wickedness to you. why else would you, a 20kg puny, not-yet-six would draw an elaborate step-by-step chart of how you would kill us. that too on the very auspicious day of Ganesh Chauth, the only day of the year when i fast for you my dear. a water-less food-less migraine-inducing fast no less. i think the migraine was a bit early that day because of your drawing.

here's how the plot goes (as explained by you)- you, the evil scientist, will mix a potion of orange color and tell us it is fanta and make us drink it. we will gulp the fanta-look-alike-drink as we would be very thirsty and then we will fall down and die. you will then live happily ever after with your father.

when i told your father about it, he marveled at your ingenuity and was so happy about your creative juices.. no really he was all gaga! so i had to point out the basic idea behind the plot - our sad demise and your happily ever after with your grandmother. it sobered him then i think.

to console myself i blamed it on the flintobox experiment kit which gave you the test tubes to mix your potion in, and then i blamed myself for explaining the word scientist to you. and then your kaaka and kaaki scolded us for scolding you and making you angry enough to draw such plans. yes, again our fault it seems.

this freaked me out a little. maybe that's why it took me almost 15 days to actually make up my mind to write about this. i wish my 1st post of the year was on somthing positive and cheery. i wish you would stop thinking so negative. i wish i knew how to undo this anger or hurt in you.

i know you would never really want to hurt us but just so you know, this is when we seriously started thinking about booking an old-age home for us.

love you my dear ;*
your slightly scared mama

skype tutorials and questions

Dear Darsh

When you were younger you used to ask me questions about the planets and the solar system. So I got us a book and we spend many a pleasant afternoons poring over the pages.

Then you got obsessed with flags and maps and an atlas it was for us. And so on… until yesterday. Now I don’t know what books to buy for us. You are 3 months shy of your 6th bday but your questions have become slightly difficult for me to answer. 

After a very long time we had read a Krishna book cover to cover last evening so I was waiting for the questions about people in Vrindavan  but I wasn’t prepared for what was to follow… You asked me some peculiar questions regarding the digestive system. I will be honest. I never thought about such things. Some of your questions: if the water we drink gets converted to pee, then who colors it yellow? If the food that we consume make our poo then who shapes them? And why do they float? Also what makes us fart and burp…

And it didn’t end there. You wanted to know what makes up a storm and what is the difference between a hurricane and a tornado? I am still looking for books which will give me these answers. We did try to tell you that god makes the wind blow in different directions thus making hurricane and tornado but you just stared at us in a very strange manner. Like you knew we didn’t know the answers.

So I reached out to people at higher levels today and tonight you will skype with your elder brother who will try to unravel all these mysteries for you. His mom assures me that he knows all the answers and then some... Let’s see how that goes. In the meantime I am looking up the books online again. 

Did i tell i i love you? I do :*

20th Nov - The Sunday we went to India Gate

Dear D

After much planning and postponing and cancelling, we finally decided to go to India Gate last Sunday. Your parents were too pleased to have one Sunday free finally after so many weeks. So we didn’t do any research. Had we done any research, we would have found out that India Gate was already a booked venue that day by the Half Delhi Airtel marathon. The website had claimed 34,000 participants.

                                      

We actually found about it half-way on our route when we opened the trusty old Google Maps and it popped up the marathon details. We still went ahead because you were beginning to pout. But we found to our dismay (mostly your dismay and shock and horror...) that the entry roads to India Gate were blocked. To kill time and also because we were hungry we went and had a lavish brunch buffet at Haldiram's and also for some sought after imarti. After which we bullied and cajoled your father to venture again to visit your favorite monument.

This time, we got through. just took us 3 hours to reach it instead of the usual 50 minutes but never mind that. your expression was priceless. it was like watching a spaceship movie. You kept staring with open mouth and kept mumbling wow after few seconds. yes i am talking about india gate not taj mahal. You then proceeded to check it out from all the angles and even gazed into its eyes for quite a bit. you even insisted on touching it but thankfully there were too many jawans around for you to be too daring. You then insisted on staying back for the laser show in the night but we clarified with a Jawan on duty that it wasn’t to happen that Sunday.... After saluting an NCC Cadet from a distance you then went to catch a few soapy bubbles and you kept at it for quite some time because the vendor, enthused by your bubble catching talent, kept blowing bubbles at your way and for a minute i thought there was a competition going on. We finally bought one bubble blow set from him and after that you both relaxed.

The next destination was the children’s park. obviously. Here too, you went slightly crazy with the holed-out slides and tunnels. All in all you had a fun day. We came back home exhausted. err not you. You wanted a strawberry cake. Let me backtrack a little. you have been asking for a strawberry cake for so long but i have the lazy-mom syndrome going on these days. but you know the way around it so well. so instead of asking me to bake a strawberry cake you asked me to teach you how to bake one. i don't how you know that teaching baking to little kids has become one of my favorite things to do these days. So you baked it and I helped. And after you ate it we decided to invite your friends for a baking class where you can teach them the baking moves. Andon that note i'll say our day ended. 

Btw You sang Sia’s Cheap Thrills all the way to the monument and when we requested you for a change in song you sang kanha makhan chor. you have been trying to teach me the kanha song so that i may successfully sing it during bed time, lulling you to sleep. sadly i am not even half-way there. you know it by heart already. you also know 3 slokas. that is 2 more than i know ;) Your choice of songs and singers is pretty eccentric as of now – Boyzone – words, Christina Ricci – 1000 years, Jungle book theme song, Shankhar ji ka damru baje, Lego movie song etc. I think as long as you don’t sing hips don’t lie I will be okay.

You ae pretty helpful around home and kind to the less learned. you have started translating for family and friends even when we have told you that everyone knows passable English. So one of your grandmothers had to hear gussa chiriya – angry birds and the other one had to hear makri man. your twitter-star mosi whose poetry is followed by close to 5000 people daily had to hear kitaab chor – the book thief  recently.

Your dance moves are also quite funky and your bari mosi feels you can have a successful career in bollywood. I am not so sure. I think you can be a baker / a robotic engineer / scientist or a maths champ. Or you can be a lawyer. i think.... 

You – I want to be a scientist

Me – so please study. All scientists have to study a lot

You – can you show me the image of a scientist doing homework

Me – yes of course I will do that!

Me – Okay Google…look for little einstein doing home work