Nursery crimes.

There is something crudely wrong with the definition of a lullaby by the entire human species. It is meant to soothe the mind and relax the senses of the baby. Its supposed to put him to sleep and transport him to a world of sweet dreams and fairies. But look what we have been singing to generations of babies . Shocking !

Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all

And did you imagine a rudely awakened baby and a mother trying to reach out to a falling cradle. How unpredictable and cruel can one make life through this seemingly ‘Sweet lullaby’! Imagine people-mother, baby, wind blowing quietly, tender love in the air, lullaby tune and the harsh act of baby falling off the cradle.

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?

My god! A carving knife.  A curious child will first ask his mom about a carving knife that cut the tails of the mice .Probably preparing to own one. It certainly sounds like a heroic weapon to hold and cut.  Can life get more violent! ‘Blind’ mice that too!

Here’s a total blower.

Ladybug ladybug fly away home,
Your house in on fire and your children are gone,
All except one and that's little Ann,
For she crept under the frying pan.

‘House is on fire’ and ‘children’ all gone is a sure washout scene. So the moral: Creep under the frying pan. What a disaster of a poem that sends shudders down my spine. The fear of the unknown has been seeded with all evil intent!

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do!
So she gave them some broth without any bread,
And she whipped them all soundly and sent them to bed!

What a virago is she! She whipped them all soundly. And I wonder how soundly will the whip be when its on those tender skin. People,  the world of nursery rhymes holds so many more such spine chilling and absolutely cold blooded murderous thoughts.

The other day after a really long long time I sat watching Tom and Jerry and as always was amused by all the slapstick humour it portrays. Jerry ties a dynamite to Tom’s tail, makes a swirl with it for the clamp, lights the ends of the deadly dynamite, gives the world a devilish grin and shoots him up skywards to the moon! Phew! What on world are we teaching. Fine, a cat has nine lives alright, but this is still too shocking!

I have the most adorable babies on my floor where I live and forever I hear these nursery rhymes played and sometimes I hear the babbling of the babies who are trying to sing along too. While I press for the lift and wait, I often hope to myself that these little innocent minds should never be old enough to understand these lines they sing! God! Are you listening!

A trip down memory lane..

It was in the month of April when my uncle called my dad to tell him that my cousin was having the thread ceremony. That certainly gave me a lot of possibilities streaming in my mind. Exam time it was and so it clearly ruled out the possibility of me having to tag along. The decision was made with appa and patti being the main speakers and amma just feeling so bad that I can’t make it. She hugged me and said that I was unlucky and will have to stay back in the school hostel during that period. While she felt awful about it, I was inwardly jumping in whooping joy as this was an opportunity to have fun in the girls’ hostel along with my best friends.

As I lived pretty much in the same colony, I was walked to the hostel with amma who went non-stop about how I mustn’t fuss and eat well. She kept insisting that if I did not eat well, I can’t write exams well! Well by now you know that she is obsessed about how well I eat always…something like the way I do with R now. For what seemed like a gluttonous mom’s conversation to a ever-starved daughter, she ended, “Sleep on time and wake up early! We will call you once a day and you must be a good girl!”

Minutes after she left, our hostel incharge who was also our fantastic English teacher, walked in. Drama begins. I obviously was going to share the room with my 2 friends who had just got up and had apparently missed breakfast downstairs. She stood at the doorstep and looked hard at us. She then went non-stop about how untidy the room was, why they hadn’t gone down to breakfast and just how immune they were to her words! While this was happening and strongly considering the extremely picturesque colony we lived, one of my friends who got up and stood near the huge French windows suddenly got distracted by the chirping of a bird on a tree. She peered out in curiosity and yes the decibels rose higher and a punishment was meted. The other friend of mine had just stopped staring at the book she was reading, kind of finally book marked the “Stephen King” novel   and looked up in remorse. This whole episode ended with a meek ‘sorry’ from them and our teacher walked over to her daughter’s room from where we heard louder words!

The scene in our room slightly changed now. There was reaction other then curiously peeping at the bird in the tree and getting buried with Stephen King, clothes folding started that to me seemed forever. We all folded and folded clothes. While the cupboards were being cleaned we giggled about the morning scolding and speculated about what her afternoon mood is likely to be. I was appointed for asking her permission for going for the evening open air movie of which we did not even know the name!

The open air theatre that served awesome channa bathura!

We all went down for lunch much ahead of time and I was clearly instructed by my friends that they will tell me just what is edible and the rest can be skipped, “And BD don’t make it obvious…but don’t eat the rasam. If maam sees then just take it in a katori but don’t eat ok. Sometimes sambar is also not ok. Just take rice and chappathi. We will tell you what to do”. It seriously scared the wits out of me. I just decided to follow them every step of the way. Finally the fruit for the dessert was my solace. Through the balcony where we sat, the girls threw some stuff to a dog that came by. The doggy sniffed a long time and then walked away. An uproar of laughter was in the air! Dinner pretty much was more pathetic but as we had permission to go to the movies we ate our hearts out there(Channa Bathura by Kumar anne(that’s what we called him) in Madura Club!) and finally at about 10 pm we sat to actually study. Less than 30 mins had gone when one of us decided we were sleepy and so must have a good bath. Finally after all the activity we got hungry again and this was my highlight! We sneaked down to the fridge and found some custard that certainly was not enough. Quite a brainwave occurred to SS and she suggested to us that we can try the 10 big green plantains on our English teacher’s room . Well to put it straight we all ate the stolen plantains to our heart’s content. There were only 3 left over.

The entrance door to the Hostel..shot after 20 years!

The side view also taken after many years.

We ran back upstairs when we heard the watchman banging and whistling. Life surely was adventurous. We then talked about the day in great humor and of course SL read out a few scary lines from the Stephen King and then we actually slept! A lot of laughter, play, lazying, pretending to clean and study, late baths, stealing food, pocketing the dosa before running to the morning school bus, giggling right through study time, hearing ghost stories and alerting each other of the teacher’s room visits! Amazing memories and when we went there for a class meet 2 years back we stood outside and clicked a lot of pictures and one of my friends actually sneaked out alone to click more with memories streaming in.  

 It was careless fun and laughter that warms our hearts even today as we put these stories together on Facebook and I am hoping this post will trigger more!!

Differences that help

The wise man I married a good 15 years ago often remarks that my small town mind cannot read people for nuts. On the contrary I always fought back telling him that inspite of a city upbringing he lacks the prowess to understand the ’ human’ in  people around him. I hate to admit that judging people today is about a 6^th sense.  There is no other way …trust me people there really isn’t another way! Logic, reason and emotion take  a  beating! We later moved on from Madurai to Ambas(rural  to most rural) and then to Bangalore where I made a living. Right from the spinach vendor to Rachana’s Montessori teacher, he taught me to be curt and frugal with words. Those were times with no hand phones. He would wait the full time to call back home to check if I handled the people right. After doing exactly what I was told I would then rationalize the advice and of course argue later in the evening to why he intended to have me handle it in that way. Just call it hi and bye. Its not worth spending your evenings impressing the neighbor girl with your calculus skills. Its not worth it he would say. One thing is assured…everytime I listened to him(I do MOST of the time), I always thought , ‘Is this what my dad called a ‘homely guy’?

Its not once but innumerable times that he will tell me to be skeptical, nonchalant and ignore the petty things of life. He came from a generation of people who believe having a facebook account is a colossal waste of time, who only tweet cricket and read articles of world interest, striking a conversation  with anyone just like that was a foolish act and thinks till today that turning an invitation as he has to watch every ball of the cricket match was perfectly normal. If people thought it was rude,  back luck to them! That includes the sweet daughter’s invite to at least play UNO for a few minutes. If I cribbed about a birthday invite on a Saturday evening that was going to eat into family time, he would just say “Just tell them its family time”. How rude I thought. Oh no I would come up with the most innovative excuse to make sure the people don’t feel bad at all! Of course my ‘be nice’ kind of attitude had always gone down well with our friends and his ‘so whats the big deal’ attitude has earned him a few enemies too! And when I point that out he will simply say, “So how does that help me get my family time with you and Rach”.

BTW, family time for my man simply means wifey cooks, talks(basically he listens only!), smiles, comments along to a cricket match on the TV, teach the daughter a few more stuff on cricket, solve a crossword on his Iphone App, sets the table, eats a stomach full and then for a late night walk across the road with his us! These conversations are rarely about people we know, its normally cricketers, Hindustani and Carnatic music, share prices, how his shoe hurts his ankle, whats the cap on the CPF for me(a part that I am completely blur about), why I must make omelet only 4 times for Rach, why the Sunday NYT Sunday Edition of Today is a must read for me and Rach and why I just need to learn to figure things out more street smartly  and why my intelligence isn’t being used when it comes to non-academic issues! By now, its time to go back and watch a movie and sleep. And people, its for this that I turned down a birthday party invite and turned an office colleague 3 times in a month when they called us for dinner.

In the face of his world, he hardly knows his phone is out of charge, messages remain unread and sometimes calls get unattended. While playing  games on the phone, Rach reads his messages and sometimes also replies the sender politely. Social skills are 'abysmal' and an occasional shout from the sister will just have him say a few more words on the phone to convince her for that moment.

I have always cribbed at home in this area. I started by calling him a moron, then anti-social:) then called him loner, specimen, weirdo and now a new name- Wise old oak who knew it all!  What needs to matter only needs to matter and just to let you know as no cricket was telecast this weekend, this is what he did with my girl having me make papdi chaat and some ginger tea at 6 pm on Saturday and of course pulling me into what seemed like an argument about my pathetic sense of understanding of people. They told me to stop whatever I was doing(after the chaat and tea of course) and use my good calligraphy skills and use a permanent marker in all the covered books!

R listens to her father's narration of David Cameron's deep sea diving and watches him cover her books!

 Ok people you get the drift don’t you! To be task oriented is probably a natural bliss rather than people oriented. People may fail but tasks cannot. That in a nutshell defines the differences we share. And for the first time, keeps me rested, that this difference exists!