Kids these days, I tell you – you never know what they’ll come up with. When I hear P pontificate about certain things, I think ‘how the hell does he compute things that way?’ Yesterday, on our way to Marina Beach, he suddenly went: “Mummy, autos are like motorbikes, aren’t they?” As P is addicted to cars and bikes, I generally zonk out after the first mention of a vehicle but this one made me go “DUH?”
So he explained: “Yeah, ‘cos to drive both, the driver has to hold his hands like this” and he mimed a handlebar. My son, the genius! He once famously asked his dad to go to work on Saturdays and earn extra money, so we could donate the surplus to the people of Paris. Paris? Why? you ask. Well that’s because the people of Paris don’t have any food and have now resorted to eating yucky things like *gasp* froggie’s legs, that’s why!
The other day, we went to visit a friend of ours from Brentwood who have now moved to Chennai and since I last saw them, have had a new addition to their family. As the friend’s older daughter has always been a great pal of P’s, I was quite looking forward to him finally having a mate to play with. But thanks to the Chennai heat and humidity, he got tired after 30 mins and got cranky. So my friend put on a Krishna CD for them so they’ll let us chat in peace. But from the next minute, the friend’s daughter A started telling me the story.
“You know Aunty, the baby Krishna will do this now, see. He is going to drink milk from that demon – like the baby does from Amma. But Krishna will kill her!” My friend and I were looking speechlessly at one another as A mimed boobs and the baby feeding! That was when she told me what A did last month. One day apparently she started chucking things from the table on to the floor for no reason. Then she threw the freshly laundered clothes on the floor too and when her aunt asked her why, she went “auntie, see I have become naughty, just like Krishna. Now tie me up!”
Good grief! We want our kids to learn about our culture and get them such things and they pick up entirely different things! I am now too scared to make P watch his new Hanuman CD – what if he decides to try to fly?
