Kallola

Emirates Parent Plus. December 2010 As usual, it began with a bang! There were tears, there was loud ranting. There were ground teeth. There was a lot of huffing and puffing. There would have been retaliation too, but this time good sense prevailed upon me. And had he clenched his fists any tighter, I am certain his fingers would have come through the other side! My crime of the day: Cutting the chart paper into the “wrong kind of half”!! “Argggggh!” Wanted: 'Natural', diagonal half.  I dared: 'Silly', rectangular half straight down the middle. He was right. There is no way, “this can be made right”! And even the stationer was closed for the day, so a quick replacement was out of the question. This is one of those occasions when it is best to stay very quiet and adopt a reverse conduct – do as told and do as expected (mind read, if that’s what it takes!). So I kept very quiet and hoping that it would appease him a bit, I laid out his colour cards, his paints...

Emirates Parent Plus. June 2010. I had just clicked ‘send’ on the laptop when my little man, deep in thought, dragged his feet into the room. From experience, I knew that I could not have timed the completion of my job better – this was going be a long chat. Or a really short one, depending on how ‘child-friendly’ his thoughts were. Leaning on my knee and rocking a little, he slowly started. “Ma, I am a little worried about when I grow up”. “Why’s that, sweetheart?” “Because...” He had started fiddling with his fingers. “mmm... because when I grow up, I’ll have a wife...” Of course, I am glad to know that. But any opening like this is best served with stoic silence, for the climax comes soon enough. “...and she will have a baby one day...” The wheels in my head were turning at 11,000 RPM. I had to be ready with either the right answer to satisfy him or the perfect evasive tactic so we would both be satisfied. “... and then she’ll spend all her time with the baby an...

Emirates Parent Plus. April 2010. Five perfectly formed, shining examples of excellence lay neatly arranged in the order of their size on my little fighter’s palm. Fighter, because he had gone off in a huff, to do my own thing , after grudgingly doing me the favour of drinking his evening milk down to the last drop. The shining examples were five clay models of vegetables that he moulded in the anger of having to do tea at tea-time. Of course, it didn’t come free – but more of that in a bit. He does this to me often. Eating quickly enough, just doing anything without a well-wrought explanation, not stopping a task to why? at everything (this is Why?- Phase II; you will be subjected, resistance is futile) are all events I have to be grateful for. And when any of these rare feats is achieved, God knows, I am eternally grateful. Then he takes off stomping and returns before I could have regained my breath, with a stunner. Maybe for only a little, teeny, weeny while, but at that...

Emirates Parent Plus. March 2010. Smiling through nothing more than a snooze after an entire week of exasperating sleep deprivation, I looked at my son, smart in his crisp whites, chin-up and thrilled to be back in school after a long and well-deserved break. Having beat the rush hour, we reached school unexpectedly early that morning and with all room doors still shut and maintenance staff only just trickling in, there was not much else to do but wait. The virtually empty school building worsened the heaviness in my eyes as we sat there, just the two of us, my little boy leaning on my knee. It’s been a year since we officially started life in Bangalore and one question repeated itself through the fatigue weighing me down into the cold steps outside the classroom: “Is there anything I wouldn’t do for my child?” Again, I looked at his beaming face, now bobbing up and down along the row of floor tiles, when my eye caught the poster on the wall behind him. Boldly calligraphed was:...

aka One-Day maid service is here - Bangalore Mirror, Wed 3 Sept, 2008 At a recent gathering, the topic of conversation, inadvertently, settled upon domestic help. As always, there was a lot of cricket in the background. Both, subjects that everyone has ample to contribute to. That day was no different. While the men whined about missing crucial cover drives and third eyes, one senior lady went glum just thinking about her predicament at having to endure an in-form-out-of-form-out-of-town kaamwali . Another friend posed smug at the loyalty her mother enjoyed irrespective of malle , jaatre , habba , maava or akka na thangi ! Woes of trauma followed. Few scored and two were caught behind. India, in the meanwhile, was doing well with Dhoni on strike. That’s when a phone rang. Smug friend’s maid needed a week off! Her maava na magaa had been put into aaspatre . Well, well. While the rest of the crowd looked on half amused , half sympathetic, my mother revealed our unique situation. With ...