The Dining Table Thespian

Your arm is hurting like hell. The pungent fumes rising up from the volcano don't make it easier. You've been hanging on the cliff edge for what feels like forever now. You're feeling so weak that letting go seems a pleasurable act. The fear of falling down hundreds of feet into molten lava has lost it's dark sheen and seems like a cloudy & fluffy end.
You look up and you see him. Your dad. The man who's responsible for your being here, and is looking at you with empty eyes. Unyielding, unmoving and not reaching out an arm to help.
But still, with the last vestiges of energy, you speak "Pappa, ... I just can't do it. I'm done". Your voice chokes and falters towards the end as more acrid fumes rise up. Your eyes tear up - not sure if it's the burning, or the emotion.

The emotion is true, although the scene is marginally different. Replace the volcano with a half-eaten dinner plate, and fumes for that horrible food our cook prepares. Ok, it's not the arm that's hurting.. it's just my butt, from sitting at the table for so long. I was done with these vegetables even before they were planted in the ground, but this cold & heartless Dad seems to not care. For all his fancy degrees, he doesn't seem to have a vocabulary beyond 'No'. How many ways of saying 'No' are there? He 'No's them all.
Actually, I'm mostly done. I've carefully spread out the food so at no individual point is it more than 1 cm high. Then he says he wants the plate cleaned out. So, I created smaller clumps of food so some plate surface shows beneath. But it still fails his 'plate surface area percentage' metric.
I've even 'accidentally' dropped some food. Still, it's not enough. Doing a 'Shawshank Redemption' without raising suspicion requires some freedom of movement, and moving is hard when you're under observation: searchlight beams trained on you, and probably machine guns behind them ready to fire. To add to this, the chair I'm sitting on is rigged - it squeaks & groans when I try moving a little. Thankfully Dr. No doesn't get on the floor and count morsels.
You might have sniggered when I said  "search lights & guns". That's only half the picture. There's the vengeful watch dog. He sits almost next to me. He's big, growling, watching, and ever ready to get the aforementioned Captain Negativity's attention. He derives great pleasure from my pains. So, he's ready to get his revenge by calling out 'Pappaaa.. '.
At this point you're either googling 'talking dogs', or have surmised I'm talking about my big brother. His desire for revenge has a grain of validity, although grossly disproportionate. I might have told on him to the aforementioned authorities. I have also been generous in not telling on him for many days. But instead of gratitude, I get called a blackmailer. I called it exchanging favours, but this guy adores Sensei No No - being his son and all. So, the negativity is not at all surprising. I might have done other minor things - breaking his model airplane, irritating him continually, teasing him on everything he's embarrassed about, breaking his painfully constructed lego superstructures, etc. But that's what loving brothers do. He just doesn't get it.
Both of them look through my carefully constructed film of tears, and Father No says: "Finish it! You're a bag of bones already! Soon you'll get shipped to E****ia". Seriously, I've heard that for the past 5 years -and so have my play-buddies. I guess fathers memorize from shared cheat cards- given their rather limited vocabulary.  

Just then the doorbell rings. My despair turns to joy. Enters my dear Mother from the gym .. and sees me in my agony. I bring back the cliff and the volcano to my mind, and the tears I shed are enough to douse one.  "Let him be!" she says. "The food is cold already. He can't eat this anymore. Torturing him like this .. that food won't even digest". I don't bother to correct her distorted sense of the digestion process, but quietly start to slink away. "But he does this everyday!" retorts Captain Negativity, but he doesn't hold a candle to the brightness of Wonder Woman. That war was lost long before I was even born. These words are like those American Civil war reenactment battles - shooting blanks.

It's only 15 minutes later she yells about the amount of food I've spilled off the table, but I pretend to not hear. This isn't the first time, and she will never connect the dots, though; those cliff-hanger-imagery induced tears have the power to cloud all logic that moms can muster. One hug from me erases all irrelevant data and she's composing poems about me.

Wonder Woman is putty in my hands. Heh Heh Heh.

What's in a (middle) name?

Nischal's mom has this question as often as there are traffic jams in Bangalore: "Who do you love more? Amma, or Pappa ? "
Nischal mostly tries to be as politically correct as possible. He gives answers like  " I love both of you... ",  "You both are my parents.."  etc. Then his mother presses him repeatedly with threats of kiss storms, and he usually capitulates. This capitulation, however, shouldn't be mistaken for him lying. He's just being moved out of his politically correct stance. Even as a little baby, his eyes would light up when he caught sight of his mother.

Back to the present. Nischal, his mom & I were out to renew our passports. She came up with the same question, and he readily answered 'I love you more, Amma'. Being tortured again - specially within sight of a few other 6-8 year old kids out there was clearly an embarrassment best avoided. But he didn't realize that was just the first step in his wily mom's plot.
"Amma is very sad that none of her boys are carrying her name.. " she continued in a 'poor little me' voice "now that we're getting you a new passport, why don't we change your middle name from 'Natraj' to 'Anupama' ?"
Nischal didn't drop his smile, but remained silent and pretended not to hear. But you could almost hear the gears turning.
I added fuel to the fire "Yes, I think that's not a bad idea! "
Nischal continue to smile, and said "But it will make it difficult at school, no? My work books, class work books .. already have my present name"
FYI: None of his school books have his middle name. They just have his first and last names.
His mom kicked into higher gear "No, that's not a problem. We'll just get fresh labels and fix that problem". She also clapped her hands in glee as if Nischal already agreed " I feel so good Nischal will carry my name. I'll fill up his new name in this form"
I could almost hear the gears shift now.
"No that won't work" he says hurriedly..  buying time.
"Why not? " presses his mom.
"Because ..because... pappa doesn't have his mom's name as his middle name" he blurts.. and he joyfully makes another connection "..and you also. Your middle name is taatha's(grandpa) name - Nagaraj! "
But she wasn't giving up. After all, his mom. "But my mom didn't want me to take her name. So, I didn't take. Now I want you to take my name"
There was even more pretend-glee at display .. she started clapping her hands, and started repeating his name with her name as the middle name. "So, you like 'Nischal Anu' , or 'Nischal Anupama.. ' ? " she asked.
Nischal, still was calm and smiling, but I could see the panic seeping through. He definitely didn't want a 'girl name' stuck to his - notwithstanding the bottomless sea of love he had for his mom.
He repeatedly said 'no ' to all his mom's pleading.
She finally shifted to an oft-repeated song that's usually sung in a crying-baby voice: 'Nobody loves me, everybody hates me..'. There's not much of a tune to it, nor are there any lyrics of note. She's the music composer, lyricist and lead singer of this absurdity,  but it has served her well so far with Nischal.
The song begins, and I realize the circus is going downhill now. The elephants are going to fall off their unicycles, and the monkeys will smash their guitars on the heads of hippos. It was time for me to retreat into a book, or a game, or even plead with a kind tortoise with extra room.

Amazingly enough, the trick works. He concedes " I'll have both papa's and your name as my middle name".
Not knowing when to quit, the mom switches to aggressive, and pity-raising mode every 2 minutes.

This goes on until Nischal manages to see the form, and his name. He breaks into a grin that pretty much says "So much for your drama.!"
Just then, our number gets called, and we hustle onto the booth. He also does a double check just before the form is submitted.
I for one, am glad we won't be visiting the passport office for a few years.

Edit: You'd think the mom would let it go. But, No. She brought it up again in a couple of days. Nischal - being her own flesh and blood - was prepared: "Actually, Anna(older brother) should change his middle name to yours. His name is Avaneesh, and 'Avaneesh Anupama Gujran' matches well, just like 'Nischal Natraj Gujran' matches.
Not only was the mom left speechless, the older brother had a perfect 'deer in the headlights' look. 

The birthday gift

I'd just stepped into the house - from work.
 
"Papa, today was Sushanth's birthday!"
I nod absently.
"And I had nothing to give him! I gave him a 1 Rupee coin as gift! "
I pay attention and look at him with surprise/confusion.
"I tried calling Amma, but she didn't pick up. I didn't know what to do!" he continued, " so I took money from my box ( pocket money) and gave him"
I nod in appreciation, start walking in, and something strikes me. I turn back to him :
"Tell me this, I've given you more than 1 rupee, for sure. Have you spent that somewhere? "

He smiled ..like he was caught at something, and collected his thoughts quickly. 
"No, I had 10 rupees more. But I didn't want to give him everything just because it's his birthday", he smiles " .. so I thought I'll give him 1 rupee ".
I wanted to ask him what would 1 rupee buy, but I also appreciated that he thought about giving his friend something - not wait for his mom to buy a present at some later date.
So, I just smiled at him and walked on.

What are you going to do about this girl?

"Papa, where are you going tomorrow? " - Nischal seeing my packing.
"Mumbai" I say.
"Why are you going there? " - comes the next question.

We are sitting in the office.. Anu is sitting in the living room. Nischal is sitting at the computer table.. so his back is facing the other room.

"I'm going to a marriage there" I answer.
A brief silence.
"Then, what are you going to do about this girl? " comes the next question.

I look up to see his palm pointing to the room behind him over his shoulder.
I'm confused - for a moment - before I recover.
"What about her?" I ask.

He thinks for a beat before he says " Oh.. your other girl is going to stay back in Mumbai? "
"She can come here also, you know. If you like" I counter with a smile.

He puts down his pencil casually. "I want to go to Amma "
"Not until you finish writing that 49" I reply - not fooled by the nonchalance.
The page is filled up with number 49 in record time, making me think I should emulate Calvin's dad more. He runs out to his mom. I follow him.

"Amma.. pappa is getting married!" . She gives me a puzzled look, but catches on quick.
"Good for you. You're always complaining about how much I hug you, kiss you and all"
He is now taken aback by this turn of events.
"No.. I'm fine with your kissing. ... I like your kissing. But I want you only, Amma " The panic in his voice does it for her.
She hugs him and says "No my little baby, I'll only be your Amma. Pappa was just joking! " He's not fully convinced. Then she picks him up and the kiss assault starts.

Only when I see his escape attempts start, I know he's convinced .. or dad's bigamy is not a priority item anymore.

Fun with 'Pun'

Nischal's homework today was to write a page full of 'un' words. After losing a long negotiation  that he'd do it tomorrow coz 'tomorrow is a holiday!', he finally got his pencil and eraser to the book.

"I can't write! I don't know any 'un' words!"  was his declaration, threatening to drop it all and go back to the soccer ball.

Mom pitched in "I'll get you started. Ff .. un! "
"Fun?" Nischal said, although he was clearly re-evaluating mom's sanity associating this word to his current situation.
"What else?" mom asked.
"Pp - un. Pun!" he said.

I too nodded in surprise, wondering if he knew what it meant.

"What is 'pun' ? " asked his brother.

Before either of the adults could form their words, Nischal screamed out " I know, I know ! "
As we looked at him expectantly he blurted out "Pun means babies!"
As I slowly shook my head to correct him, he repeated " Yes. Our teacher told us. They do good things to everybody, and they look like babies!"
Looking at our disagreeing faces, he repeated with confidence, and said "yes, they also cover their heads like this" making a motion with both hands starting at the top of his head, down his cheeks and ending at his chin.

Mom realized first and laughed out loud. "No chinna, that's  'nun' ! "

Nischal just gave his mom with a "now who taught you english?" look.

What do you want to be when you're grown up?

Papa, what do you want to be when you're grown up?

I'm already grown up, Nischal.

But what do you want to be ?

Well, I suppose I'll be an engineer.. like I am now.

I mean when you are even more grown up than now. What do you want to be?

hm...

I'll tell you what I want to be ?

yes..

I want to be a Ninja. Like in Lego Ninjago.

[ He's been watching a lot of this video ]

We went to malaria today

"We went to Malaria today" Nischal said.

After a couple of fruitless whaats,  I moved on to "What did you do there?"
"We had dosas there" he said ".. and then we saw planets"
"We saw Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Earth .." he said while swinging arms to make a circle each time, and ended with a shake of the head - "..But no Pluto".
"Why didn't you see Pluto?" I asked
He explained, shaking his head, " Pluto is not a planet, Papa. It has been taken away"
Avaneesh jumped in "pluto is a planet.. it's a dwarf planet"

I had to interrupt the 'yes-no' argument that went on for a minute - " What else did you see at the malaria?"
"We saw stars.. and also one girl crashed in the rocket"

Avaneesh explained to my puzzled face "They must have showed him Kalpana Chawla"

 "What else happened, Nischal?" I asked.
"They told Mangala (Mangalyaan) is next to that planet.. that Mars" he said. Avaneesh was puzzled at "Mangala" and his mom explained it as the Indian term for Mars.

"They told the Earth is moving, and the sun is in the middle. The Earth is moving around the Sun. And.. we had to sit in the dark.. "
He came up to sit on the sofa next to me and demonstrate " and we had to sit like this (folding his legs) .. it was very difficult"

I nodded with empathy (a physio had recently lost a few kgs trying to fold & flex my legs).

"When the second movie was coming, okay, everyone was laughing laughing laughing."
"Why" I asked
"Because of the God song there," he said " then .. they showed a lot of rocks following the planet"
"It's called the asteroid belt -" explained his brother.
The little guy cut his elder brother short and continued   ".. then they showed Earth .. and everybody was jumping around for that. Then they showed a rocket, Kalpana Chawya.. and they were all in the rocket that went up & down again and again"

Then his voice went up a notch "Then, there were two naked girls" .
My eyebrows shot up with alarm - what were they showing at this planetarium ?!?
"..They were doing potty everywhere ..and messing up the plants.." he continued
"Oh .. you had come outside ? " I asked .. relieved this wasn't part of the show.
"yes.. and I got to see their bums also" - apparently it was - as far as he was concerned.

"Then?" I asked.

"Then we all came back in the bus.. and everybody was laughing and shouting.. Kalpana Chawya! Kalpana Chawya!"