Skip to main content

Posts

1. Are you a boring adult or a curious child?

 Around 15-24 weeks into pregnancy, a mother starts feeling the kick of her child. It is a very fascinating and surreal moment as a parent. But, the curiosity of a child begins here. It is a subtle act of letting know the mother that she has had enough in her womb and is curious about exploring the world. When a child opens her eyes to see the world for the first time, she is scared and cries immediately but as time progresses, she starts babbling not only with living beings around her but also with objects, things, furniture and what not. When she is placed on her baby bed, she rolls her head in the direction of the movement of adults. She laughs when we laugh, she cries when frowned upon, she imitates the actions of adults and she carefully observes the phonetics of simple sounds like mama, papa and try to reproduce the same and is nearly there many a times and her curiosity just gets better from now on. When she reaches the age of crawling, she creates chaos in the house. she tries
2 comments
Read more
Recent posts

2. The nuances of birth and death - Part 1

 Nidhi, a 5 year old is very excited to hear the news that she is going to have a younger brother soon. In fact, her whole family was excited to welcome the new born. And finally the day has come!! Vasu, Nidhi's father has thrown a feast to his friends and family and it was indeed the most memorable day for everyone. The new born is placed on a brand new premium baby bed which is neatly decorated all around. Vasu attaches  "Baby Aboard" tag to his car and there's a sense of joy on his face. The whole house is filled with relatives and friends, some of them preparing lunch and some already tasting the freshly prepared sweets. Nidhi's parents are discussing the probable names for the new born and Vasu's father, an astrologist by passion started making rough predictions about his future based on time of birth. Amidst the festive environment, Nidhi quietly sits in a corner deeply pondering over something. Noticing this, Vasu takes her into his arms and asks, &quo
Post a Comment
Read more

3. The nuances of birth and death - Part 2

Later in the Evening, when all the guests left after enjoying a great feast organised by Vasu and family, Vasu sits in his lawn appearing to be enjoying the sunset but he is constantly staring at the sun thinking of the question posed by Nidhi. The setting sun surely has an answer as to when it is going to rise again but Vasu has no answer yet for the subtle but, difficult question posed by his daughter. If someone has the ability to read what people are thinking, then Vasu's mind is being bombarded with following thoughts... So basically what Nidhi is asking is, if birth and death are a part of natural process, then why we associate dogmas with them?  Till now, I have not given it a thought. This is how I was brought up. The other day when Nidhi saw a dead person, involuntarily I was just trying to replicate what my parents did to me when I was a kid. But, Nidhi has a valid point. If we think this through, we associate our feelings with the events like birth and death. Meaning, th
2 comments
Read more

4. Dada, Why can't you be mama?

It's seven o clock on a not so pleasant Monday morning and Vasu, who is only half awake snoozes his alarm for 5 more minutes. The alarm was originally set to 6 AM and probably for the nth time he snoozes it again.  On the other hand, Siri, Vasu's wife who is long awake, is found in the kitchen cooking the meal for the day. She is worried if she can prepare the lunchbox for Nidhi on time, as her school bus arrives in the next 15 minutes. She constantly looks at the fast ticking clock wondering why it appears only to her on Monday mornings that a minute only has 10 seconds, probably the effect of Theory of relativity, she tells herself. Meanwhile, Vasu's alarm rings for (n+1)th time and this time, when he was about to snooze it again, Siri walks up to bedroom and says in a serious tone, "Would you wake up today Vasu? How many times will you snooze? The phone will die of low battery just because of your multiple snoozes!!"  Now, Vasu lazily wakes up and starts his da
Post a Comment
Read more

5. Dada, Why am I going to School?

It is that part of a day in Nidhi's school where no teacher is monitoring her classroom and the kids just started babbling, just like the birds chirping in the evenings, it has no meaning but it's beautiful to watch and Nidhi is no exception. She was laughing so hard, cracking jokes with her friends and then suddenly the teacher enters, and the whole class goes pin drop silence as if someone just pressed the mute button, and everyone stands up to wish the incoming teacher and says "Good Afternoon miss" in a perfect sync and rhythm as if someone programmed it in their mind. Sit down everyone, says the teacher giving a frowned look to the entire class. The class begins by the teacher pronouncing a word and the entire class repeating it after her and the same goes on till the end of the class and the teacher even gives an imposition of writing a few words 10 times each for those who couldn't pronounce properly. Nidhi got five such words as imposition. Later in the
2 comments
Read more