Dear Daughter ....

“What on earth is going on ?” You exclaimed, trying to narrate a story from a book in your own words.It was an interesting little tale where a tiger intimidates a rabbit into giving up his fair share of fish and the rabbit gets back by tricking the tiger. Made me remind I need to tell you what’s been going on in the world. In your world, these days we are practicing maths, trying to understand subtraction and tens and units and hundreds. We played a little game of a shopkeeper and a customer, haggling over prices and using poker chips for money of various denominations. You enjoy it, taking turns selling and buying stuff and at times returning things. With your age of just 5 and a half, I feel a bit guilty, introducing a little dose of exploitation to your pure self when we negotiate over an item to be returned and its condition. But then one person’s exploitation is another man’s finesse, a sought after soft skill in any walk of life. Daadi is doing fine for now and has responded...

Naanu and Naani were here. Naani tried to converse with you in Hindi and guess what, you tried too. You would break into what would sound like, a hindi accent and utter the 2-4 words you needed to. Like ‘Ek minat’ (one minute) when Naani would ask you to have your lunch. You could also do ‘paani de do’, ‘haan ji’ and ‘naee’ (no) as basic answers. My favourite was your slow and thickly pronounced ‘Main nahin pata’ as your way to say ‘I don’t know’. Grammatically, it should be ‘Mujhe nahin pata’ but ‘Main’ happens to be a more direct translation of ‘I’ hence your repeat err. The best part was, even when you were conversing with Naani in english, you would take on this slow, slightly sing-songish accent as if to make your words more hindi-like. I guess it did demonstrate your empathy in understanding your Naani’s limits with english and it worked too! You had the near fairy tale fun time with your grandparents on their trip. They got you tons of gifts - heaviest being the full set of Indi...

“I like the super hero music” - you whispered in my ear while watching the first thriller sequence during Incredibles-2. Its summer vacations for you and both of us had gone to watch the movie together. So far you were not so keen on watching movies in cinemas or watching superhero stuff at all but somehow I think watching miarulous ladubug has helped convert you into a fan of the genre. You liked the movie and came back with a couple of favorites - unsurprisingly teenaged Violet and the toddler ‘Jack Jack’ were the ones that caught your fancy. I guess you are too young to appreciate the super strengths of the dad and mom in the movie. Dear Daughter This one is short on details about you and more about things happening around you. For this has been a strangely disruptive summer and not always in a good way. Your Daadi, my mom, has been with us in UK for a while now on an Indian Passport. This summer we had a major victory. After years of complicated efforts involving money, mettle and ...

Dear Daughter, Its been another two months since you’ve turned five and I’m yet again late in writing to you. Your fifth birthday was a Unicorn themed affair with a purple twilight sparkle starring on the invitation card. You did take a while to decide what theme you wanted as every other character or theme seemed to ignite your imagination right from the start. At some point or the other you were interested in hatchimals and at another it was the Miraculous Ladybug (that’s was your favourite TV show for a few months. You rarely watched anything other than that but now you are back to Paw Patrol) . The latest trend in the collectible eggs (colleggtibles for short – yes that’s a thing in late 2010s) category is L.O.L. Surprises but by the time you caught on to it and declared it to be your desired theme, we had planned and made bookings based on your last choice i.e. Unicorn / Pony – not the same thing but you were not complaining and that’s all that matters. You didn’t really stop at t...

A few months back you came up with this ageless conversation starter “I’ve got good news and bad news”. Besides being surprised by the fact that your 4 year old self had this arrow in your quiver, I was now intrigued to know how you would follow up with the usage. ”Bad news is that I don’t like sushi. Good news is that because I’m not going to have it, there would be more for you to eat “ - you went on with the penchant of a proficient chatterbox that you are. Apparently, your friend Bea (Beatrix) in school told you of her love for Sushi and therefore you were aware of its existence. However, given how picky you are with your food (taking after me, I guess) you had made up your mind that the name was enough to put you off. Mind you, it wasn’t even the raw fish variety of Sushi that we were having, just the innocent, smart and cute rice and chicken rolls kind. But you’ve decided for now and I respect your decision. You are now in the third and last term of your Reception year. The good ...

"Don't worry" "we will get it" "Don't worry we will get it" That was the battle cry for you and Anvi, marching side by side on Poseidon Avenue, Paphos in Cyprus. Darshi Bhaiya and Nonu (Datrim) Bhaiya joined you in chorus from time to time, making it a fun procession of sorts. Admittely for a pair of not-even-five and a just-turned-six year old chirplings, it was a pretty catchy and pliable chant to come up with. Much like the hindi "Hum honge kaamyaab". Our three families being out together on a proper 5 day holiday for the first time, it was always going to be filled with challenges of various nature. The challenge at hand for you and Anvi this evening was to find the Balloon-man we saw earlier and get a Barbie balloon for both of you. When we did find the balloon man and woman, the transaction could not be completed as they didn’t have two of the same kind. So off we went - I had joined in on the chorus - marching, chanting, holding fo...

You are in Reception and the two of us - your mum &I are in it with you. We were reading a book - you & I and to try and explain the concept of Direct speech, I involved your mum. Here's how it went - You read - " ‘I will get the cash ‘ he said.” "What did chip say'' - I asked "Chip said I will get the cash he said" you repeated by reading it again. Noticing how you were confused between Chip’s words and the books narration, I wanted to clarify the concept to you a bit more. "Rheya, when you are just telling what the other person is saying, you don't have to say ‘he said’ at the end." I tried to explain without using complicated words like quotes and direct speech. "Like if I say Rheya drink your milk" I continued and then turning to your mom I asked -"what did I say to Rheya?" "Dad said 'Rheya drink you milk' '' - your mom responded, helpfully - or so we thought! Taking in your confused look...