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 🙂