Sunday, January 29, 2012

Anecdote - When the kids started talking - 2

These happened when Vishal was around 2 years old. 

Was busy ironing the shirt.Vishal was playing running around me. Wanted to engage him to stop his disturbance and asked him to sit near me. Showed him the wrinkles on the shirt and told "See there are wrinkles in the shirt!. Now Appa is pressing with this iron box.". Lifting up the iron box I continued with an expression of a guy in washing powder Ad showing the pukka white shirt after the wash, "See the wrinkles are gone!". Thought this would make him get excited. Vishal was very silent till I finished and asked finally,"EngaE pOchu?(Where gone?)". He wanted to know where the wrinkles had gone. Now I gave the expression of a guy in the stomach pain medicine Ad.

My wife was telling that Vishal was asking peculiarly brainy questions.When she told those questions I couldn't believe and told her that she was adding spice to whatever he asked. One evening after returning from office,I was tired and taking rest on the cot. Vishal came and hugged me from the back and asked "What does it mean by Sivarathri?". Since I was tired and didn't want to get into explaining a religious term to a kid. "I don't know" was my answer. He told me,"Sivarathri means staying awake the whole night and worshiping Lord Siva". I was surprised and asked who taught him that. He said Amma taught him. He then asked me,"What is the meaning of Gents?". This question was simple to answer. I told him Gents means males.Vishal made a statement at lighting speed,"You know the meaning of Gents but you don't know the meaning of Sivarathri!". I called my wife just to say that I believed what she told about his questions earlier. 


One day I took Vishal to the terrace. He was learning about numbers then. The water tanks of the apartments in our staircase were there. In each tank the house number was painted. Vishal started reading those numbers.
It went like as follows.
"Thirty three","Thirty two","Thirty one","Thirty zero".