Category: Little Moments

Little Moments: How do fish learn to swim?

Little moments of life with B +ve and O +ve. Moments that are memories of a lifetime.

How do fish learn to swim?

The girls have a pet at home – fish. The fish stays in a fishbowl; we do not have an aquarium. It is a daily task for the girls to feed the fish. They also spend time, once in a while, looking at the fish for an extended period. Whatever they do/undergo, they extrapolate it to their pet and ask questions related to fish. The favourite question is – How do fish poop?

One day, out of nowhere, B +ve asked a question – How do fish learn to swim? I was completely taken aback. This question never occurred to me. As an adult, I just took for granted that fish swims. I never thought as to how, why, when and where fish learn to swim. I checked the internet and tried explaining to the girls. However, that is a side point.

I get this question even in my sleep – How to fish learn to swim? And, why this question never occurred to me.

How do crayons get their colour?

The girls were colouring in their books. Again, out of nowhere, O +ve came up with this question – How do crayons get their colour? What makes a pink crayon pink, a red crayon red and so on? I was again taken aback.

I checked the packaging of crayons; of course, there was no information. The children are supposed to colour and for sure, they are not expected to ask how crayons get their colours.

Hanuman is God. Why does he pray to another God?

B +ve was speaking about her favourite Ramayana. We knew she was going to drop a question that will leave us scratching our heads. And, she did not disappoint us.

B +ve said – So, Hanuman is a God. We nodded our heads. B +ve said – So, Rama is a God. We nodded our heads. She connected the two data points, and asked – So, both Hanuman and Rama are Gods, then why does Hanuman pray to Rama?

We have told her that we will check and let her know. I am checking on the concept of junior and senior Gods, but not getting any hang of it.

Why the men are not wearing shorts in Ramayana?

The girls were watching Ramayana movie in Telugu. O +ve came up with this question – Why the men are not wearing shorts? On one hand, it is a silly question and at the same time, it is also a deeply profound question.

I suppose nobody around has witnessed the Ramayana era, provided it existed in the first place. How can people assume the dressing in any particular period without any proof/evidence?

It might be considered sacrilegious to even imagine in wildest of dreams that Lord Rama might be wearing shorts or something on similar lines. However, I do feel  O +ve has a valid point for a child not shackled by beliefs and hand-me-down rigid ideas.

My take

I keep questioning myself why the above questions and many others that the girls ask on a daily basis do not occur to me. I suppose it is a disadvantage I face having grown up.

We just want our daughters to keep coming up with questions like this. We do not know as to what leads to their questions / how they come up with it.

I assume their questions are a confirmation that they are still children and their initiation to worldly ways – to accept the things, the way they are; is still some time away.

Little Moments: Memories with our children – 3

Little moments of beautiful memories of life with O +ve and B +ve. For the first part, please click here, the second part is here.

Using a map for hide and seek

O +ve has seen maps – in her books, in Uber and Ola apps, in videos, in our house as well. She has forever been fascinated by them; she feels that maps lead to a secret destination. O +ve keeps drawing lines, curves, circles and triangles on whatever she can get hold of and says that she has drawn a map. One day, just as we decided to play a game of hide and seek, she asked for some time, picked up her pencil and paper and set to work. After two minutes, she said she is ready with the map of our house and was pretty sure of seeking us out from any corner.

My little girl is gung-ho about discovering the world with her own maps.

Ramayana – an unfinished story

Who is Sita’s mother? What is her name?

Whilst on a walk, ‘If I touch this stone with my feet, will it turn into Ahalya?’ ‘Which stone should I touch so that it turns into Ahalya?’

Why didn’t Rama and Lakshmana take Jatayu to the hospital?

Why did Ravana take Sita?

What is the name of the squirrel which helped in building the Ram Setu?

At every point of the rendition of Ramayana, the girls had questions. We tried our best to answer them all, but Google also couldn’t throw up answers for the last one. The squirrel continues to remain anonymous. B +ve refuses to hear the story without figuring out the name of the squirrel. So, the Ramayana story-telling has been stalled for now.

Just as I am penning this down, it occurred to me that I could give B +ve the option of naming the squirrel. Maybe the story of Ramayana will continue after that!

Why doesn’t a bull give milk?

We were reading about farm animals. Cows give milk, buffaloes give milk et al. When the bull got introduced, B +ve immediately popped up the question – Does the bull give milk? Even before I could answer, O +ve came up with another question – Does the bull have an udder? I said ‘No’ and O +ve immediately turned towards B +ve and remarked with all-knowingness, ‘Bull does not have an udder, so it doesn’t give milk.’

On every occasion that we accost a member of the bovine family, O +ve and B +ve look down first to ascertain the presence of the udder to ensure correct identification of the animal’s gender.

Aadhaar Card as an all-in-one solution

The girls like watching videos of Australia Zoo. One fine day, they announced that they would like to visit Australia Zoo in person. So, we started explaining to them that to go out of the country, we need a passport and that we do not have one. To our utter surprise, B +ve said that we have an Aadhaar card, so what do we need a passport for? On thinking further, we realized that she is actually right. Why do we need multiple documents when we have already proven the citizenship of the country? When PAN card is seeded with Aadhaar, we can obtain passport basis Aadhaar, what is the need for dual paperwork in all such instances?

To be honest, we do not find any flaw in B +ve’s logic; just that the complex and convoluted Government of India will not see any sense in a child’s simple take.

A world trip with B +ve and O +ve

In the above Australia Zoo discussion, I also explained to the girls that going to Australia is an expensive affair and that we do not have money to afford a trip currently. O +ve quipped that I can go to the ATM and take out the money. I told her that one can withdraw money from ATM only if it is there in the bank account and I don’t have that many in mine. She gave me her ATM card (the girls carry our expired cards in their wallets) and told me to withdraw the money from her account for the tickets.

We have begun planning for a round trip of the world, courtesy – our girls’ ATM cards 🙂

Little Moments: Memories with our children – 2

Little moments of beautiful memories of life with O +ve and B +ve. For the first part, please click here.

Lies and Lice

The girls are growing up and are in a phase where they want to know the meaning of all that they hear and speak. So, one afternoon, whilst singing Johny Johny Yes Papa, O +ve asked me the meaning of the word ‘Lies’. I was dithering, trying to put together an answer without getting into worldly affairs of lies to three and a half-year-olds. B +ve came to my rescue and told her sister that Johny’s father was asking if Johny has “Lice” and dandruff in his hair.

Thanks to lice, there are no lies.

What will Mowgli do when he grows up?

The girls love watching Jungle Book. One fine day, B +ve raises a pertinent question – What is Mowgli’s age? It never occurred to me until then as to what could be Mowgli’s age. It is easy in the age of Google to answer such questions; I looked up and answered her that Mowgli is 10 years old. I was happy that I was able to satisfy my child’s inquisitiveness. But, what I was not ready for was the next barrage of questions. What will Mowgli do when he turns 30 years? Will Mowgli come to stay in the city like us? What is the age of Bagheera and Baloo? Why doesn’t Mowgli ever change his dress?

Sir Rudyard Kipling, please help me with the answers.

What is Life?

B +ve is playing with her Ammamma and suddenly she asks – What is Life? My mother-in-law got nervous on hearing the question that a great many philosophers have failed to answer in their lifetime. She immediately directed B +ve to her grandfather, who answered her question by offering the Telugu word for ‘Life’ – ‘Jeevitham’. Unsatisfied, B +ve again got back to question her grand-mother – What is Jeevitham?

The question continues…

The role-play of Mommy

O +ve has taken it upon herself that she is my mother and I am her child. So, every now and then, she dons the avatar of my mother. I will be instructed to call her Amma, Mommy, Mom, Mummy – all the different words of mother that she knows. She goes around calling me Baby and I have to call her by any of the chosen names that she gives me from her repertoire.

When my mother is around, I might get 2 replies when I call for her.

The tears dropping around

B +ve had a shampoo done and she came out crying from the bath. No amount of cajoling and coaxing can console her right after the gross injustice that has been meted out to her. Her sister tries her luck. O +ve remarks that  B +ve is crying so much that her tears would be passing through the floor, seeping into the house of the neighbour who stays below us and he is going to come complaining to us for the water in his house. The next thing we know, B +ve is amused and is completely silent thinking about whether it will really happen.

Water leakage and water flooding due to tears, OMG!

Why do girls only wear frocks?

We do try to keep our daughters away from the gender stereotyping (my being at home and my wife going to work certainly helps). Well, I suppose not much. B +ve has popped up a question – Why do only girls wear frocks? And, we have not been able to answer this simple (!) a query.

The girls’ initiations to real-world differences seem to have started.

In the daily rush of things, we tend to forget these instances that make our lives livable and leave us with a smile on our face, irrespective of the circumstances that we face.

Each one of us has such little moments. Let’s take out time for them; let us not miss out on these memories in our everyday’s struggles. I am sure big things will happen, in the meanwhile, it will be these little moments that will make life totally worth it.

Little Moments: Memories with our children

In about three months, our twins will be four years.

Feels like yesterday, when I held them for the first time outside the delivery room and went with them to the NICU in the ambulance.

Time flies. The girls are growing up real fast. And all along, there have been little moments with the girls – moments that are memories of a lifetime.

Moments of innocence, moments of craziness, moments of wit, moments of exasperation, moments of wisdom, moments of fear, moments that have us holding our tummies and laughing our hearts out, moments that bring a tear to our eyes, moments that bring us all into one big bear hug.

Well, this section is all about such beautiful moments of life with O +ve and B +ve.

Over to you girls.

I am so cool

O +ve was doing alphabets. Her mother showed her an Igloo and O +ve remarked, “Ice starts with I, Ice-cream starts with I, Igloo starts with I and my name also starts with I. Everything that starts with I is cool,  I am so cool”.

I guess she is.

I drive the people

B +ve’s name means The Sun in Sanskrit and she knows it pretty well. So, yesterday, a remark from her “When I get up, people get up; when I sleep, people sleep. You see, people do whatever I do”.

She seems to take it literally on to herself what her name means.

Google search to be brave

A while ago, one evening, while running on the terrace, O +ve fell on her knees and had a minor scratch. She continued playing for an extended period, had dinner and slept. The next morning, she gets up, gets her toy laptop and tells her mother that she is searching on the net as to how to be brave when injured.

Seems the Google God yielded good advice, she has been brave throughout.

Why do you speak Gujarati?

B +ve is perpetually asking questions.

She asked me – why do you speak Gujarati? I explained to her that my mother-tongue is Gujarati, I belong to Gujarat and hence. The second question immediately followed – why does Amma speak Telugu? I again explained to her that her mother’s mother-tongue is Telugu, she belongs to Hyderabad and hence.

She then asked as to why she and her sister spoke both the languages – Telugu and Gujarati. I told her that they have learnt by conversing with both of us and hence.

So, why do you not speak Telugu and amma not speak Gujarati? If you can teach us, then why have not taught each other?

Clean bowled!

A Lion Story – Spoken by O +ve

Lions live in chimneys. Lions help customers. Lions are everybody’s best friends. Lions eat leaves, strawberries, grass, hay, and mongoose. Lions live in ponds with fishes. Lions do not drink water.

I am sure she knows these lions very well.

I realized that in the daily rush of things, we tend to forget these instances that make our lives livable and leave us with a smile on our face, irrespective of the circumstances that we face.

Each one of us has such little moments. Let’s take out time for them; let us not miss out on these memories in our every day’s struggles. I am sure big things will happen, in the meanwhile, it will be these little moments that will make life totally worth it.