To be a child

What it must be to be a child who wakes up from her sleep, smiling and then to be lost in thought while she goes about her morning business to forget to call Mumma to wash her. On being checked, she smiles again shyly and her eyes are sparkling with endless possibilities. I can tell, the girl is dreaming. I love that look. And then she tells me she wants to go to "Dholakpur", still smiling shyly. I did not first get it, since it was not on the list of 50 places I want to visit before I die. What?? You don't think I have a list like that. Oh sure I do. It has been categorized too ..with the family, just the two of us, with friends/cousins and the last category is where I would like to go alone. Does it matter, if its just in my head. Its only a matter of putting it down in black and white. someday. Anyway, back to Dholakpur. I asked her why Dholakpur...I have never heard of a place like that. She smiled shyly and said its a secret....and she whispered "Bheem called me to Dholakpur". Aah!! ok, now that explains. And then we talked some more about if Dholakpur is real and if she can join the Bheem clan. I did not have the heart to tell her its not real. I am sure she knows its not real at some level. But she is just spinning it in her head and seeing it with her eyes closed and the spark in her eyes tells me...its still there, spinning in her head. The fun of living in a dream and believing in endless possibilities is what makes a child.

She is getting a lot more verbose these days and her vocab is improving too. It also includes lines like 'kya re' and  'you mad or what'. Y/d evening when P whacked chattambi, she yelled back saying "if you have to hit him then why did you make him". Ahem. Chattambi, generally is reprimanded very often these days for kicking the ball so high that the TV screen, the frames on the wall, the mirror are all in danger of surviving the hour before he goes to sleep. His idea of playing with water is to add a couple of more bowls and utensils and then throw it over his head, messing his clothes, the bedsheets, the carpet and spilling water at unexpected places in the house. I have slipped on these quite a few times and hit my leg and bums at unflattering angles. Throws stuff to such lengths that will latter require something close to an excavation routine to pull things back from under/behind the little furniture we have. He runs off with something from the kitchen to create a mess else where. So these days he is on the receiving end of both our wraths. The peapod more often than not hates to see him cry and she yells at us when we are busying whacking him. Even if we give him a timeout on the bed, she rescues him from there or will play with him there for a few quite mins. They do play togather quite a bit actually but they usually end up at loggerheads. I have to continually remind the peapod to teach the chattambi to play with her as in include him in, tell him what to do and give him a chore. Yeah everything I can not do, I ask her to do. Wise ah :). Right now he is at a stage that he would oblige because he doesn't get the concept of turns and playing togather and he is more than willing to try new things and make her happy. But if she sounds irritated or complains then the toys will be tossed around and the make-do roof will fold up and the floor will suddenly look like a tornado just passed.

At Pune University

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She began skating about 6 months back. She was pretty slow and that balance thing wasn't easy to her and she hated being last in the class when they skated around and she hated she just couldn't lift her leg and push ahead. We kept at it and she is getting better. Infact 3 months after she joined skates, she had her first fall and the instructor said as much. She is too careful and too defensive. She wouldn't pick up pace because she feared she would fall. She didn't like the idea of being laughed at. I have had to tell her a number of times, it does not matter if she falls and other kids laugh, the important thing is to learn to skate. Every time a kid fell and everyone laughed including her, I had to point out that 'see its ok ..everybody laughed and then moved on'. There is no need to sulk. She is better now. She laughs along when she falls now. She can see the humour in it. Dust your bums and get moving. She doesn't seem to have inherited her father's sport gene but her mom's non-sporty gene. She can't kick a ball half as well as Chattambi and such. But she wanted to skate and she has stuck around for 6 months and I can see the benefits. Its not just about learning to skate, which she is enjoying but also letting go your fears and listening to and watching others to improve. Its a huge thing. Its slow but a steady progress. Last summer I had enrolled her for swimming and while she enjoyed the pool and floating in it and could swim with her tube on she was terrified of the prospect of jumping into the pool and going under water. Towards the end of the class her instructors were forcing her to jump and she came to hate it. This summer I do plan to take her swimming again but she is already telling me she doesn't want to. I want her to get over her fear and learn swimming. Its in my mind an essential skill and I think she will more than just learn swimming when she does. Need to get her to dream about swimming now so that we can get going during summer.

A couple of weeks back I had done a piece(ahem!) for womens web. Pls check it out here. Puneites can go and add more in the comments sections. There are other bloggers as well who have talked about their own city.