Post Halloween Bedtime
Post Halloween, the brains of the kids are all charged up with sugar and this is what is going on as bedtime.
Aarushi: Dada, do you think you are good at maths?
Arunav: I think so....umm, I sure am.
Aarushi: What's 5 million times 38?
Arunav (after just 5 seconds pause): 1 billion 900 million (he did not know a simpler way to express the number)
Aarushi: whoa - I don't even know how much is 1 billion!
Me: wow - how on earth do you get all those zeroes in your brain right?
Arunav: It's simple - just 5 times 38 - what's the big deal?
Me: Nothing, just go to sleep now.
Aarushi: Can you give me that many candies?
"Go to bed kids!"
What's in a name?
Luckily Arunav had a playdate today. It is his close friend who has been coming to our house quite a few times. Right now the conversation over lunch went like this:
A: Aarushi's bonus level is level 2 and my bonus level is level 4.
X: Who's Aarushi?
A: What do you mean who's Aarushi?
X: I mean who is Aarushi?
A: Don't you know my sister - you played with her so many times and we keep calling her Aarushi in front of you?
X(casually and smiling): oh yeah, I just forget..he he
Ha ha - I laughed at the little boy. So many times even now I forget names unless I have very regular interaction with the person concerned. Funny little ones! "Pre-conventional" stage of moral development can be a purer, less complicated form of moral development.
Just a Day
The kids' break is coming to an end. Ma is leaving today. The weather is dull, morose with an overcast sky but no rains. Its ugly grey shrouds the entire city. Aarushi laughs after playing a computer game. She comes, cracks a joke and asks me to pretend to laugh even though I have heard it before. Arunav teases Aarushi, Aarushi hits him, Arunav cries. Ma sits and watches them, laughs at their constant activity while wondering if I am ok, if my fever is gone or I am just hiding it from her so she would not worry. I leave her at airport express, say a brief bye to the kids and run to my class thinking about the unread parts of Kohlberg's theory..... worrying if the kids will feel too lonely today with no Shyam, no didun(my mother) and me.
And all the time, the earth goes round the sun, the stars shine down, the trees breathe like clockwork, like every other day. No memories, no emotion, no worries.
The quintessential Tagore
The little hopes, the little wants
running in circles
from dust to dust
The fall of hopes, the giving up of wants...
and yet my dear Tagore you say
aaji bijon ghore nishit raate ashbe jodi shunyo haate
ami taite ki bhoy mani
jani
jani bondhu jani tomar achhe to haat khani
............. do we ever know?
Jibon dolay dule dule aponare chhilem bhule
ekhon jibon moron dudik diye
nebe amay taani.....
The Face
The little brown face
The dark black eyes
The look of those eyes
As she enters the room.
A thousand other faces
A thousand other smiles
But that little brown face
With those melting back eyes.
