Growing Up

You join dots that glint like the tips of a tantrum

to form alphabets that are onesies dangling

from pink plastic clips of lisped words   

fluttering into sentences like shape shifting wind

settling into a sepia memory like winged butterflies

on a flower.

 

Can we spend some more time, here, together?

~ In response to the Peter's Prompt at dVerse

Efforts at home schooling

Krishna is now two and a half years old and at home, thanks to the pandemic. Much as I try to slot the days into neat little compartments of learning, art and outdoor activities (which has reduced to a bare minimum), I have not been able to. For, the mind of a two year old is as playful as the flitting butterfly that refuses to get bogged down by the rigors of discipline. 

I try to cram in as many activities as possible for him, into the lone hour that I get, before leaving to office. Ten minutes of which, gets spent in cajoling him to arrive at the table to read. I finally abandon my futile attempts and get him to sit on the soft duvet, a bowl of raisins in one hand and his favourite water bottle in another. He uses both of them as distractions to suit his whims, once every two minutes when he finds the process of listening, tedious. I carry on like this for the next fifty minutes in the solace of the knowledge that we are 'making incremental progress towards a meaningful goal', a la Earl Nightingale. 

And then I hand him over to my mother to carry off from where I leave and proceed to office till I return in the evening, hoping to read to him but never actually getting my exhausted self to do it.

One of these days, hopefully, things will change. And hopefully the process of learning will get to be more fun for both of us, actually all three of us - my mother and me, as educators and my son, as a diligent learner.     

In the lap of nature

 Today is the last day of my three day mini-break in Coorg.

I must say that this time, I got to see a completely different face of the land that I belong to, the land whose beauty I just can’t get enough of, I just can’t stop raving about.

We arrived on Saturday morning after a short detour to KRS(Krishna Raja Sagar) dam. Our car tootled on the cement pathway to our home in tune to the light beats of a thin drizzle, when I caught sight of the patch of clouds hanging delicately on the tip of the distant hillock, a hillock I had never noticed before. They bowed low like hosts, eager to please, folding their palms.  

It has not stopped raining since the time we arrived. The volume of the rainfall varies from time to time, alternating between heavy and light, but never stopping altogether. This sound of pattering rain is a pleasurable change from the constant din of honking horns of a dreary city life.

During the past two days, Krishna, with his outstretched palms, has been sampling drops of water dripping from different surfaces – from the red petals of wild hibiscus, from the tips of green unripe coffee berries, from the eaves of the two dog kennels, from the edge of the porch – all while we entertained ourselves to some outdoor carrom, a game at which I fare very poorly and would have happily joined my toddler in his adventures instead. Nevertheless, we did have some great moments of family bonding, ones that will remain in our mind for a long time to come.

Today morning, we visited the kere, a small pond which serves as a natural well of irrigation to the estate. It was as green as the leaves of coffee shrubs themselves and Krishna was pretty excited to see all the different birds that hung around the pond. We tried to match them with the birds we had seen from his book, but practicals are always a different ball game when compared to theory.

Otherwise, I’ve been trying to nature-watch, bird-watch, insect-watch, flower-watch from the comfort of a sheltered porch trying to soak in as much as possible.

With a book on my lap and a fountain-pen in my hand, on our first evening here, I remarked to my husband who was sitting beside me, sipping from a cup of hot coffee, ‘This is my dream life, you know. Writing in the lap of nature.’ Like one of my favourites, Ruskin Bond. And another favourite, Shivaram Karanth. But now at the end of the third day, I realize - I was so lost in her beauty that, in three days, I could only squeeze in a short poem in her praise.

The days and nights have been cold, a kind of cold that lulls you into sleep and prevents you from getting on your toes to make yourself a cup of coffee, to take a bath or to reach for the phone that lies on the table a few feet away from your bed. ‘Lie down for some time more,’ the cold seems to say, a wicked smile playing at the corner of its lips. The only other place that reminds me of this kind of cold is Mussoorie , which happens to be another favourite.

‘The chill in the weather is much better these days. When we were young, we would find it difficult to even have a change of clothes,’ my mother used to say. But today, when I call her up, I will tell her about the rains, the wind and the cold. This pleasant kind of cold.

And hope against hope that this is the beginning of a reversal of climate change.  

Mars Confusion

I try to introduce my two year old to the beauty of outer space – the star spangled night sky, the constellations and a telescope. I read out a book called ‘There’s no Place like Space’.

He gapes with wonder at the ‘Cat in the Hat’- our official space guide and laughs at the turn of each page because the words end in a rhyme.   And then I talk about astronauts, comets, meteorites, the Uranus and its satellites and he listens to the roll of the tongue with each new addition to his vocabulary.

Today morning, when we are going through the months of the year, he starts with January, moves onto February and progresses to March and then changes track to ‘Jupiter’. March and Mars must sound very familiar to his toddler ears.

If only I could take him to the planetarium and sort out his confusion… My list of to-do tasks in a post-COVID-free world grows longer each day.

Word prompt : https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/rdp-tuesday-space/

Be Happy

As I leave for work, my toddler son touches my feet. He has acquired this new habit, watching me touch my parents’ feet and seeking their blessings everyday before I leave for work.

Touching elders’ feet to seek their blessings is an integral part of Indian culture, more specifically Coorg culture. When we were children, one of our primary duties when we are introduced to the elders was to touch their feet with both our palms and bring the palms to our heads. And they in turn would bestow their blessings and wish for us all the good things that the smorgasbord of life has on offer.

So, it came as a pleasant surprise when my son who is all of two touched my feet for the first time a few weeks ago. He then proceeded to touch my parents’ feet too. Three times and placed his hand on his head after each iteration. Like a true blue Coorg!

He has kept up with the practice and has not missed even a single day. And today was special – he touched my feet and also offered his blessings! Turning on his most serious version, he smiled and said, ’Be Happy!’ And his words made the rest of my day!  

A pleasant surprise

I have just started typing on my google swift keyboard. As I write this, Krishna pulls at my hands. He is fascinated by the fluorescent white glow of the tablet. I try to hide this glow from his delicate eyes in an attempt to avoid over-stimulation of the brain. (Talk about the many ill-effects of technology on a toddler's mind)!

Krishna loves going for walks in the park in his squeaky blue sandals. A normally shy toddler(he has to take after his parents, who are both shy, after all), he takes his time getting used to new environs, new adults and new playmates. 

But the other day, a surprise was in store for us.

We decided to let him walk by himself and followed him a few steps behind, just to see what would pick his interest and how would react to it. He ran promptly behind a father-son duo who were playing with a ball. And what was more, he was loudly shouting in a monosyllable –“baw,baw,baw..”, all the while, hand outstretched, till they finally relented. Once he had the off-white, muddied ball in his tiny hands, he turned his back to them and tried to make his way as fast as possible in the opposite direction. 

We decided to intervene, at this point, for the father and son were both turning a bit anxious now. Nevertheless, as we picked up the ball from the grasp of his small fingers and returned it to them and thanked them for their kindness. We were secretly happy for we had discovered the naughty side to our dear little Krishna. 

Toddler Krishna - II

Krishna is around 14 months old now. And an absolute darling. A picture of innocence. He runs, rather crawls up to the door every time my father returns from office and calls out his name. He makes it a point to rush and greet him irrespective of what he is busy with our where he is. If he is in some body’s arms, he gets down and crawls at full speed, head bent down with utmost concentration and diligence like the now famous 'blinkered horse'. 

When my husband returns from office, he is all excited and doesn't quit screaming in his baby-ish and pointing fingers and making a fuss until his father takes him in his arms and lifts him up to the fan or the chandelier or whatever else is in sight.He can't walk around independently yet, but whenever supported by external aids(read our hands) he vehemently points to his purple coloured ball filled with pictures of angry birds and says 'doo' with a pout. He signals for us to facilitate him to play football. So we hold him by the crook of his shoulders with both our hands.At the same time,we try to keep up with the rolling ball, while reciting a running commentary. And we are instantly rewarded with an ecstatic smile when he successfully kicks the ball into an imaginary goalpost.

Another hobby that he has recently picked up is that of dancing. The moment he listens to music, he heaves his body up and down and makes a movement with his legs. Time or space is no bar for our little dancer to enjoy a little gig. He breaks into a movement when we are in the car listening to the FM, when we turn on the radio/television or even to the ringtone of  the mobile phone.

The other day I was checking out some recipes on YouTube and lo! when I lowered my phone I could see Krishna doing his little gig to the introductory, background music.

I will have to make a video of his dance one of these days before he outgrows this phase and decides to switch over to other forms of expression of creativity!

My toddler baby Krishna

Time flies. On second thought, no time does not fly, it travels at a speed faster than light. Why I say this is because, one year and one month ago, my son Krishna was born. Change (the dear companion of time) has blitzkrieg-ed its way into every aspect of our lives, in a good, happy sort of way.

So let me introduce you to my son, Krishna. Krishna is quite a heap of relentless energy, on a constant mission to have an adventure exploring everything that lies(and does not lie) on his path,as he traverses on his sojourns around the house. Krishna would have beaten a baby version of Usain Bolt, hands down in a hundred metre crawling competition. Any day,any time! And when he tires of crawling, he rests awhile, smiling around at onlookers.

As soon as he wakes up, like a dutiful student, he voluntarily revises all that he has picked up in his babyhood till now. He points at the fan and utters a 'du' His attention shifts quickly from the fan to the light, followed by the double barrel gun that is hung on the wall and the chair that rests against the wall - all recognised with the monosyllabic 'du'.

"No, that is not 'du' - that is light, here is a gun and that is a chair," I try to correct him. He smiles a wide toothless grin and says "du" again. Sometimes, he even ventures on to say ' dhat' or 'dhish' ! All this happens within the first five minutes of his waking up, until he hears the approaching footsteps of my parents or my husband. He then peers eagerly in the hope that he will be carried around on a VIP tour to the terrace where he usually gets to greet his little birdie friends flying overhead.

One thing I have noticed is that Krishna has great fascination for birds. We once went for a walk in the park, when Krishna suddenly raised his hand in excitement, forefinger pointed upward. I looked up at the sky and saw a lone eagle swooping down. ‘Du’ he said with glee. ‘Yes! Eagle!’ I said, but he was in no mood to listen, for he said 'du' once again, this time to alert me about a group of parrots tearing through the sky, in great hurry!