Thank her why's

"Have you both not learnt in school"? This was Juis question to me and Harish 2 days ago when we looked puzzled upon her asking us" Why do Moles hibernate in winter only, why not in summer?".....

Now this is something that's so common with all of us. The whys and whats and hows of children.

November 24th evening 7pm. Harish away on business trip to Dubai. I read a book and so did Jui in our silent apartment. Suddenly she exclaimed " how if all the "things" also had hands and legs"!.

Innocent imaginations of children can play wonders on their intellectual capability.

My daughter has many questions….lots of them. Sometimes, I just know  exactly how and what to answer. Most of the time, they stump me! Here are some examples of my daughter's immense curiosity and fabulous imaginations.


Both of us being engineers and Harish topping his M.Tech from IIT, with our extra ordinary degrees, but sometimes rely on our laptop...click GOOGLE ..Help! when outsmarted by my 6 years old daughter.


A dinner time eve, am busy arguing with Harish why at all will he not eat vegetables for dinner? Usual... when quietly Jui finished her plate and called me"amma, excuse me I want to talk"! OK, Harish was happy I stopped talking for a while, and Jui shot a query " Do Ace and Angel[our love birds] snore in sleep "?
Clean bowled . Birds snore? The twinkle in her eyes and her expectant smile changed my mood [ harish saved]  like a press of a button. But how do I go about this now?


"Amma, can I be on facebook?'. "
"You need to grow up enough to learn the spellings of all big words"[That was the best instant response I thought of]
"But I can Google to learn amma"!
Now.........hump.


Harish would be convinced sometimes this is brain training for us.
My sister in law [harish sister]once exclaimed she had studied state syllabus in Kannada medium in small town of Mangalore along with my husband. Now she studies again as her daughter studies in an American School in NYC. Ya she was right thats something we all do.


Usual question," Why am I not seen in your wedding album?"
"You we re born later baby, blah blah...".....usual stuff
"But what was your problem in marrying after I was born? Atleast I could see your wedding, boring amma pappa"! Lo behold.


Vishnu vardhan, a famous Kannada actor and Juis favourite hero passed away last year when we first told her some funda about death. She was immensely curious ..
July 2010 my sisters wedding eve my grand fathers sister [aged lady] was admiring Juis dance and some talks happened on Juis wedding. "You all will dead by then may be" came her answer. We all know we grow old and die one day! Oh boy! Simple truth?


The tricky and difficult questions that she asks are sometimes the simplest ones that may be covered in huge number of pages in books with high funda and basics...

In fact, a little friend of Jui [a 4 year old] once asked me"aunty why are you aunty"!!

Never ending queries on the human structure, nature, animals, birds, stones too, relations, death, pouring in on me.,

How were we born, how do we die, why do we have bones, who weighed the moon to declare its heavy and so on.

Any new piece of knowledge/information mesmerising her shoots on me demanding explanations.

The post seems long enough but am tempted to tell another incident. We hindus narrate shlokas and I tell this short one every morning -"karragre vasathe lakshmi, kara madhye saraswathi,karamoole sthithe gowri, prabhathe karadarshanam".
First line meaning lakshmi resides in our hands- and as I explained this jui sprang up "oh but i cant see amma". Such instant and innocent it was I couldn't withhold my laugh.

 I thank  her whys and whats that made me discover some facts and information that were so neglected all these years. I thank her for the innocent evoke.

SSLC

..............and I start thinking again.  Random memory flashes. Today was perfect for that. Being a holiday, and Harish not planning any outing in spite of Jui's persisting pestering for a picnic, she finally settled on the couch watching her favourite cartoon and  I set on to write this post to kill boredom.

Student life was so full of energy, enthusiasm and no worries, lesser responsibilities.  It eliminated  multitasking and juggling techniques over the errands like what dinner will I cook, are Ace and Angel [our love birds] fed, Jui's homework's, laundry stuff, office work, blah blah

How I wish I could visit my homeground of Manipal where I used to perform my long jumps, my sprints and my favourite basketball court. Lovely times.

Amma was a well known teacher and was known to bend any "bad" student.*bad at those times meaning he or she does not get an A grade in all subjects!. Evenings would see our living room turned into a classroom with kids of all sizes, some writing, some yelling, some even dancing. At times I would be the assistant teacher to amma. Enjoyed that roles often. At times would be fed up with some monkey tricks of one of the students and would rush to the terrace with my own books. But those days look nicer when my closed eyes picturise them.

Yes, very good times were when I was doing my class ten. SSLC. So inspired my ammas advice I had decided I would do my best in my class 10 public exams. Each day would work all the math of classwork plus more than what teacher taught. One of those days I was sent out of my class for doing extra homework and I hate Malathi teacher even today for that. How dare she underestimate my good work.Huh. But amongst friends I became popular, my notebook in so much demand for the ones who copied them daily.

At home, unable to tolerate the noise of the evening classroom sessions amma and pappa decided to shift me to my ajjas house in udupi so I studied in peace. I had to give my public exams soon. So picking up the blue antique VIP suitcase I left to udupi.
Wow, no sisters to pester me, no noise of other kids, pampering by grandparents....

That phase of life is really worth sharing. **Am making sure the only readers I have don't get bored at this point.

At Udupi, in the lavish ancestral bungalow lived only my grand parents and my great grand mother. Ggm would wait for an opportunity to ask me " magu sslc aithaa. ek hordika polonu vattha hnaav'. She waited for me to "pass" me SSLS[10th] so I could then be married and she her soul would rest in peace when shes gone having seen my wedding. Huh... that couldn't happen we knew, not the passing, the wedding of course. I was then studying hard, had to pick up big numbers you see.
Ajja would drag to me a movie theatre with him every sunday evening [it was his routine]saying I am doing only studies and I needed a break. Ajja was a hero for me. Some of his principles are deadly, an apple a day, his morning newspaper, table tennis inside the house [exercise for eyes basically]...
Papama[grand mother] would everyday make a fresh flower garland and ask me to go to the temple, exactly behind which was our bungalow. In the course I would meet all the neighbouring devotees. One of them I remember was Ulpe mam [mam meaning uncle]. One day during his usual pradakshinas he saw me, head dug deep inside my books [sort of book worm id become then yes] and asked my papama "thee paaasss zattha nave"=will she pass the exam!. How i wish I could mimic his accent and the tone here in writing!  That was it, my papama notorious being a loud mouth dint waste a moment to almost pick up a quarrel with him and set along proving my abilities in connection with my marks, activities. Ulpe mam was convinced and never ever repeated the question!. And I was instructed, to show my marks card to Ulpe mam without fail after the results. Haha.

Archna my childhood friend lived a house across. We would exchange many news with gestures and sign languages through our windows.

Soon days rolled over, exams days came closer. I was growing into a confidant teenager, ready to picturise the future in my eyes. One day my ajja returned home with a gift for me. It was brown with golden top. A "hero pen" it was called. Wow, what majestic. From a 10 Rs pen to a 70Rs pen. I had an urgency to show off to all my classmates, archna, amma and pappa. But, no, it was meant for my public exams alright.
So the big day finally dawned. One after another I  did so well. I came home sure of a 100 on 100 in math, 5marks loss in biology and so on. Proud after few days packed the VIP suitcase and went back to parkala .

I was a proud teenager who had written an SSLC and awaited the results.
As I write this post today after close to 20 years, I still await results, the results of 2 management papers I wrote last week..................