Essays - Standard 4th

I am posting a couple of essays written by Pari in the school --because they are really imaginative, so much that they are almost hilarious and because I want to preserve them for eternity!

The child certainly needs some help with the languages- predictably more in Hindi than in English. At the same time, it is the Hindi essay on 'my dear mother' which is truly remarkable. To begin with, I do listen to everything she says, and encourage her to share things with me, but I don't necessarily give in to all her asks. She has a field day every time I travel for work. And I travel way too much to get her books or toys everytime. I do get her stuff as and when I find something nice and the time to buy it, but not always, not even often. And going to work at 6 am? On most days I wake up only after 8 am. Also, offices don't start that early unless you're the maintenance staff. Again, I don't help her in studies regularly, and when I do, she doesn't appreciate it one bit. Mostly, she resents it.. which I think is normal for a child who has limited interest and inclination for any kind of structured education.

Coming to the English essay, a training in maintaining a correct tense is much required. What really cracked us up is the 'watch the news' phrase. Really, which 8 year old turns on the TV on a Sunday, or any day to watch news?? Perhaps, she thought mentioning Doraemon will take away the formal air  of the essay. And then, 'my lawn'! We live in an 880 sqft carpet two-bedroom apartment on the 9th Floor in Mumbai.. so again the only plants any of us can water are the ones in the common gardens in the building complex. But again.. my little Pari, I give it to your imagination child!

A prize for every thing..

Pari comes home and tells me that she has won the ‘constipation’ prize. I am completely bewildered.. even if there is a competition for it, she is unlikely to win because she is not the least constipated. I probe further, and she says that she’s come fourth. I think that she’s received the ‘consolation’ prize.

Once in a while..

..everyone is entitled to a temporary bout of insanity. I exhausted my quota last night!

A grand comeback.. or so we pretend!

I have been contemplating a grand comeback post for about 16 months now, and it never gets past the planning stage. Mostly, when I log in, my overflowing reading list attracts me like a fly to fire, and my intention to write sadly succumbs to the temptation every single time. I am bursting with stuff to share though. Life has been rough to us at times, but lets just focus on the good stuff today. And the good stuff is always always related to Pari. Our little girl is such a blessing, we always have something to smile about. As you may have guessed, Pari is full 2 yrs older since we last met, but the fun only grows. So back to Pari'isms.

About an year ago, cousin E was visiting us. Pari was using the toilet while E sat outside the door waiting for her to finish. Finally, she ran out of patience and knocked at the door.
E: Pari, how long will you take?
P: I don't know. I am not a palmist, so I cannot predict the future.
Future? Really??

Pari has a huge interest in my official matters, and it doesn't help that I work from home(mostly at night after working in the office the entire day.. gah!). She keenly listens into my phone calls, reads my official emails and also goes through the power point decks. And so, her knowledge about my organisation is exceptional. And it is obvious in our conversations. For instance, our company M has acquired another company C, and I am working on the integration of the entities. We are out on some errand, and she spots an office belonging to C.

P: Mumma, look-- you office!
Moi: No, this isn't my office. This is C. I work for M, and you've seen my office, right?
P: Well.. it is the same thing now.. merger to complete ho gaya hai na!
Notice, how she knows that the transaction takes time to complete!

As part of the restructuring, our region is now reporting to Asia Pac team, which in turn reports to the HQ. Earlier, we used to report directly to the HQ. So effectively, my boss's boss has become my boss's boss's boss or his super boss. Not sure if you understand that, but really, I want to post this today and can't spend more time explaining! I am making org charts and Pari notices this change. She knows the hierarchy really well, and I must give her credit for that.

P: Mumma, OI(super boss) is not your boss's boss anymore?
M: Yeah, the structure has changed. He reports into a new boss, and that person in turn reports into OI.
P: Oh, I get it. OI has got promoted!
OI is already the global CEO.. but full marks for positivism, Pari! The rest of the world thinks my boss has got demoted.

OK.. there are so many more related to my workplace, but I will relate just two more. I am making some status report and marking items as red, yellow and green.

P: Mumma, what do the different colors mean?
M: Well.. Status of the item.. Green: OK, Yellow.. Red.. blah blah..
P: OK, but how will the other people know what you mean? Shouldn't you include a table saying Green=OK, Yellow=delayed.. etc?
I justified saying that these are commonly used colors and people usually know them.. but proceeded to add a 'legend' to the slide all the same!

The final one.. my company has a tag line saying that we improve a life every 3 seconds. So the other day while I am working, Pari stands before me.. counts 1,2,3 and screams-- M has improved another life! And this continued till about 25 lives were improved and reported as such.

Pari.. I must admit that you improve our lives every moment!

The rabbits defeat the wolfs

I've copied the story below, verbatim-- spelling/grammical mistakes included, from Pari's notebook. As always, vacations leave the child terribly bored, and with nothing better to do, she turns into this prolific story/poem writer. I returned home from office one day, I think it was Apr 20th, barely a couple of days after her school closed for summers when I first saw this story. And it reminded me of the ones written during the diwali vacation. I must admit that there is a marked improvement in the writing skills. However, it also reminded me of how lonely and miserable she had been during those holidays and so I bundled her off to the grandparents' place before she could churn out more stories.

Once upon a time there lived only four rabbits. They always were very hungry. One day they saw a large wolf. The rabbits thought that if they could kill the wolf’s Pack, they could eat them forever. But they could not do so. One rabbit had an idea. She told them that there was a river near there burrow. She also told them that the river was dangerous as everybody knew it was full of electric eels, tiger sharks and razor-sharp tooth piranhas. Nobody even dared to fish in the river. She said that one day to kill the wolf Pack they must tell the Pack to fish in that river and whey they will (catch) any eel, shark or piranha they will bite the pack and in the meanwhile we will run away. When then Pack will be dead, we can eat our fill. They were pleased to hear this. The next day they tricked the pack to eat goldfish. They told them the river was full of goldfishes. They caught lot of sharks while the rabbits ran away. When the rabbits returned the Pack was dead. They were very happy.  They ate the wolves but they never were sad. The wolves never even finished. The four rabbits lived happily ever after.

THE END

Some observations--
1. Halfway through the story, the child realises the plural of wolf is 'wolves' and not 'wolf's'. Enlightenment indeed!
2. The 'Pack' always begins with a capital P, not sure why?
3. The logic in the story is as always.. impeccable :)

I am calling her the 'Kalam ka Sipahi'!

A POEM AT THE LITTLE BUNNY-- PARI, JAN 26TH

I have a little bunny
She is as sweet as honey
She eats a carrot
because she's hungry as a parrot
I call my bunny Sooshi
while others call their bunny Nooshi
I like a cat
while others like a bat
I think I'm going to sing all day
but I think my song is finishing right away

Yes, it has very little to offer other than several pairs of rhyming words, but it is the music in our lives.. are all momma's mad by design?

ps. As with all creative writing, this poem too an illustration-- a very cute bunny right next to it. We'll lose it in a couple of days, I wish I could archive it somehow. 

Of nice dreams-- part II

In the good old days, when I took better care of this blog and was more considerate towards the readers, I would've posted this as a ps to the last post. However, now that I post so rarely, and almost always about Pari, unintentionally reducing this blog to a mommy blog, I think I can write a sequel-'separately' to the previous post.

Alright, so yesterday, the husband came home from work, and as we discussed our respective day's,  I related Pari's nice dream to him. Pari, like most other kids, is most attentive towards us when we are talking to each other, and trying to keep her out of the conversation or ignoring her. Even before I could finish, and the husband could have his share of amusement, she jumped in protesting that she had had a different dream.

Husband: What did you see?
Pari: I dreamt that we are shopping in a mall, you've got me a very pretty necklace. Then we return home, there is a party going on at home, and I am wearing the new necklace..
H: But you told mumma an altogether different story?
P: Yeah.. because I didn't want to tell mumma my dream.. and she would've continued to 'bore' and 'trouble' me by asking about it. So I told her something else.

Yes.. this is the child I had missed my office for and stayed back home. And this is the child I took to a picnic on Saturday, to a very far-off and irritating water park/resort, only so that she doesn't feel left out when the rest of the class had fun. Again, this is the child I accompanied to a very boring birthday party on Sunday, giving up my afternoon sleep, despite being very tired from the resort trip the day before, and having never met the mom/family of the birthday child.

This is also the child who likes spending her days hibernating at home, and doesn't want to go anywhere except the malls. Like the other day, I asked her--
Me: Pari, would you like to join a dance class?
Pari: No, I already know dance.
M: What about a music class?
P: I don't want to go.
M: Drawing class perhaps? What do you want to do as an extra-curricular-- after you return from school?
P: I want to go shopping..

So shopping it is! I can almost visualise a resume, a decade and a half from now, with some educational qualifications on the top(hopefully a few), and the bottom section with 'SHOPPING' as the extra curricular activity. Not bad, me thinks. It may not put off the potential employers so much but we will certainly scare off the prospective grooms..