Q, I, B, T, D, O, G, T, F, C, V, A, M, N done.

W, P and E … kind of working on it.

H, J, K, L, R, S, U, X, Y, Z to go.

What do I do?

Feel free to throw in ideas.

A child, Mieja’s age is at home to play.

Act I

Mieja to the child: See, see. See how beautifully my mother has arranged the house. She has the brown couch here and black bench there. There is also the daybed, so that we can sit and look at the pictures. She works hard to keep the house this way. It is sooo beautiful-na?!

Act II

The visiting child is conducting a drawing contest for which Chula and Mieja are supposed to draw two pictures each.

V.Child to Mieja: Hey, what are you drawing yaar? Your party picture does not look like party at all. Give me it, I will draw and you can color.

Mieja: No. This is my picture. This is how I want it.

V.Child: Okay then. I will not give you prize for this. I don’t like it.

Mieja: Its okay. I am drawing for myself. Not for prize. This is how I want it.

V.Child: Then your mother will be angry with you for not getting prize. She will scold you.

Mieja: Nooo. My mother will not. She says you have to do what makes you happy and do it the best. She will not scold me or do ‘katti’ with me for not getting prize. Yeah, my mother knows everything-re. She is older than you. Do you know how old she is? Vvverrry old. She is 34. See, I told you she is old and knows everything?!

Looks like I can retire. I have imparted wisdom, knowledge, values, thankfulness, appreciation and of course, I am old. The decision is further confirmed by the song the three children are singing and eating dinner.

Act III

Dum maro dummmmm

Pizza bubblegummmmm

Put it on your bummmmm

So long folks, have a good one.

(Picture courtesy : WikiMedia)

My first conscious Raja Ravi Verma sighting at Salar Jung.

By the way, what you see on the web is no match for the original. It was pure genius. I mean look at her…. coy, playing with the flower, fully aware of the set of eyes on her. He has probably made his move and is waiting for her to respond or may be he is just content standing there and looking at her. Are they married or lovers? Something makes me think they are newly married couple trying to get away from a big joint family. What do you thing peeps?

Questions are good to have. Without questions we become stagnant, don’t we?

The major questions that are eating us inside out are:

Chula: Amma, if I get up at 3.00AM, do you think I will get ready in time for my bus?

Mieja: Why must I read? What is the big deal amma, because I don’t even like it.

Me: What next?

R: Your amma cooks three times a day, she says that her gas cylinder gets over in 30 – 35 days. ‘U’ says hers gets over in approximately 45 days. Our cylinder has been going strong for 62 days now. Why? Are you cooking enough?

PS: Our first cylinder got over yesterday, much to some one’s relief! At least one question got answered.

Disclaimer

(1)It is not just iPad, but in general I am against any technology for the 0-9 age group.

(2)I am talking strictly for the 0-9 age group.

Ever since I read this, something has been brewing in my head and now I am fully convinced that technology is sensory deprivation for the 0-9 age group children.

My reasons.

(1)Young children need a warm adult human being to learn.

In 1960’s Harry Harlow, in order to study the human emotion of love, conducted a series of experiments with baby monkeys. He isolated many baby monkeys from their mother. Each of these baby monkeys were placed  in a cage. The cage contained a metal mesh, roughly shaped like a mama monkey, with a milk bottle attached to it. And a similar metal mesh wrapped in soft cotton, made plush, but with no nourishment of any sort. After many days of observation, Harlow concluded that all baby monkeys clearly preferred the cloth mother to the wire mother. The baby monkey would stay with the cloth mother running quickly to the wire mother to take a quick sip of milk and run back to the cloth mother. When the cloth monkey was removed from the cage, the baby monkeys became insecure and displayed panic and aggression(screaming, crying etc), over extended period of time some monkeys even died.

This kind of an experiment cannot be conducted on real human beings and the monkeys being very close to us in terms of evolution, this is proof enough for me. Children need a warm, living, talking human being to carry, touch, attend to the needs of the child, use voice with different modulations, exhibit a myriad of emotions, have unprogrammed response in order to nurture the child.

Revolutionizing the way how young children learn, by replacing the human interaction, even if it is only a part, with technology is not my cup of tea.

(2)The first thing that forms in the womb is the brain. Then the human body develops from the center to the extremities. That is growth is from the spinal cord/brain region to the limbs and finally to the digits. When a child is born she does not know that she has hands, legs, fingers and toes. Then over the first three years the child slowly discovers, understands and starts using her extremities.

The brain forming first is by no means an indication that the brain is fully developed at the time of birth. The brain at the time of birth is more like a perfectly planned city without ANY roads. How can one live in this city if there is no way to get from point A to point B? The roads are the neural networks. We need them to transmit electrical signals, to convey information, to access information, to connect something that we learnt long back in order to address the current problem at hand.

As the child grows so does her experience. The child discovers she has hands. This is an experience. She writes this in to her brain and forms certain neural networks.  The child discovers that her hands have some use, say pick up things. This is an experience. The already formed neural network is expanded or rewritten based on this new information. In a capsule, the brain is shaped and molded by the number of varied experiences a child has.

Using tech gizmo to learn her ABC or play with also an experience. But it is a one track experience, touch the screen, the next letter will be played, push this button the light will blink, pull the cord the siren will sound etc. There is no variation in the experience and there is neither scope for expansion of the network that is already formed nor any kind of rewriting of neural network that happens. Such learning is detrimental to the growing brain.

In very simple words, ‘THE MORE YOUR CHILD MOVES, THE MORE SHE LEARNS’. The way to a child’s brain is through unstructured gross motor movement and some simple fine motor movement.

(3)A machine is one size fits all and does not cater to children with difficulties perceiving certain patterns. Even a mild pattern perception problem, say for example your child is left handed instead of right handed, is not accounted for in many gizmos.

Having worked in a conventional school with traditional teaching methods, for a few months, I have seen first hand how a left hand child perceives the written letter differently. First of all we are talking about four year old children who do not get the very concept that letter is a symbolical representation of sound. Secondly we do not wait for the child’s hand muscles to develop, we expect them to write what is shown to them. Problems if any are addressed by repetition. This learning by rote rather than understanding can only go so far.

Where as children who are allowed to experience the symbol through body movements do much better. It is kind of an early intervention program, that acts on the weaker areas of the brain and strengthens it.

(4)The tech toys do not come cheap. Depending on the level of sophistication they leave a significant dent in your purse. As a generalization most of us have two children in a family. Do you buy two tech toys which means shelling out double the amount of money or do you buy one and expect the children to share?

If one truly believes that she is buying a tech toy to her child because she wants her child to learn, then by stipulating an usage time she insinuates that learning happens only during a specific time.

Okay the sharing business aside, parents expect children to sit at a place and play/learn with the gizmo without damaging the gizmo.  The child cannot open the gizmo, shake it, see what makes all this sound and movement to happen. Very fair expectation from the parent considering the price of the gizmo. You are teaching this child to merely enjoy the outcome, not to bother about how the whole shebang happens. Would you rather give your child a fish a day or teach your child to fish?

Young children need to see cause and effect and must also see that a varied cause makes a different effect. When you pour dry sand, this is how it falls. When you pour wet sand this is what happens. When you pour dry sand through a funnel, how does it fall? These are the simple and the most enriching experiences young children need.

(5)I am certainly worried about the radiation levels children are exposed to. Staring at a screen is very unnatural for the eyes. Again the brain develops in accordance to the signals it receives and a child exposed to TV/Kindle/iPad/iPhone grows up with a brain that is wired to see close by objects, looses interest in things that do not come with a sound and dance effect.

(6)I recently attended a lecture by Roland Steinemann and what he said was very interesting to me. While discussing what is the motivation of a child to learn, to go to school, he said that the till age 5 the main motivation for a child to learn is is the innate skill of every human being to imitate. Then till age 9/10 children learn because they love the teacher. After 10 is the stage where they learn for satisfying their curiosity.

Going by this logic, tech toys with programmed responses, which just throw information in your face, are much suitable for the 10+ age group.

(7)I have also heard the argument that this is the age of tech and if children are not introduced early on, they will loose out. Going by this argument Zuckerberg must have grown up with social networking and Larry Page must have grown up with search engines. All a child needs is unlimited imagination, curiosity to know and analyze things, determination and will to follow through.

For your further reading pleasure

Last Child In The Woods by Richard Louv

Power Of Play by David Elkind

Smart Play Smart Toys by Stevanne Auerbach

She had been wanting to see him for a long time now. She knew that she cannot go to his home and meet him. No, that would take too long. Way too long. And a lot of money. She even made a  trip to San Francisco to see if he was put up there. But no such luck. She had quietly resigned to the fact that the meeting may never happen, unless he visits her. Fat chance of that happening, for he has no inkling that she even exists!

And it happened! Out of the blue that too. He was in her city and she stumbled on the news by chance. Her husband was out the whole weekend, working, and she decided that this was THE time. She went, she met and was not disappointed.

 

 

“Amma, why did you bring us here to see the Chinaman? Why do we come to museums at all, instead of doing something else, like, may be go to the pool?” asked the younger child. “Because it is like a looking through a small window and see how things were thousands of years back. Some times we learn things that can be useful even today. Something we find something that is a clue to a mystery” she said.

“Amma, what did you learn from the terra-cotta warrior?” asked the older child. “That people have been living for thousands of years. Many of them did many wonderful things and then died. Some are remembered, some are not. But life goes on.” she said.

“So?!!! Was it worth it?” asked the husband. “See, it is not just one or two statues that gives me the kicks. The soldiers are symbolic representation of a way of life 2200 years back. Once I was there I felt a movie reel unwind in my mind. Yes, it was worth it.” she said.

Living in India got to experience bandh right?! So highlights of the bandh.

Day 1:
* Parents caught unawares. Kids thoroughly kicked more because of the uncertainty than the actual holiday.

* All the critters climbing up and down all 11 floors, yelling and screaming. With the mixed age group comes different climbing speeds. So at a point there were multiple groups going up and down and extra screaming when opposite forces met. All the while we parents pretended that these children do not belong to us.

* After some time the kids got tired and decided they will only go down the stairs and come up using elevator. So they went to 11th floor, climbed down to 10, went up in elevator to 11, climbed down to 9, went up in elevator to 11 and climbed down to 8 etc. This master plan was (unfortunately) devised by Chula. The adults who managed to shrug off the inertia to get to work, were stuck in their respective floors because the elevators were jammed by the kids.

* All swimming pools and play grounds were full. So were the stair cases, elevators, parking lots, cricket pitch, basket ball courts, tennis courts and roller skating area. Which made me suspect that all kids in the city some how managed to come in to this community.

* On the way to the pediatrician saw multiple TV channels, vans with dish on top, reporters with mike, camera men…the whole nine yards, reporting in front of Hi-Tech city. Probably telling the world that the bandh has not affected this part of the city.

* Two children came home for play date and got prolonged to snack date, dinner date, story telling date, art work date, a mini fight, some tears, making up, extra love and begging their respective parents for extra play time.

* Two tired children who went extra early to sleep. One tired mom who decided to check out the idiot box. Chanced upon this Tamil soap where a three year old is the reincarnation of her grandma(the child’s mother’s MIL). Each is terrible standalone can you imagine this dreaded combination?!! Seriously, how do people come up with such original stuff?

Day 2:
* Better prepared parents. Many play dates were planned. So stair cases are quite, elevators are free. But there is mucho screaming and giggling sound from every apartment window. Again there seems to be at least 25 kids in every apartment and yet the average is only two children/apartment. See…. the numbers don’t add up.

* My free day today, the children are out of the house till PM. I plan to check out this. So wanted to lay my hands on this book post Harini’s review. I threatened the children that they better behave and not fight and N.O.T come back home( there was much emphasis on the last part) and cut my me-time short.

Ciao good people, got to go enjoy the rest of my bandh.

The thing about settling down to a life in India is that, no matter how much one is prepared, there is always a hidden factor that throws your loop out of sync. For example, the community we live in, is well serviced and plumbers come to your door step in minutes etc. But that does not mean that your bathroom leak will be fixed ASAP. (Read in IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE style)

If your bathroom has a leak,
The plumber will most probably say that it is because of the water heater.
If you call the water heater repair technician,
He will respond in about 24 hours.
If the water heater technician inspects the unit,
He would most probably be the person who changes ONLY the coils and points you to another person.
If after 10 phone calls you get the other person,
He would say that he cannot do anything till he speaks to the first technician who came ti inspect the unit.
If you make a date for the two,
The both will agree that a replacement unit needs to be ordered.
If you ask them to do it,
They will do it and say that the response time is 7 – 10 business days.
If you try calling them in between to find out the status,
They will not pick up the phone.

Mean while water is turned off in your bathrooms. Currently we have one bathroom in which the only the toilet works, one bathroom in which only the sink works and one bathroom in which only shower/heater works. All this gets to you at certain point of time and you go immerse yourself in Bikanervala chaat.

Three words – Bikanervala – chaat – yuuuuuum. Thanks A-kay for mentioning it. We were en-route to QMart @ Banjara Hills and I saw Bikanervala, decided to scratch Qmart and indulge our palate. Of course the fact that we were completely lost and were rather hopeless about finding QMart was a big factor in the sudden change of plans. The ground floor is fast food style. You order, pay, self serve. Seating management is streamlined by staff. Some one takes your name and then calls you in about 15 or so minutes, this on a sunday night, peak crowd. If you don’t want to wait, they also have a sit down restaurant upstairs. Of course pricing is up-marked. I did my hallmark test – Bhelpoori, pani poori and ragada, order and assess. The result was out in flying colors. The kids enjoyed the bhelpoori and there wasn’t much left for me. Mieja approved the kesar pista kulfi. The rad thing we did is to give the kids filtered water from the restaurant instead of ordering bottled water. I mentioned to R in passing that the next thing for me to do is to order bhelpoori from street vendor. He thinks it is a joke.

Right next door to Bikanervala is Karachi Bakery. Chula(yeah, she is such a sport*) and I dived in to the traffic at Road#1, jumped over the divider to go to Karachi biscuits. I think that says it all 🙂

But for the Rs.25 entrance fee and Rs.20 parking fee, I can totally see myself living in Shilparambam. I have my eye on some of the craft classes they offer. I did mention to R that I am going to take a block printing class and make curtains for the house, the way I want it. Again, he thinks it is a joke. I found some awesome Pathachitra artists, Madhubani artist, Kondapalli dolls and Channapatna toys. The Madhubani artist was super thrilled that I knew the name of the art form and offered me a seat to sit and watch him do the work. He forbid me from taking video/pictures though. I was doing a mini interview of sorts with him. Also found in Shilparambam this cool easy chair at a wood working shop. And some clay pots. And some trinkets. And kurtis. And shawls. And bags. And….

One thing I was sure I would miss from US is Amazon. Apparently not. I am now in Flipkart heaven. Excellent customer service, hassle free ordering and good prices. They have something called cash on delivery(COD) and I am taking full advantage of it. I have already exhausted my self imposed cash limit for book ordering for this month and waiting for July to use up my next month’s quota.

The only good thing that can come out of the situation where your child comes home with a palm sized and growing, red, hard, painful, itchy swelling on her hip is that you get to experience first hand the working styles of pediatricians. We went to couple and liked the later. So that has been sorted out. Phew!

*On the subject of crossing roads, while visiting clinics, we had to cross a busy intersection. Mieja was very scared and after the experience she told me, ‘Amma, if an auto hits me, I could die. Did you even think about that?’. See why I called Chula a sport?!

After telling the whole world that I want to take a break from driving and how I want to be driven around for at least two months, here I am, driving. (Oh, which implies that we bought a car, a subcompact automatic. )In a way this is okay because if I had stayed away from the wheel longer, the road fear would have gotten to me.

Driving in India is a two people job. One person to drive and one person to honk. The hands at ‘ten-and-two’ position has been rapidly altered to ‘hands-at-center-of-the-circle-and-two’.

Remember the saying ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Along those lines, people who drive in India believe that they have the ‘right of way until some one else honks and reprimands them’.

The honking can mean multiple things depending on the driver’s mood and the size of the vehicle the person drives. Some of my interpretations are – Excuse me; Move it and move it now; FYI:I am right behind you; What the hell are you doing?; I am privileged and deserve royal treatment; I am huge and need more clearance; I am young and reckless; #$$%^%$#

People are extremely optimistic and they are not quitters. Just because I think my subcompact car will not have enough clearance to go in a two feet space between two pillars does not stop a Innova driver or a lorry/bus driver from trying.

People believe in progressive crossing. The four way intersection and how people navigate this intersection is nothing short of a miracle.

The job of traffic police who works busy intersection is same as the job of a preschool teacher left alone to handle way more kids than she can handle AND she does not speak the same language as the kids AND all her kids are having a bad day. Poor guy.

One can’t even begin to imagine how many heart attacks a left-right challenged person like me gets. As is I have to think twice before I figure out left from right. Then I have to consciously curb my instinct to go right and keep left. Then I find all these people driving on the opposite side of the road. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

When my child is eating, all by herself, without any fuss what so ever is the time I feel like putting her on my lap and feeding her.

For all the talk about how I want them to be independent, I equally agonize that they have to go and come back by school bus. And if I am late by even a minute to pick them up when they are dropped off from the school bus I imagine that they are lonely and vulnerable and get stressed.

For all the encouragement I give Chula about reading and take pride in the fact that she reads with passion, I also tell her that she need not read every single print she sets her eyes on, especially my emails and blog posts!

After agonizing over the bed time, battling them and after putting in so much effort in making the children sleep, I feel the most love for them when they are finally asleep and can’t wait for them to get up.

When they need me most to engage them is the time I am hard pressed to finish something and expect them to play by themselves.

Ideally I want the children to dream, dream big, imagine and fantasize. But when Chula is elbow deep in her dream, completely lost in a world of her own, which unfortunately coincides with strict time lines like school bus leaving in another five minutes is when I have to shake her out of her dream and point out the usefulness of being practical.

After harping a lot about being kind and every one doing their bit to help other people, one is forced to give their children a big lecture about how giving money to every single person begging on the road is not possible, does not help them, does not eradicate poverty.

I made a resolution to not stress on the birth order, mainly because the older one is only 18 months older. But am now forced to tell the younger one not to compare herself with her sister and agonize over the things she cannot do as well as her sister because….well her sister is 18 months older than her.

I am forced to tell Chula that she does not have to sign a bond of friendship in blood with every child she ever sets her eyes on and expect the same level of commitment from the other child. Right after this I have to tell Meija that she needs to be more open, let people close to her otherwise she cannot make friends.

I have to stress time and again that they have to give their 100% in every single thing they do, that is all that matters and be in the position to eat my words and tell them to finish certain things ASAP as it is not worth this much of their time, patience and energy.

I have told them to be wary of strangers and also be courteous to strangers, sometimes these sentences are back to back.

I tell them that they can help me in household work and when I find that at times I have to help them to help me, I take it back.