How about a deal?

A conversation at the long thanksgiving weekend (sunday)

Little One: Daddy, how about I make a deal with you?

Me : ???? ok. tell me what the deal is?

LO : If you let me stay at home for 3 more days, I will go to school for 2 days. OK? (big nodding of head, gleeful smile, a face that almost wants you to say "okay kuttyma!")

Me : How about I make a deal with you?

LO : What deal?

Me : you go to school for the next five days and then you don't have to go to school for two days after that!

LO : !!!!!!!! How about I stay home for three more days and then go?

Me : It is either my deal or no deal.

LO : Fine then.

San and me were laughing away after this conversation.

In the meantime Jr. had figured out my deal wasn't really a deal because the little one was going to stay home for the weekend anyways and was giggling.

The little one knew that something wasn't right and she was given no bargaining power, but went on with life.

On the bright side, my little girl knows the concept of bargaining. It is a pity that we don't get to bargain here at stores.. you buy, you scan, you pay! The whole thrill of haggling over something and coming away with a feeling of having bought something at a reduced price after a verbal volleying is just lost in a supermarket.

When I was a little boy, it would be amazing to watch my grandma, grandpa and most importantly my dad bargain.

Grandma : "Konjam solli kudu paa?" (translates to please tell me a new lower price. the exact translation doesn't make sense but pretty sure that is what she says to the vendors).. Grandma pleaded with vendors.

Grandpa : If the guy was selling 3 mangoes for 3 rupees, he would pick 4 and go "please take 3". usually the guys would settle for somewhere between 3 and 4 rupees.. what with grandpa already bagging the mangoes and clearly declaring his intent to buy! Or he was picking something like eggplants or grapes, he would ask them to add a little extra after the whole thing was weighed and about to be transferred to his bag.

Mom: (who worked and retired a teacher in the local government school for 40 years) knew every vendor in the area because either they were her students who dropped out of school at some point or their kids were her current students.. She would not bargain. She would get a fair price, but would start talking about the kids, their progress reports, why the woman at the store should send her kid to school and put her drunkard husband in his place, etc. etc. The out of school social service stuff would go on for 20 minutes and my brother and me would go "if only mom spent as much time with us as she did with her students!"

Dad : Picks mangoes very carefully, asks for price, places picked mangoes at corner of vendors cart and walks away in "sticker" shock after he hears price. Goes away a few paces and turns and asks vendor "is that your final price?".. the guys who know my dad all too well (they have been bargaining with him for 30 years plus anyways) would say "vaa saar.. kochikinu pona eppidi! inniki eppidiyum beram pannama pomaate!" (come Sir.. dont get angry and walk away.. you are not going to leave without a bargain). Depending on how much time they had and how much my dad thought those mangoes were worth, the walking back and forth would take a good 20 minutes.

As a small kid, it didn't matter to me because there was plenty of things on south mada street to distract me. However, as I became older, there was no patience for this 20 minute time spent to save fifty paisa. There was homework to be done, TV to be watched, etc. etc. and would always fight my dad to ask him to stop bargaining.

This would always make me chose grandpa when it came to accompanying someone for grocery shopping.

Now that I am older, the art of bargaining has a strange appeal. It is like my dad transferred some bargaining gene to me.

May not make the best bargains (especially compared to San) but getting there!

.

Explaining the economy

How does one explain the economy to a four year old?

We grew up in a poor household and as kids our understanding of the economy was simply:

"There are people with a lot more money than us we have to interact with every day. We are not rich. But it is okay. All our relatives and friends love us and we have no dearth of fun"

Over time we kind of learned (we weren't necessarily taught openly) to understand what our parents could provide for us as a default, what was pushing them to their limit, what was an extravagance for the household, etc. and would not bother to ask them for things that they might want to give us but cannot. The few times we did, we did with a lot of regret knowing the pain it would cause them.

The setting for the little one, is a lot different from the setting for me. Even Jr. understands things to an extent because we were going through a tough time when she was four, when the little one was just born and were moving from place to place and living in one room for almost 6 months.

The little one always "needs" things and "wants" things. She always compares with her sister or friends and is very temperamental, but she is also a very smart kid.

Earlier today, I gave her the usual speech about work, money, job, jobless people, expense, buying, spending, responsibility, etc. etc.

She listened to it patiently as though she cared and still wanted to get new shoes because her shoes are too tight, which is typical of four year olds because they change shoe sizes every 6 months! (and she IS going to get a new shoe).

Told her that she should listen to me and get the shoes Daddy picks for her.

She promptly ran away from me, looked at her mom and goes

"don't ask appa to buy me a shoe for 10 dollars okay.. just ask him to buy me a shoe that is one dollar!"

We both burst out laughing.

If only it was that simple!

.

Trying to make a birthday gift..

Was practicing a song on the guitar to play to San as a birthday gift. My trusted aid for this kind of secret activity is Jr.

However the little one cannot stand having anyone else in front of the video camera these days...

My grandma used to complain that her singing came to an end after I was born! Used to think maybe there was a curse on me and that is why any attempt to sing seriously would stop after a year max!

Now, I say the same thing that my grandma used to say. You can see for yourself what I possibly did to grandmas music sessions based on what the little one is doing to me.

Did you see how she sang "should I off your plug.. should I off your plug.." to the same tune?

So much for all that practice.

Sangeetha heard it and said "nice.. still needs more polishing"!

We will keep the polishing going till next year.

Kids, what can we tell you?!

ps. A akka gets the credit for playing this on Piano..figured out the notes from her piano playing and used my cheat sheet.

.

Integrating things

A friend asked me how I got the Little One to sing songs and pronounce them accurately.

It was possible only by breaking it to word level, sometimes to sub word level and then putting it all together one sentence at a time.

All complex things can be broken down to simpler items.

The ability to make something complex out of simple things and the ability to understand and troubleshoot a complex entity/problem by breaking it to simpler parts is a skill set you develop (or have to develop) if you have kids.

When dealing with scientific things or logical things, it purely is an exercise in

a. right questioning and answering
b. data driven decision making
c. nomenclature or terminology used to explain things

Then you end up with things neither scientific nor logical with an audience that is very challenging (say the little one and Jr.) and all your experience as a student, teacher, integration dude, etc. is not enough!

We are talking now about the heaven phone (which was misquoted by Jr. as the Hanuman phone) that is used to call "Kollu thatha"(great grandpa) who is no longer with us.

Unable to handle the situation myself at that time of his death, I made the mistake of telling the little one that the only way to talk to Thatha now is to call him on the "heaven" phone and it is very expensive to even reach the phone which is somewhere on top of the Himalaya mountains and even after we reach the phone, there is a very long line of kids waiting to call their Thatha's and Paati's and it is also very expensive to make that call because longer the distance you call, more expensive it gets.

The little one promptly cut through my logic with many razor sharp questions like "if it is that far away and thatha already wears thick glasses, how can he be watching us? how will he know how to help us if we pray to him in times of trouble like you told us to do?" etc. etc.

Based on the experience of creating a bunch of statements in trying to bridge the gap between what is known and what is unknown, and trying to explain things to the little one, a small book can be published on the "do's and dont's" in communicating with children under the age of 5 on the topic of death, afterlife, etc.

The best line from her was "so now that thatha is in the ocean, he will come out when we go to the beach? It is all the same ocean right?"

Got visions of my Thatha's dissolving bone fragments in the Bay of Bengal, then reassembling the fragments and him reappearing in Half moon bay and walking out of the ocean, Terminator style!

It is hilarious and sad at the same time to see how Jr. corrects the little one with her knowledge of heaven.

Don't have the guts to break things in a harsh way to the kids. Who am I to decide if heaven is a bad place or not, what amenities are available, if you can still read without your glasses and walk without your walking stick etc. etc.

Since no one who has actually made it to heaven is going to writing us any books, maybe, I will write that book someday! Of course it will be all made up..

.

Where's your Jimik ?

LO: Do you love your Jimik?

Me: !!!!????

LO: The new van you have! The Jimik!

Me: Why do you call the van a Jimik?

LO: Drags me to the van and shows me.. "See, it says Jimik here!"

We all had a good laugh. Then told her it is GMC and not Jimic.

We returned the rental back today and got back our own van all fixed and washed and looking nice again. I did not like the Jimik because it was too big, too dark (all black inside) and the buttons were too difficult to figure out. The little one started protesting when we had to return the van. Apparently she loved the Jimik!

Now that the old van is back, she told me "Actually, I like our van better. It is nice!"

Familiarity for once, has ruled!

There is also a sense of things getting back to normal with the return of the van. We will hopefully get a nice rest over the long weekend and recharge.

.