'come's

Papa and aai* introduced a new and nice food to me. It is called 'come'. They stood at two ends of the balcony. I was standing in the middle because I didn't know why they were standing like that. Normally they stand or sit together when they talk to me. But I know they are weird at times, and I just let them be.

All of a sudden aai said, "come!". I didn't know what it was and didn't want to put efforts into something I didn't even know. Then papa brought a 'come' close to my nose and told me that this white yummy little thing was called 'come'. He's quite a smart one, my papa. I loved 'come'!
 
And then began the 'come' party! Aai would say "come", I'd run to her and get one 'come'. Then papa would say 'come' and I'd run to him and get my 'come'. I had so many of them!
 
Then I went to aai after taking a 'come' from papa. She wouldn't give me anything and said something to papa, something like 'self-training mode.. not the point'. Dogness knows what that meant! But then papa said 'come' and offered me one and then aai and it went on.
 
I think what aai meant with those long words was that she had never offered me a 'come' and I had just gone to her and was asking for it.. She might be right, but then whom else do I go to and ask for 'come's... Dogness knows!

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*aai - mother in aai's language

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Stumped... 😊

One evening after dinner I am doing the dishes - and there are loads. The kid has missed me through the evening - with me staying back longer in the office and all that.

After some two-three trips into the kitchen to check on me, the five year old finally appears to have made up his mind and asks, "Mum, how long are you planning to hang out with the dishes?"

"I'm not hanging out with dishes. I'm just doing them because they need to be done."
I am of course irritated.

"But how long? I want you to be with me," says the kid. And one cannot be more straightforward than that, I admit.

"I'll come when I'm through. Doing dishes is not the aim of my life."
I'm more than irritated by now - not so much with the load of dishes, but with my inability to be with the kid.

Looking at me with frank eyes, the kid goes, "Then what IS the aim of your life, mum?"

I am stumped.
😊


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Sati and my Son’s Granny

We know about a lot of social customs that once existed. 
We are relieved that many of those have been discontinued 
– often after a lot of fight or struggle. 
But do we really see them up close – as real? 
Do we ever approach the what-if..?

Watching the television can be trying. Movies have too many advertisements, the news time has very little news, and so on. Given that one cannot stick to Discovery or History all the time, watching movies that one has bought becomes a good way out. And so, one fine evening, we – father, mother and the eight year old son - find ourselves watching Aamir Khan’s Mangal Pandey: The Rising.

The story is such that we have to pause now and then to answer the little boy’s questions. Why were Indians fighting for the British, how could Mangal be friends with Gordon, was Gordon real or the director just put him in the story… and so on.

The movie reaches the point where Gordon, with Mangal’s help, rescues Jwala from the horrible fate of being burnt as sati. So one sees a pyre being readied, Jwala being brought to the pyre and made to sit on it, and her dead husband’s head being put in her lap.

I see two little eyes growing bigger, with questions, with fear. I think hard. Do I stop the movie then and there, or do I explain what is going on. How old was I when I heard about these practices, I find me asking myself. And I remember that I didn’t only know about how women were treated back then through the literature that I had read as a kid, but that the Rupkanwar episode had happened when I was exactly eight, and I had a strong opinion on the whole affair. 

And so I decide to pause the movie and explain the on goings to the boy.

Focused he listens to the explanation about the custom. How it was an accepted practice, how it was always revered, often desired and of at times even forced. How during the British rule some British and also some Indians fought hard to stop it, and how it was finally banned by law. I see thinking wheels moving really fast, the facial expressions undergo rapid changes, before the familiar look is in place on the kid’s face.

Relieved that the sati talk has gone fairly well, we un-pause the movie. Barely a minute into the movie, the kid says, “At least one nice thing the British did with this sati custom”. 

I am about to say something about the contribution of Indian thinkers and activists, but he continues, “Otherwise I would never have been able to meet my granny”.

I just hug him... that is all I can do at that moment.

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