BACK OFFICE MOM
‘Back office’ is a word that I've heard bandied about very often as India grows into an IT superpower. Since every organization worth its salt seemed to have one, I decided to find out more about what exactly it was. I typed the words into Google Search, and the definitions popped up. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia explained that, “a back office is a part of most corporations where tasks dedicated to running the company itself take place. A back office system will keep a record of the company’s sales and purchase transactions, and update the inventory as needed. Invoices, receipts, and reports can also be produced by the back office system.” My eyes widened in amazement. This sounded so familiar …surely there was more to the grandiose term ‘back office’ than this? This was nothing more than what I, along with millions of other housewives, have been doing for years!
I am in sole charge of keeping all my company’s records. I have different coloured plastic files in one special cupboard where I store bank and insurance receipts, invoices, birth certificates, income tax returns, property papers, and original mark sheets and degrees. But I also keep some vital scraps of information scribbled in a notebook beside the telephone, for the sudden and frantic queries my back office gets from junior members of the company studying in different corners of the globe. ‘Ma, I’m in school, and my passport is at home. Can you sms me my passport number quick?’ or, ‘Ma, I’ve forgotten my postal code – check my address and let me know asp…’ I regularly e-mail addresses and telephone numbers to these forgetful members of my company, and even fax them copies of documents that have been misplaced. Other queries I handle in the course of a typical day include ones like ‘what’s my collar size?’ or ‘I’ve lost the medicine list you gave me. What do I take for my earache?’
Peevish queries from the head of the company are always directed to me. ‘Why’s the ABC credit card bill so high this month? What on earth have all of you been buying? Check and see if the totals are correct…’ or ‘Why is the electricity bill so high this month?’ Requests from this department also come thick and fast, ‘I need xerox copies of my passport, driver’s license, and PAN card immediately! And oh, send three copies of my latest photograph also with the driver.’ I’m rarely fazed by these requests – I have a ready stock of xerox copies of all important documents and can fish them out at the drop of a hat! My back office also keeps track of the loans and salaries our company pays out. My loan department, I must admit rather shamefacedly, is hopelessly out of control. I have lost track of the loans that I have paid out to tearful cobblers, eloquent watchmen with dramatic sob stories, and to dhobis, liftmen, sweepers, and other helpers. Although I disburse loans readily at the first sight of tear filled eyes and a quavering voice, few of my loans ever get repaid. But hey, don’t even the best run corporations write off bad loans?
My efforts in the salaries department are much more successful. In fact, I’m rather proud of my undoubted skills in human resource management in these times when maids are are shamelessly poached by unscrupulous neighbours. I pay more than the local average salaries to my indispensable ‘bai’s so that they will not be enticed away, and give them lavish bonuses and other perks like lots of old clothes and sundries from the house. Occasionally, I even conveniently pretend to forget the generous overdrafts I've already paid out. The truth of the matter is that these valued employees are required to keep our company running smoothly. And if they were to desert us, the back office would undoubtedly be the worst hit! My efficiently run payroll department however, usually goes haywire once every year during Diwali time. This is the time when every tradesperson I know descends on my door smiling expectantly, with arms outstretched, for the mandatory ‘baksheesh’. This includes people that I've not seen at all during the year like boys who deliver telegrams, and linesmen who never appear to repair never used landline telephones. Though these reluctant payouts usually leave my budget in tatters, I’ve learnt to take this this too, in my stride.
Like every efficient back office, mine too suffers from the occasional back office crunch, when the volume of business to be handled is high, but essential support systems are down. But despite errant maid servants, inclement weather, unexpected city bandhs and uncalled for transport strikes, and dead telephones, my department has always paid bills, hurried to finish bank transactions, dashed to keep doctor’s appointments, and ferried sick pets to the vet in time.
Wikipedia also says, ‘Although the operations of a back office are usually not thought of, they are a major contributor to a business.’ When I read this, I was sure more than ever, that I qualified to use the term ‘back office’, for if my back office stops functioning, my company will definitely pack up in a very short time! So the next time I fill up a form that asks for ‘occupation’, I won’t hesitantly fill in ‘housewife’, or use the modern, and more stylish ‘homemaker.’ I'll proudly write ‘Back Office Manager with more than two decades of valuable experience…’
This article was first published in BTW (By The Way) magazine in February 2008
I am in sole charge of keeping all my company’s records. I have different coloured plastic files in one special cupboard where I store bank and insurance receipts, invoices, birth certificates, income tax returns, property papers, and original mark sheets and degrees. But I also keep some vital scraps of information scribbled in a notebook beside the telephone, for the sudden and frantic queries my back office gets from junior members of the company studying in different corners of the globe. ‘Ma, I’m in school, and my passport is at home. Can you sms me my passport number quick?’ or, ‘Ma, I’ve forgotten my postal code – check my address and let me know asp…’ I regularly e-mail addresses and telephone numbers to these forgetful members of my company, and even fax them copies of documents that have been misplaced. Other queries I handle in the course of a typical day include ones like ‘what’s my collar size?’ or ‘I’ve lost the medicine list you gave me. What do I take for my earache?’
Peevish queries from the head of the company are always directed to me. ‘Why’s the ABC credit card bill so high this month? What on earth have all of you been buying? Check and see if the totals are correct…’ or ‘Why is the electricity bill so high this month?’ Requests from this department also come thick and fast, ‘I need xerox copies of my passport, driver’s license, and PAN card immediately! And oh, send three copies of my latest photograph also with the driver.’ I’m rarely fazed by these requests – I have a ready stock of xerox copies of all important documents and can fish them out at the drop of a hat! My back office also keeps track of the loans and salaries our company pays out. My loan department, I must admit rather shamefacedly, is hopelessly out of control. I have lost track of the loans that I have paid out to tearful cobblers, eloquent watchmen with dramatic sob stories, and to dhobis, liftmen, sweepers, and other helpers. Although I disburse loans readily at the first sight of tear filled eyes and a quavering voice, few of my loans ever get repaid. But hey, don’t even the best run corporations write off bad loans?
My efforts in the salaries department are much more successful. In fact, I’m rather proud of my undoubted skills in human resource management in these times when maids are are shamelessly poached by unscrupulous neighbours. I pay more than the local average salaries to my indispensable ‘bai’s so that they will not be enticed away, and give them lavish bonuses and other perks like lots of old clothes and sundries from the house. Occasionally, I even conveniently pretend to forget the generous overdrafts I've already paid out. The truth of the matter is that these valued employees are required to keep our company running smoothly. And if they were to desert us, the back office would undoubtedly be the worst hit! My efficiently run payroll department however, usually goes haywire once every year during Diwali time. This is the time when every tradesperson I know descends on my door smiling expectantly, with arms outstretched, for the mandatory ‘baksheesh’. This includes people that I've not seen at all during the year like boys who deliver telegrams, and linesmen who never appear to repair never used landline telephones. Though these reluctant payouts usually leave my budget in tatters, I’ve learnt to take this this too, in my stride.
Like every efficient back office, mine too suffers from the occasional back office crunch, when the volume of business to be handled is high, but essential support systems are down. But despite errant maid servants, inclement weather, unexpected city bandhs and uncalled for transport strikes, and dead telephones, my department has always paid bills, hurried to finish bank transactions, dashed to keep doctor’s appointments, and ferried sick pets to the vet in time.
Wikipedia also says, ‘Although the operations of a back office are usually not thought of, they are a major contributor to a business.’ When I read this, I was sure more than ever, that I qualified to use the term ‘back office’, for if my back office stops functioning, my company will definitely pack up in a very short time! So the next time I fill up a form that asks for ‘occupation’, I won’t hesitantly fill in ‘housewife’, or use the modern, and more stylish ‘homemaker.’ I'll proudly write ‘Back Office Manager with more than two decades of valuable experience…’
This article was first published in BTW (By The Way) magazine in February 2008
PLAYING SAFE WITH SAFETY PINS
“Why do you insist on wearing all those hideous safety pins on your gold chain?” asked my fashionista sister wrinkling her nose daintily as she took in the pins that festooned my chest. “They look terrible…” As she shuddered, I glanced at the pins that adorned the gold chain around my neck. There was a tiny black one, a shiny gold one, and three stainless ones in varying sizes. I had to admit that they were rather tacky and did nothing to pep up my sense of style, but was I going to take them off ? Never! I just can’t do that. They are too much a part of my daily life. Safety pins have been my faithful helpers and companions, and they have seen me through life’s umpteen little emergencies at every stage of my life.
When I was a new young mother, diaper pins were an integral part of my life. I livened up the dreary job of endless diaper changes by buying cheerful diaper pins adorned with teddy bear heads or ducks and ladybirds. As the days went by, I found that these pins had other uses too – I sterilized a pin and kept it aside just to clear clogged nipples in feeding bottles. Another pin was used to secure favourite toys to the side of the stroller when we went out for a walk. No amount of tugging by determined little hands, eager to hurl these toys out of the stroller, dislodged my sturdy pins! As the children became toddlers, my collection of safety pins began to lend themselves to new uses. I found that a safety pin was great to hold the eye of a battered and much loved teddy bear in place till I had time to sew it back on. Pins were great for minor medical procedures too! Like a surgeon wielding a scalpel, I used pins to prize out a thorn lodged in a grubby little palm, or to remove an insect’s sting. Once, I even used a safety pin to dislodge a blood sucking tick that was wedged in one of our dog’s paws. Safety pins were invaluable when I had to mend soft toys and prevent their stuffing from being torn out, or to repair toy cars with detached wheels.
As my children began their school years, I always had a collection of pins hanging on my gold chain, for they were absolutely indispensable to me. They were vital in pinning school identity badges to little chests, and in repairing sudden tears that appeared in school uniforms during scuffles in the school bus. And my safety pins, despite their small size, proved strong enough to hold down the torn straps of heavy school bags bulging with books. They were brilliant in repairing broken water bottle and school shoe straps. When flimsy cardboard models made for school projects collapsed in the schoolbus on the way to school, my lifesaving pins averted a crisis by executing commendable repair jobs. During the famous Mumbai monsoons, my valiant safety pins heroically mended torn raincoats and umbrellas with broken ribs with aplomb.
As the children grew, safety pins still continued to play a stellar role in our day-to-day lives. They were used as zipper pullers on bags, in place of missing buttons on clothes, and to hold broken slippers together till a cobbler could be found. They dutifully acted as paperclips or staple pins when neither could be found, and were efficient in opening bags of chips and popcorn at the movies. The children even used them to fasten flowers and charms to the dogs’s collar on special occasions! When my daughter wore a saree for the first time to her school farewell, we used dozens of pins to make sure the saree stayed up. The saree was pinned to her underskirt, the pleats were pinned together, and the pallu was pinned to her blouse so that it would not slip off her shoulder! But all went well, and when my daughter came home triumphantly with pins and saree still in place, she proudly announced that she did not (as she feared) get the prize for the one whose saree fell off first!! When the children left home to go to universities abroad, I put packets of safety pins into their luggage with instructions on how to use them!
Through the years, safety pins have my trustworthy and dependable aides. I’ve used them as paper cutters, letter openers, lock picks, and for keeping pairs of socks together in the washing machine. Although my humble safety pins have never basked in glory like Elizabeth Hurley’s did when she appeared in an eye popping black Versace dress secured only with two gold safety pins, they have rescued me many times when the hooks have popped off my saree blouses! And what would I do without a safety pin when the drawstring of my salwar vanishes deep into its waistband?
I recently read in the newspaper that an eleven-year-old boy in Florida freed himself from the clutches of a kidnapper by using safety pin on his school uniform to remove the duct tape binding his mouth. After I read this, I decided that I would never try to be stylish and remove the steadfast pins hanging from the gold chain around my neck. In these dangerous days of proliferating terrorism, it is always better to be armed with a weapon. Mine is one that no security agency will ever dream of confiscating, as they lie harmlessly on my chest. But I don’t underestimate the power of my safety pins…a few judicious jabs are all that it will take to throw an enemy off guard, and allow me to speed away, and enjoy my five minutes of fame at last!
This article was first published in BTW (By The Way) magazine in May 2008
When I was a new young mother, diaper pins were an integral part of my life. I livened up the dreary job of endless diaper changes by buying cheerful diaper pins adorned with teddy bear heads or ducks and ladybirds. As the days went by, I found that these pins had other uses too – I sterilized a pin and kept it aside just to clear clogged nipples in feeding bottles. Another pin was used to secure favourite toys to the side of the stroller when we went out for a walk. No amount of tugging by determined little hands, eager to hurl these toys out of the stroller, dislodged my sturdy pins! As the children became toddlers, my collection of safety pins began to lend themselves to new uses. I found that a safety pin was great to hold the eye of a battered and much loved teddy bear in place till I had time to sew it back on. Pins were great for minor medical procedures too! Like a surgeon wielding a scalpel, I used pins to prize out a thorn lodged in a grubby little palm, or to remove an insect’s sting. Once, I even used a safety pin to dislodge a blood sucking tick that was wedged in one of our dog’s paws. Safety pins were invaluable when I had to mend soft toys and prevent their stuffing from being torn out, or to repair toy cars with detached wheels.
As my children began their school years, I always had a collection of pins hanging on my gold chain, for they were absolutely indispensable to me. They were vital in pinning school identity badges to little chests, and in repairing sudden tears that appeared in school uniforms during scuffles in the school bus. And my safety pins, despite their small size, proved strong enough to hold down the torn straps of heavy school bags bulging with books. They were brilliant in repairing broken water bottle and school shoe straps. When flimsy cardboard models made for school projects collapsed in the schoolbus on the way to school, my lifesaving pins averted a crisis by executing commendable repair jobs. During the famous Mumbai monsoons, my valiant safety pins heroically mended torn raincoats and umbrellas with broken ribs with aplomb.
As the children grew, safety pins still continued to play a stellar role in our day-to-day lives. They were used as zipper pullers on bags, in place of missing buttons on clothes, and to hold broken slippers together till a cobbler could be found. They dutifully acted as paperclips or staple pins when neither could be found, and were efficient in opening bags of chips and popcorn at the movies. The children even used them to fasten flowers and charms to the dogs’s collar on special occasions! When my daughter wore a saree for the first time to her school farewell, we used dozens of pins to make sure the saree stayed up. The saree was pinned to her underskirt, the pleats were pinned together, and the pallu was pinned to her blouse so that it would not slip off her shoulder! But all went well, and when my daughter came home triumphantly with pins and saree still in place, she proudly announced that she did not (as she feared) get the prize for the one whose saree fell off first!! When the children left home to go to universities abroad, I put packets of safety pins into their luggage with instructions on how to use them!
Through the years, safety pins have my trustworthy and dependable aides. I’ve used them as paper cutters, letter openers, lock picks, and for keeping pairs of socks together in the washing machine. Although my humble safety pins have never basked in glory like Elizabeth Hurley’s did when she appeared in an eye popping black Versace dress secured only with two gold safety pins, they have rescued me many times when the hooks have popped off my saree blouses! And what would I do without a safety pin when the drawstring of my salwar vanishes deep into its waistband?
I recently read in the newspaper that an eleven-year-old boy in Florida freed himself from the clutches of a kidnapper by using safety pin on his school uniform to remove the duct tape binding his mouth. After I read this, I decided that I would never try to be stylish and remove the steadfast pins hanging from the gold chain around my neck. In these dangerous days of proliferating terrorism, it is always better to be armed with a weapon. Mine is one that no security agency will ever dream of confiscating, as they lie harmlessly on my chest. But I don’t underestimate the power of my safety pins…a few judicious jabs are all that it will take to throw an enemy off guard, and allow me to speed away, and enjoy my five minutes of fame at last!
This article was first published in BTW (By The Way) magazine in May 2008
THE END OF AN ERA
A few months ago, my youngest child got the results of her School Leaving (SSC) examination. It was a milestone in her life. After all the excitement had died down however, it was left to me, (as always) to restore order and get down to the mundane job of clearing away the old to make way for the new. But as I piled up dog-eared guides and schoolbooks to sell to the raddiwallah, I realized, that the end of my daughter’s school career marked the end of an era for me too.
This year, for the first time in over a decade, I will not be setting out to buy a new school bag (despite the fact that the old one is in excellent condition.) There will be no agonizing over whether to buy the bag with the Lion king on it, or the one with a cheerful Aladdin emblazoned on its pockets. No more deciding whether to buy the snazzy fluorescent pink school bag, or the one with nine zippers that get jammed on the first day of school! Nor will I have to shop for a raincoat that actually buttons up when my daughter wears it over the bulky schoolbag strapped to her back. And of course, this June I won’t have to add to my already formidable collection of water bottles! I usually bought at least six water bottles in one school year, and most of them shared the same fate. Within a few weeks of their debut at school, they would they would return home with vital parts missing. There would be no cap, no strap, or no straw to sip water from the bottle. After a few years of this routine, however, I began to get wise, and I stopped throwing away decapitated water bottles. I hoarded them carefully in a little box in my storeroom instead; in the way an umbrella repairman collects broken umbrella handles. Later on, whenever a strapless or headless water bottle came home, I was always sure that rummaging triumphantly among my collection of old water bottles would unearth a workable replacement. This meant of course, that the water bottles belonging to my children were oddly coloured and styled, but there was no doubt that kitsch was the fashion that suited my pocket best!
Since I will no longer have to get up at the crack of dawn to pack lunch boxes, I’ll have to get rid of the sizeable pile of lunch boxes that have accumulated on my kitchen shelves. There are lunchboxes of every possible size and shape – lunchboxes in the shapes of clowns heads, bunnies, and school buses, and boxes with games on them. There is an enormous two tiered lunch box too, and I have to smile at the memories it brings back. I had bought it in a burst of maternal anxiety, when my fifth grader had come home one day, and told me that she wanted more food in her lunch box.
“ Do you still feel hungry after you finish your lunch? ” I had asked in concern. She had nodded eagerly, and then as an after thought, she’d added that she shared her lunch with others as well. I was filled with joy and pride. I had received the ultimate accolade. My cooking was so wonderful that my daughter and her friends were actually asking for more! The two-tiered lunchbox had bulged with food for several weeks till the bubble burst one day.
“Why are you filling my lunchbox with vegetable sandwiches and cutlets? ” my daughter asked me peevishly. “ Our school dog Wolfie doesn’t like them at all! He only wags his tail when I offer him cake and brownies!”
Since schooldays are finally over, I realize that I will never have to dig deep into my cupboard at moment’s notice to produce carefully hidden pencil sharpeners and instrument boxes, bought stealthily to cope specifically with ‘ I can’t find it anywhere’ crisis days. Never again will I have to finish braiding my daughter’s hair into two tight plaits only to discover that we can find only one black ribbon. No more struggling bleary-eyed with half finished craft projects the night before they are due for submission. I’ll never again have to knit a baby’s bonnet as untidily as possible so that the hawk-eyed nun who teaches needlework will think that it’s my daughter’s handiwork. No more hunting for a plausible excuse to put on the leave note for the day that we overslept. No more arguing with irate and harassed conductors of the school bus either.
Gosh! The list of things that I won’t have to do from now on, keeps growing longer and longer. So it does seem like I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands to do all those wonderful things that I was keeping for ‘someday’. So will someone please explain to me - why then, am I filled with such regret?
This year, for the first time in over a decade, I will not be setting out to buy a new school bag (despite the fact that the old one is in excellent condition.) There will be no agonizing over whether to buy the bag with the Lion king on it, or the one with a cheerful Aladdin emblazoned on its pockets. No more deciding whether to buy the snazzy fluorescent pink school bag, or the one with nine zippers that get jammed on the first day of school! Nor will I have to shop for a raincoat that actually buttons up when my daughter wears it over the bulky schoolbag strapped to her back. And of course, this June I won’t have to add to my already formidable collection of water bottles! I usually bought at least six water bottles in one school year, and most of them shared the same fate. Within a few weeks of their debut at school, they would they would return home with vital parts missing. There would be no cap, no strap, or no straw to sip water from the bottle. After a few years of this routine, however, I began to get wise, and I stopped throwing away decapitated water bottles. I hoarded them carefully in a little box in my storeroom instead; in the way an umbrella repairman collects broken umbrella handles. Later on, whenever a strapless or headless water bottle came home, I was always sure that rummaging triumphantly among my collection of old water bottles would unearth a workable replacement. This meant of course, that the water bottles belonging to my children were oddly coloured and styled, but there was no doubt that kitsch was the fashion that suited my pocket best!
Since I will no longer have to get up at the crack of dawn to pack lunch boxes, I’ll have to get rid of the sizeable pile of lunch boxes that have accumulated on my kitchen shelves. There are lunchboxes of every possible size and shape – lunchboxes in the shapes of clowns heads, bunnies, and school buses, and boxes with games on them. There is an enormous two tiered lunch box too, and I have to smile at the memories it brings back. I had bought it in a burst of maternal anxiety, when my fifth grader had come home one day, and told me that she wanted more food in her lunch box.
“ Do you still feel hungry after you finish your lunch? ” I had asked in concern. She had nodded eagerly, and then as an after thought, she’d added that she shared her lunch with others as well. I was filled with joy and pride. I had received the ultimate accolade. My cooking was so wonderful that my daughter and her friends were actually asking for more! The two-tiered lunchbox had bulged with food for several weeks till the bubble burst one day.
“Why are you filling my lunchbox with vegetable sandwiches and cutlets? ” my daughter asked me peevishly. “ Our school dog Wolfie doesn’t like them at all! He only wags his tail when I offer him cake and brownies!”
Since schooldays are finally over, I realize that I will never have to dig deep into my cupboard at moment’s notice to produce carefully hidden pencil sharpeners and instrument boxes, bought stealthily to cope specifically with ‘ I can’t find it anywhere’ crisis days. Never again will I have to finish braiding my daughter’s hair into two tight plaits only to discover that we can find only one black ribbon. No more struggling bleary-eyed with half finished craft projects the night before they are due for submission. I’ll never again have to knit a baby’s bonnet as untidily as possible so that the hawk-eyed nun who teaches needlework will think that it’s my daughter’s handiwork. No more hunting for a plausible excuse to put on the leave note for the day that we overslept. No more arguing with irate and harassed conductors of the school bus either.
Gosh! The list of things that I won’t have to do from now on, keeps growing longer and longer. So it does seem like I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands to do all those wonderful things that I was keeping for ‘someday’. So will someone please explain to me - why then, am I filled with such regret?
VIRTUAL MOTHERHOOD
“I’m going to get a new pet today,” my daughter Sanjana announced jauntily one morning at the breakfast table.
I drew myself up to launch a vociferous protest – I was in no mood to cope with the demands of another pet after the death of our dog of nine years.
“Relax,” Sanjana said, before I could utter a word. “I’m getting a neo-pet, spelt N-E-O.”
“What’s a neo-pet?” I asked doubtfully, looking at my daughter distrustfully. From experience, I knew that all pets that arrived in our house, and the work that caring for them involved would, inevitably, become my responsibility.
“ A neo-pet is a pet that lives in Neopia, in cyberspace,” Sanjana elaborated. “I’ll have to fed him and look after him, just like with a real pet. I can name him, and even watch him grow.” Her eyes lit up as she warmed to her subject.
“ It’s just a computer programme,” tossed off an older sibling with a contemptuous wave of his hand, “ a foolish programme for dummies!”
But my daughter was enchanted with the idea of a neo-pet, and I was delighted too. A neo-pet was just the kind of pet I was ready to welcome – no puddles to mop up, no fur to clean, and no visits to the vet!
We soon learnt more about our daughter’s neo-pet – a strange creature called an ‘elephante’ with a large round eyes and a short trunk. He was purple, but his fond parent informed me cheerfully that she could change his colour whenever she liked. She fed the elephante faithfully, because, she informed me, if she did not, he would starve and perish, and end up in the neo-graveyard. Worse still, an obituary would be posted in Neopia, informing visitors that her pet had died of parental neglect, and she would be barred from Neopia. My daughter was learning quickly that parenthood was serious business!
“How do you feed your neo-pet?” I asked, curious to have a peek into this strange new world.
“Oh, I have to buy food for him from the shops in Neopia,” she said. “I have to pay for them in neo-points that I have to earn.”
“And how do you do that?” I asked, completely mystified.
“I can play games and earn points, or I can gamble, or speculate on the Neo-daq or stock market in Neopia.”
As the days went by, my daughter pounded the computer energetically for hours to earn more neopoints. The ‘elephante’ thrived on a diet of virtual delicacies like hotworm hot dogs and faerie cakes, and grew. He drank only diet neocola, I was told very seriously, because he was getting rather stout! My kind hearted daughter was so pleased with his progress, that when she visited the Neopets pound in Neopia where heartless and exhausted pet owners had abandoned their neopets, she promptly adopted three more abandoned pets.
“Poor chaps,” she sniffed sadly to me. “They really needed a good owner. I’ll feed them, and play with them, and look after them well.”
How many more pets are you going to add to this list?” I asked, envisaging more hours spent squinting at the computer screen.
“Oh, no-one can have more than four babies in Neopia,” she replied a trifle regretfully. “I’ve tried to adopt some more, but I’m not allowed!”
Neo-parenthood has had its own share of crises. The ‘elephante’ once fell gravely ill from ‘sniffles’, and expensive medicine had to be bought for him from the neo-pharmacy. He has been lucky too, that he hasn’t suffered since, from dreadful ailments like ‘grumbles’ or ‘neoblues’! Bandits also kidnapped him one time, and his tearful owner had to part with precious neopoints to pay a ransom and free him. The nadir of my daughter’s neo-pets’ lives was undoubtedly the time when she went bankrupt, and they had to be fed in the neo-soup kitchen! But they have had their share of fun too. During their owner’s exam time, or when her life in the real world leaves little time to attend to the pressures of Neopia, her pets are sent off on holidays with their toys and books!
“I always pay to put them in luxury accommodation,” she explains seriously. “I want them to have a good time!”
Sanjana’s enthusiasm about her neopets was so infectious that finally I decided that I should see them too, and visit the wondrous land of Neopia, where inflation was only 2.31%! As her brightly coloured pets appeared on the screen of her computer, Sanjana smiled at them with maternal pride.
“I have two boys and two girls,” she said proudly.
Beneath each pet’s picture were details of its age in days, its health and strength. There were also details of the pet’s intelligence. Three of my daughter’s pets were ‘average’ in intelligence, and one was ‘dim-witted’.
“ After all these days of feeding and looking after your pets, they’re only average in intelligence, and one is dim-witted,” I remarked disappointedly. “I expected that after all the time that you have spent on them, your pets would be at least ‘above average’, if not clever!”
My daughter rounded on me ferociously. “ Everyone can’t be clever,” she remarked hotly. “ I’m just glad that my pets are healthy and happy, and anyway, I love them just the way they are!” I smiled to myself. Perhaps virtual motherhood had its uses after all!
I drew myself up to launch a vociferous protest – I was in no mood to cope with the demands of another pet after the death of our dog of nine years.
“Relax,” Sanjana said, before I could utter a word. “I’m getting a neo-pet, spelt N-E-O.”
“What’s a neo-pet?” I asked doubtfully, looking at my daughter distrustfully. From experience, I knew that all pets that arrived in our house, and the work that caring for them involved would, inevitably, become my responsibility.
“ A neo-pet is a pet that lives in Neopia, in cyberspace,” Sanjana elaborated. “I’ll have to fed him and look after him, just like with a real pet. I can name him, and even watch him grow.” Her eyes lit up as she warmed to her subject.
“ It’s just a computer programme,” tossed off an older sibling with a contemptuous wave of his hand, “ a foolish programme for dummies!”
But my daughter was enchanted with the idea of a neo-pet, and I was delighted too. A neo-pet was just the kind of pet I was ready to welcome – no puddles to mop up, no fur to clean, and no visits to the vet!
We soon learnt more about our daughter’s neo-pet – a strange creature called an ‘elephante’ with a large round eyes and a short trunk. He was purple, but his fond parent informed me cheerfully that she could change his colour whenever she liked. She fed the elephante faithfully, because, she informed me, if she did not, he would starve and perish, and end up in the neo-graveyard. Worse still, an obituary would be posted in Neopia, informing visitors that her pet had died of parental neglect, and she would be barred from Neopia. My daughter was learning quickly that parenthood was serious business!
“How do you feed your neo-pet?” I asked, curious to have a peek into this strange new world.
“Oh, I have to buy food for him from the shops in Neopia,” she said. “I have to pay for them in neo-points that I have to earn.”
“And how do you do that?” I asked, completely mystified.
“I can play games and earn points, or I can gamble, or speculate on the Neo-daq or stock market in Neopia.”
As the days went by, my daughter pounded the computer energetically for hours to earn more neopoints. The ‘elephante’ thrived on a diet of virtual delicacies like hotworm hot dogs and faerie cakes, and grew. He drank only diet neocola, I was told very seriously, because he was getting rather stout! My kind hearted daughter was so pleased with his progress, that when she visited the Neopets pound in Neopia where heartless and exhausted pet owners had abandoned their neopets, she promptly adopted three more abandoned pets.
“Poor chaps,” she sniffed sadly to me. “They really needed a good owner. I’ll feed them, and play with them, and look after them well.”
How many more pets are you going to add to this list?” I asked, envisaging more hours spent squinting at the computer screen.
“Oh, no-one can have more than four babies in Neopia,” she replied a trifle regretfully. “I’ve tried to adopt some more, but I’m not allowed!”
Neo-parenthood has had its own share of crises. The ‘elephante’ once fell gravely ill from ‘sniffles’, and expensive medicine had to be bought for him from the neo-pharmacy. He has been lucky too, that he hasn’t suffered since, from dreadful ailments like ‘grumbles’ or ‘neoblues’! Bandits also kidnapped him one time, and his tearful owner had to part with precious neopoints to pay a ransom and free him. The nadir of my daughter’s neo-pets’ lives was undoubtedly the time when she went bankrupt, and they had to be fed in the neo-soup kitchen! But they have had their share of fun too. During their owner’s exam time, or when her life in the real world leaves little time to attend to the pressures of Neopia, her pets are sent off on holidays with their toys and books!
“I always pay to put them in luxury accommodation,” she explains seriously. “I want them to have a good time!”
Sanjana’s enthusiasm about her neopets was so infectious that finally I decided that I should see them too, and visit the wondrous land of Neopia, where inflation was only 2.31%! As her brightly coloured pets appeared on the screen of her computer, Sanjana smiled at them with maternal pride.
“I have two boys and two girls,” she said proudly.
Beneath each pet’s picture were details of its age in days, its health and strength. There were also details of the pet’s intelligence. Three of my daughter’s pets were ‘average’ in intelligence, and one was ‘dim-witted’.
“ After all these days of feeding and looking after your pets, they’re only average in intelligence, and one is dim-witted,” I remarked disappointedly. “I expected that after all the time that you have spent on them, your pets would be at least ‘above average’, if not clever!”
My daughter rounded on me ferociously. “ Everyone can’t be clever,” she remarked hotly. “ I’m just glad that my pets are healthy and happy, and anyway, I love them just the way they are!” I smiled to myself. Perhaps virtual motherhood had its uses after all!
WHAT A HISTORY!
When we think of things that have a long and fascinating history, we usually think of old buildings, antiques, paintings, and even jewelry. We never think of common, edible things that are an important part of our everyday lives! Do you know that some of the humble vegetables and food items that we see on our dining tables daily have also got a long and colourful history?
Did you know that the popular ‘aloo ’or potato, was unknown in India till the early seventeenth century, when Portuguese traders brought it to Goa which was under their rule? The Portuguese planted it along India’s western coast, and it was called ‘batata’ from the Spanish word for potato. Interestingly, in Marathi, the language of Maharashtra, the potato is still called batata.
It is believed that potatoes were first grown in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia, where the local Indians grew more than two hundred varieties. The people of Peru had a Potato God, and the Peruvian Quecha language has more than 1,000 words to describe potatoes and potato varieties When the Spanish Conquistadors invaded Peru, they carried away not only gold and silver, but also the potato, which they introduced to Europe. The warlike Inca tribes of South America were so fond of the potato that they postponed hostilities during fierce battles so that they could cultivate their potato fields! From Spain, the potato spread to Switzerland, England, and then to Germany. Frederick the Great, ruler of the German state of Prussia ordered his people to plant and eat potatoes to avoid famine which was widely prevalent in those days. Those who failed to comply with this order were told that their ears would be chopped off! Sadly, though the potato soon became a staple in Europe, it was also responsible for one of the greatest famines in Europe – in Ireland in the mid 19th century. The potato had flourished so well in Ireland that it not only became a vital part of the diet of the people, but potato fodder was also fed to animals that provided meat, eggs, and milk. However, heavy rains in the 1840’s caused the crop to rot while it was still standing, and so, the main food of the population was destroyed, causing millions of people and animals to die of starvation.
A French agriculturalist named Antoine Parmentier tasted potatoes for the first time when he was a prisoner of war in Germany. When he was released, he returned to France with a bag full of potatoes, determined to cultivate more of these tubers. His first crop was such a success that he presented a bouquet of creamy potato blossoms to his king, Louis XVI. The king stuck a single flower in his buttonhole, and gave the rest of the flowers to his queen, Marie Antoinette. She, in turn, appeared at dinner with potato blossoms arranged artistically in her hair. Potato blossoms soon became a must have fashion accessory, and the people of France happily embraced the potato. Soon, the lowly brown tuber was a staple in humble homes all over the country. "France will thank you some day for having found bread for the poor," Louis XVI told Parmentier. France still remembers Parmentier, and the now-classic French potato and leek soup is called ‘Potage Parmentier’. Potatoes are still making history. In October 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space, when it was taken onboard the space shuttle Columbia.
The carrot, another firm favourite in Indian cuisine, dates back 5,000 years, when it was found growing wild in Afghanistan. These ancient carrots were purple in colour. In fact, as the centuries passed, the vegetable appeared in a variety of colours ranging from purple to white to red, green, and even black! The orange carrots that we are familiar with today were not known till the 16th century in Holland. This came about because patriotic Dutch farmers bred the vegetable to grow in the colours of their rulers who were from the House of Orange! Thus, by the mid 1700’s, Holland was considered to be the leading country in carrot cultivation, and the orange carrots we all eat today are all directly descended from these Dutch bred carrots.
Chillies are synonymous the world over with the hot spicy food of India. They come in many colours and shapes - red, green, orange, and may be elongated, round, pointed and blunt. Although India is today the largest producer and exporter of chillies, the vegetable, surprisingly, didn’t originate in India. It is believed that native Indians in the Americas first cultivated chilies – the name chilli itself comes from an ancient Indian word ‘txile’. When Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world he saw large capsicums for the first time. He thought that they were a kind of pepper, so he called them peppers, a name that has stuck to this day. Columbus carried chillies back to Spain and they soon spread all over Europe. The Portuguese were responsible for bringing the chilli to India. The plant flourished so well in our country, and the locals relished its pungent flavour so much that within fifty years, chillies began to be referred to as ‘the pepper of Calicut.’
The eggplant or aubergine, called ‘brinjal’ in India, originated in the Southeast Asian region of India and Pakistan more than 4000 years ago. About 500 B.C. the brinjal spread into neighbouring China, and quickly became a favourite among Chinese emperors. From India and Pakistan, the brinjal soon spread west into the Middle East, and to Egypt and Turkey. The Turks alone are believed to have over 1000 native recipes using brinjals in many different ways. Arab traders introduced the brinjal to Spain, where it received its Catalonian name ‘Alberginia.’ King Louis XIV of France, who liked to impress his guests with new varieties of plant food, introduced the brinjal to his garden, and table in the 1600’s. The nondescript brinjal has even had the honour of being used to feed the gods!
The book ‘Krishnamangala’ written during 1525 by the great poet Krishnadasa, mentions brinjal in a list of items cooked by the gopas and gopis of Brindavan, at Lord Krishna’s request during the Mahabharata period!
Tangy tasting ginger, a spice from the same family as turmeric and cardamom was cultivated in India thousands of years ago. Ginger's current name comes from the Middle English ‘gingivere’, but ginger dates back over 3,000 years to the Sanskrit ‘srngaveram’ meaning ‘horn root’, a word that aptly describes its appearance. Confucius wrote about ginger, and Marco Polo mentioned in his travel writings that ginger was widely used and appreciated in China.
During the Middle Ages in Europe, plague was a dreaded disease that killed millions. It was recorded that King Henry VIII instructed the mayor of London to use ginger as a plague medicine. This root was so expensive in England that if you sold one pound of it, you would earn enough to buy a sheep!
The gourd family of vegetables includes cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, and water melons. Gourds, are thought to have originated in Africa, and floated along ocean currents to spread to other lands. They are among the oldest cultivated plants in the world, and are found in the myths and legends of virtually every documented culture in history. Remains of utensils made from gourds have been discovered in Egyptian tombs going back to 2400 B.C. The gourd has been referred to in the Bible, and in India, the Vedas pay homage to the gourd. Among the Huichol people of Mexico, it is believed that spirits of the departed return to Earth and reside in special gourd bowls. To welcome these spirits, the people decorate the insides of their gourds with coloured beads embedded in beeswax. In Africa, gourds are used to make bottles for feeding babies, jugs for hauling water, ladles, and for drums. In some regions, hookahs, water pipes and tobacco pipes are also made from gourds. Interestingly, the trademark pipe smoked by the famous detective Sherlock Holmes is made from the neck of a gourd.
Gourds have been used for musical instruments like rattles, horns, whistles, flutes, banjoes, and violins from times immemorial. In Africa, beads or shells were added to netting, and then draped over the gourd to create a popular musical instrument called the shekerie. But this humble vegetable probably rose to its zenith in the 19th century in Haiti, when it was actually used as money! In 1807, when Henry Christophe became Governor of the state, the country was bankrupt, but gourds grew in plenty. Christophe immediately declared that every green gourd in the territory was state property. Soldiers went to every village to collect all the gourds. Eventually, 227,000 gourds were deposited into the state treasury, and the peasants were paid in gourds! The currency of Haiti is called the ‘gourde’ to this very day!
Did you know that the popular ‘aloo ’or potato, was unknown in India till the early seventeenth century, when Portuguese traders brought it to Goa which was under their rule? The Portuguese planted it along India’s western coast, and it was called ‘batata’ from the Spanish word for potato. Interestingly, in Marathi, the language of Maharashtra, the potato is still called batata.
It is believed that potatoes were first grown in the Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia, where the local Indians grew more than two hundred varieties. The people of Peru had a Potato God, and the Peruvian Quecha language has more than 1,000 words to describe potatoes and potato varieties When the Spanish Conquistadors invaded Peru, they carried away not only gold and silver, but also the potato, which they introduced to Europe. The warlike Inca tribes of South America were so fond of the potato that they postponed hostilities during fierce battles so that they could cultivate their potato fields! From Spain, the potato spread to Switzerland, England, and then to Germany. Frederick the Great, ruler of the German state of Prussia ordered his people to plant and eat potatoes to avoid famine which was widely prevalent in those days. Those who failed to comply with this order were told that their ears would be chopped off! Sadly, though the potato soon became a staple in Europe, it was also responsible for one of the greatest famines in Europe – in Ireland in the mid 19th century. The potato had flourished so well in Ireland that it not only became a vital part of the diet of the people, but potato fodder was also fed to animals that provided meat, eggs, and milk. However, heavy rains in the 1840’s caused the crop to rot while it was still standing, and so, the main food of the population was destroyed, causing millions of people and animals to die of starvation.
A French agriculturalist named Antoine Parmentier tasted potatoes for the first time when he was a prisoner of war in Germany. When he was released, he returned to France with a bag full of potatoes, determined to cultivate more of these tubers. His first crop was such a success that he presented a bouquet of creamy potato blossoms to his king, Louis XVI. The king stuck a single flower in his buttonhole, and gave the rest of the flowers to his queen, Marie Antoinette. She, in turn, appeared at dinner with potato blossoms arranged artistically in her hair. Potato blossoms soon became a must have fashion accessory, and the people of France happily embraced the potato. Soon, the lowly brown tuber was a staple in humble homes all over the country. "France will thank you some day for having found bread for the poor," Louis XVI told Parmentier. France still remembers Parmentier, and the now-classic French potato and leek soup is called ‘Potage Parmentier’. Potatoes are still making history. In October 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space, when it was taken onboard the space shuttle Columbia.
The carrot, another firm favourite in Indian cuisine, dates back 5,000 years, when it was found growing wild in Afghanistan. These ancient carrots were purple in colour. In fact, as the centuries passed, the vegetable appeared in a variety of colours ranging from purple to white to red, green, and even black! The orange carrots that we are familiar with today were not known till the 16th century in Holland. This came about because patriotic Dutch farmers bred the vegetable to grow in the colours of their rulers who were from the House of Orange! Thus, by the mid 1700’s, Holland was considered to be the leading country in carrot cultivation, and the orange carrots we all eat today are all directly descended from these Dutch bred carrots.
Chillies are synonymous the world over with the hot spicy food of India. They come in many colours and shapes - red, green, orange, and may be elongated, round, pointed and blunt. Although India is today the largest producer and exporter of chillies, the vegetable, surprisingly, didn’t originate in India. It is believed that native Indians in the Americas first cultivated chilies – the name chilli itself comes from an ancient Indian word ‘txile’. When Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world he saw large capsicums for the first time. He thought that they were a kind of pepper, so he called them peppers, a name that has stuck to this day. Columbus carried chillies back to Spain and they soon spread all over Europe. The Portuguese were responsible for bringing the chilli to India. The plant flourished so well in our country, and the locals relished its pungent flavour so much that within fifty years, chillies began to be referred to as ‘the pepper of Calicut.’
The eggplant or aubergine, called ‘brinjal’ in India, originated in the Southeast Asian region of India and Pakistan more than 4000 years ago. About 500 B.C. the brinjal spread into neighbouring China, and quickly became a favourite among Chinese emperors. From India and Pakistan, the brinjal soon spread west into the Middle East, and to Egypt and Turkey. The Turks alone are believed to have over 1000 native recipes using brinjals in many different ways. Arab traders introduced the brinjal to Spain, where it received its Catalonian name ‘Alberginia.’ King Louis XIV of France, who liked to impress his guests with new varieties of plant food, introduced the brinjal to his garden, and table in the 1600’s. The nondescript brinjal has even had the honour of being used to feed the gods!
The book ‘Krishnamangala’ written during 1525 by the great poet Krishnadasa, mentions brinjal in a list of items cooked by the gopas and gopis of Brindavan, at Lord Krishna’s request during the Mahabharata period!
Tangy tasting ginger, a spice from the same family as turmeric and cardamom was cultivated in India thousands of years ago. Ginger's current name comes from the Middle English ‘gingivere’, but ginger dates back over 3,000 years to the Sanskrit ‘srngaveram’ meaning ‘horn root’, a word that aptly describes its appearance. Confucius wrote about ginger, and Marco Polo mentioned in his travel writings that ginger was widely used and appreciated in China.
During the Middle Ages in Europe, plague was a dreaded disease that killed millions. It was recorded that King Henry VIII instructed the mayor of London to use ginger as a plague medicine. This root was so expensive in England that if you sold one pound of it, you would earn enough to buy a sheep!
The gourd family of vegetables includes cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, and water melons. Gourds, are thought to have originated in Africa, and floated along ocean currents to spread to other lands. They are among the oldest cultivated plants in the world, and are found in the myths and legends of virtually every documented culture in history. Remains of utensils made from gourds have been discovered in Egyptian tombs going back to 2400 B.C. The gourd has been referred to in the Bible, and in India, the Vedas pay homage to the gourd. Among the Huichol people of Mexico, it is believed that spirits of the departed return to Earth and reside in special gourd bowls. To welcome these spirits, the people decorate the insides of their gourds with coloured beads embedded in beeswax. In Africa, gourds are used to make bottles for feeding babies, jugs for hauling water, ladles, and for drums. In some regions, hookahs, water pipes and tobacco pipes are also made from gourds. Interestingly, the trademark pipe smoked by the famous detective Sherlock Holmes is made from the neck of a gourd.
Gourds have been used for musical instruments like rattles, horns, whistles, flutes, banjoes, and violins from times immemorial. In Africa, beads or shells were added to netting, and then draped over the gourd to create a popular musical instrument called the shekerie. But this humble vegetable probably rose to its zenith in the 19th century in Haiti, when it was actually used as money! In 1807, when Henry Christophe became Governor of the state, the country was bankrupt, but gourds grew in plenty. Christophe immediately declared that every green gourd in the territory was state property. Soldiers went to every village to collect all the gourds. Eventually, 227,000 gourds were deposited into the state treasury, and the peasants were paid in gourds! The currency of Haiti is called the ‘gourde’ to this very day!
READING A GIFT FOR LIFE
“Books”, said a wise man, “are the best companions for life. They provide you with conversation, comfort, and wisdom.” Yet, in our modern age, considered to be the age of information, the reading habit is rapidly on the decline among young children. Perhaps this is because children have so many more diversions and new things to interest them as compared to what was available to earlier generations. Some parents feel that in an era of satellite communication, which provides access to facilities like the Internet, the reading of books is outdated and unnecessary. Alas! How wrong they are! Every revolutionary modern instrument of communication is based upon the written word, and if you want your child to really enjoy and reap the benefits of these tools of knowledge in later years, an early introduction to books is a must.
Even the smallest toddler, who is just mastering his own verbal and communication skills, is not too young to enjoy a good book. It has been scientifically proved that a child’s brain is already half developed by the time the child is 18 months old, and by the time the child is 5 years old, the child’s brain will already have reached nine tenths of its final size. This means that it is never too young to start teaching children - they not only respond to stimulus very early, but also actually enjoy looking at pictures and being read to. Even a very small baby under a year can be shown bright and colorful pictures in a board book or picture book.
Ideally, early picture books which parents have to read and explain to small children, must have very short simple sentences, and lots of brightly coloured pictures that will stimulate the child’s interest and curiosity. ‘Animal books’ are a great favourite with this age group, so also pop–up books that cause a little movement and catch the child’s quickly shifting attention. Books that have ‘rebus’ stories are also ideal for small children who are not yet able to read. Rebuses are short simple stories that are printed in a large font, with small illustrations interspersed between the text, which often consists of rhyming words that are repeated again and again. By the time the story comes to an end, the child learns and is able to recognize new words. Rebuses familiarize children with the left-right eye progression, which is a part of reading.
Sharing a book with a small child is also a wonderful way for a parent to bond with him or her. For a child, listening quietly to a story as a parent reads it, is an enjoyable and comforting experience, and children usually carry memories of the warmth that this experience evokes right into their adulthood.
As children grow a little older, they enjoy having more elaborate bedtime stories, folk tales, and fairy tales read out aloud them. Stories with a little dialogue are also popular with small children who cannot read themselves, and parents’ will soon find that they can bring books to life for children and catch their interest, by reading imaginatively, with expression. Children of this age will also enjoy ‘talking books’, where a cassette in which the story is narrated with musical accompaniments, accompanies the printed storybook. As giants and rakshasas, larger than life dragons and monsters, or beautiful Queens, and heroes come to life through listening to tales read out loud, a child’s curiosity and interest is irrevocably caught.
Thus, once a child learns to read by himself, he will be eager to explore the magic world of books, to learn more about all the wonderful characters he is already familiar with. Children who are just beginning to read will also enjoy having their own magazines to look through. Magazines are truly bridges to books, and for a child who is a subscriber to a children’s magazine, getting a magazine addressed to him or her is truly a rewarding experience.
The children’s magazine market in India too seems to be waking up to the realization that children of different ages have different needs. There are many excellent magazines for children available in the Indian market today, and these provide ideal ways for parents to bring to their children the joys of reading. Magazines not entertain and educate children but also bring out their creativity, for magazines are interactive mediums, and children can write to the magazine and contribute their own work to them as well.
By the time the child is of school going age, parents feel that reading ‘story-books,’ eats into the time reserved for studying the prescribed textbooks. A commonly heard grievance is that reading fiction is a waste of time for children, and they would do better to concentrate on their textbooks so as to improve their marks!
But childrens fictions books, far from being a hindrance are actually an important and invaluable tool in the learning process. They capture the child’s imagination, and thus stimulate creativity and the child’s intellectual curiosity. A book is an ideal way to introduce a child to different ideas, cultures and experiences. By reading he gains insight and wisdom, and at the same time gains enough of inputs to shape his own independent thinking. A book is also good way to introduce a child to some of the darker aspects of modern living – violence, crime etc. Through a storybook, the child is sufficiently removed from reality so as not too be too frightened, but at the same time, important lessons can be taught. A child who is an avid reader will inevitably have better written and verbal skills, and be a better communicator than the child who is not.
When selecting books for children, it is important to choose a variety of different books. While famous fairy tales and well-known authors do provide staple fare even today, it might be worthwhile to try out something new. Our local folklore has a rich harvest of wonderful tales from different regions, and these stories are rich in entertainment. Drama and poetry books are invariably a hit with children who love a little action, and hearing their own voices! Buying a few good poetry books is a good idea for parents guiding a child who has just begun to read.
Comic books are generally looked down upon as suitable reading material, and are often ‘outlawed’ by parents. But these books, with their colourful and rich illustrations entertain a child too, and help him to graduate to a stage where the written words on the page alone are enough to form vivid pictures in his mind.
Reading is one of the most convenient and delightful pastimes in the world. Teach your child how to enjoy it, and you will be giving him a gift for life. He will never be lonely, for he only need turn a page to find good company. He will have imagination and enthusiasm, and he only need sit in his armchair, to be able to explore every realm….
Even the smallest toddler, who is just mastering his own verbal and communication skills, is not too young to enjoy a good book. It has been scientifically proved that a child’s brain is already half developed by the time the child is 18 months old, and by the time the child is 5 years old, the child’s brain will already have reached nine tenths of its final size. This means that it is never too young to start teaching children - they not only respond to stimulus very early, but also actually enjoy looking at pictures and being read to. Even a very small baby under a year can be shown bright and colorful pictures in a board book or picture book.
Ideally, early picture books which parents have to read and explain to small children, must have very short simple sentences, and lots of brightly coloured pictures that will stimulate the child’s interest and curiosity. ‘Animal books’ are a great favourite with this age group, so also pop–up books that cause a little movement and catch the child’s quickly shifting attention. Books that have ‘rebus’ stories are also ideal for small children who are not yet able to read. Rebuses are short simple stories that are printed in a large font, with small illustrations interspersed between the text, which often consists of rhyming words that are repeated again and again. By the time the story comes to an end, the child learns and is able to recognize new words. Rebuses familiarize children with the left-right eye progression, which is a part of reading.
Sharing a book with a small child is also a wonderful way for a parent to bond with him or her. For a child, listening quietly to a story as a parent reads it, is an enjoyable and comforting experience, and children usually carry memories of the warmth that this experience evokes right into their adulthood.
As children grow a little older, they enjoy having more elaborate bedtime stories, folk tales, and fairy tales read out aloud them. Stories with a little dialogue are also popular with small children who cannot read themselves, and parents’ will soon find that they can bring books to life for children and catch their interest, by reading imaginatively, with expression. Children of this age will also enjoy ‘talking books’, where a cassette in which the story is narrated with musical accompaniments, accompanies the printed storybook. As giants and rakshasas, larger than life dragons and monsters, or beautiful Queens, and heroes come to life through listening to tales read out loud, a child’s curiosity and interest is irrevocably caught.
Thus, once a child learns to read by himself, he will be eager to explore the magic world of books, to learn more about all the wonderful characters he is already familiar with. Children who are just beginning to read will also enjoy having their own magazines to look through. Magazines are truly bridges to books, and for a child who is a subscriber to a children’s magazine, getting a magazine addressed to him or her is truly a rewarding experience.
The children’s magazine market in India too seems to be waking up to the realization that children of different ages have different needs. There are many excellent magazines for children available in the Indian market today, and these provide ideal ways for parents to bring to their children the joys of reading. Magazines not entertain and educate children but also bring out their creativity, for magazines are interactive mediums, and children can write to the magazine and contribute their own work to them as well.
By the time the child is of school going age, parents feel that reading ‘story-books,’ eats into the time reserved for studying the prescribed textbooks. A commonly heard grievance is that reading fiction is a waste of time for children, and they would do better to concentrate on their textbooks so as to improve their marks!
But childrens fictions books, far from being a hindrance are actually an important and invaluable tool in the learning process. They capture the child’s imagination, and thus stimulate creativity and the child’s intellectual curiosity. A book is an ideal way to introduce a child to different ideas, cultures and experiences. By reading he gains insight and wisdom, and at the same time gains enough of inputs to shape his own independent thinking. A book is also good way to introduce a child to some of the darker aspects of modern living – violence, crime etc. Through a storybook, the child is sufficiently removed from reality so as not too be too frightened, but at the same time, important lessons can be taught. A child who is an avid reader will inevitably have better written and verbal skills, and be a better communicator than the child who is not.
When selecting books for children, it is important to choose a variety of different books. While famous fairy tales and well-known authors do provide staple fare even today, it might be worthwhile to try out something new. Our local folklore has a rich harvest of wonderful tales from different regions, and these stories are rich in entertainment. Drama and poetry books are invariably a hit with children who love a little action, and hearing their own voices! Buying a few good poetry books is a good idea for parents guiding a child who has just begun to read.
Comic books are generally looked down upon as suitable reading material, and are often ‘outlawed’ by parents. But these books, with their colourful and rich illustrations entertain a child too, and help him to graduate to a stage where the written words on the page alone are enough to form vivid pictures in his mind.
Reading is one of the most convenient and delightful pastimes in the world. Teach your child how to enjoy it, and you will be giving him a gift for life. He will never be lonely, for he only need turn a page to find good company. He will have imagination and enthusiasm, and he only need sit in his armchair, to be able to explore every realm….
A TOAST TO UNIQUE INDIAN EXPERTS!
They perform many seemingly unimportant but useful little services that I take for granted. But I did not realize just how useful and expert their services were until I went to America last year for a stay of several weeks.
As I landed in New York one rainy morning, the wind buffeted my umbrella and it collapsed tamely around my head. As I examined it dejectedly at home later, I found that it was not a complete write off as I had imagined. Only two of its spines were broken, and I brightened up at once as I realized that repairing this would be a cinch for an umbrella repairman. The umbrella repairman I patronize is a cobbler who doubles up repairing umbrellas during the Mumbai monsoons. He sits in a little make shift stall on a busy street, and has box full of umbrella handles, spines, and skirts beside him. Since he never bothers about such trifles as matching an umbrella handle with the colour of its skirt, I own two black umbrellas with bright, multi-coloured handles, and a blue flowered umbrella with a yellow handle. Yet, how I missed my colour blind umbrella repairman in faraway America! For a mere ten rupees he would have made my brand new umbrella as right as rain, and saved me the tramp to Wal-Mart to buy a new umbrella.
My humble umbrella repairman was not the only person I missed sorely in America. As I was worked hard at tidying up my son’s apartment, I kept remembering my neighbourhood raddiwallah, who is an important part of all my spring-cleaning activities. One phone call is all it takes to bring him to my door on his rickety bicycle, armed with a large gunny bag and ball of string. His eyes light up when he sees the bundles of old newspapers and magazines, tins, bottles and other unwanted stuff that I have assembled for him. He sifts through everything thoroughly and leisurely, and his eyes gleam when he sees something that he can resell, like a pile of old Vogue magazines, or an alarm clock that runs a hour fast. He sniffs empty perfume bottles like a connoisseur, and looks at me with an injured air when I ask him rather sharply and suspiciously what he’s planning to do with them. How I missed him in America when I had to toss out mounds of my son’s MBA notes, bound in shiny new files! My raddiwallah would actually have paid me for all the old textbooks, cardboard cartons, Fed-ex boxes and plastic containers that festooned my son’s apartment. He would have gathered the empty plastic milk cans, shampoo bottles, and old CD’s with a delighted smile. Instead, I had to nag my reluctant son to take mountains of garbage out to the trashcan.
When my son produced a pair on new jeans that needed to be shortened, I remembered a unique expert that I often rely on – my ‘ALTRATION SPECIALIST’. A wizened little man with his measuring tape perennially hanging around his neck, this specialist tailor boasts, quite proudly and rightly, that he can alter any garment. Though spelling is, obviously, not his strong point, the shelves in his tiny hole in the corner shop bear testimony to his skill, for they are always overflowing with garments that he has altered. Requests from nubile teenage girls to make their t-shirts clingier, their skirts shorter, and more stylish, and their jeans tighter, are catered to with aplomb. His wide clientele includes budget conscious mothers recycling hand me downs, to portly housewives eager to loosen the waistbands of their clothes to accommodate expanding midriffs.
In America, I also thought nostalgically of my neighbourhood mochi or cobbler when the strap of one of my sandals broke. For a mere five rupees, he would have stitched it back onto my sandal in a flash. But alas! Since he was in another hemisphere, I had to toss my sandals away regretfully and buy another new pair. I remembered the mochi’s services too when I polished my son’s shoes before his all important convocation. No matter how hard I worked, I could just not get the mirror like shine that he obtains so effortlessly with just a few strokes of his brush.
But perhaps I missed none of my specialist helpers in America as much as I missed Pappu, my dhobi. He’s at my door every morning, with an armful of starched and crisply ironed clothes, and takes away the bundle of creased clothes that await him with a winning smile. He takes very few days off, and works overtime when I need ironed clothes to be readied for sudden trips. But I must add, our relationship is not always smooth sailing. Once in a way, a bed sheet, or a shirt vanishes from my pile of laundry, never to be seen, or heard of again. This leads to stormy scenes, and causes some tension between us for several days. But time eventually obliterates all offences, and as memories of my lost laundry fade, we always resume our usual cordial relationship.
When my son told me why he likes America, he explained that it was the opportunities available that excited him the most. ‘Anyone can chase his or her dream to become an entrepreneur here,’ he exclaimed excitedly. This really set me thinking. Perhaps I too can aspire to become an entrepreneur some day, managing a firm of people offering unique specialist services. Of course, I’ll have to talk to the specialists concerned, but who knows? Perhaps someday soon, you’ll read that Pappu, and my mochi, and the ‘Altration specialist’ are living the great American dream.
As I landed in New York one rainy morning, the wind buffeted my umbrella and it collapsed tamely around my head. As I examined it dejectedly at home later, I found that it was not a complete write off as I had imagined. Only two of its spines were broken, and I brightened up at once as I realized that repairing this would be a cinch for an umbrella repairman. The umbrella repairman I patronize is a cobbler who doubles up repairing umbrellas during the Mumbai monsoons. He sits in a little make shift stall on a busy street, and has box full of umbrella handles, spines, and skirts beside him. Since he never bothers about such trifles as matching an umbrella handle with the colour of its skirt, I own two black umbrellas with bright, multi-coloured handles, and a blue flowered umbrella with a yellow handle. Yet, how I missed my colour blind umbrella repairman in faraway America! For a mere ten rupees he would have made my brand new umbrella as right as rain, and saved me the tramp to Wal-Mart to buy a new umbrella.
My humble umbrella repairman was not the only person I missed sorely in America. As I was worked hard at tidying up my son’s apartment, I kept remembering my neighbourhood raddiwallah, who is an important part of all my spring-cleaning activities. One phone call is all it takes to bring him to my door on his rickety bicycle, armed with a large gunny bag and ball of string. His eyes light up when he sees the bundles of old newspapers and magazines, tins, bottles and other unwanted stuff that I have assembled for him. He sifts through everything thoroughly and leisurely, and his eyes gleam when he sees something that he can resell, like a pile of old Vogue magazines, or an alarm clock that runs a hour fast. He sniffs empty perfume bottles like a connoisseur, and looks at me with an injured air when I ask him rather sharply and suspiciously what he’s planning to do with them. How I missed him in America when I had to toss out mounds of my son’s MBA notes, bound in shiny new files! My raddiwallah would actually have paid me for all the old textbooks, cardboard cartons, Fed-ex boxes and plastic containers that festooned my son’s apartment. He would have gathered the empty plastic milk cans, shampoo bottles, and old CD’s with a delighted smile. Instead, I had to nag my reluctant son to take mountains of garbage out to the trashcan.
When my son produced a pair on new jeans that needed to be shortened, I remembered a unique expert that I often rely on – my ‘ALTRATION SPECIALIST’. A wizened little man with his measuring tape perennially hanging around his neck, this specialist tailor boasts, quite proudly and rightly, that he can alter any garment. Though spelling is, obviously, not his strong point, the shelves in his tiny hole in the corner shop bear testimony to his skill, for they are always overflowing with garments that he has altered. Requests from nubile teenage girls to make their t-shirts clingier, their skirts shorter, and more stylish, and their jeans tighter, are catered to with aplomb. His wide clientele includes budget conscious mothers recycling hand me downs, to portly housewives eager to loosen the waistbands of their clothes to accommodate expanding midriffs.
In America, I also thought nostalgically of my neighbourhood mochi or cobbler when the strap of one of my sandals broke. For a mere five rupees, he would have stitched it back onto my sandal in a flash. But alas! Since he was in another hemisphere, I had to toss my sandals away regretfully and buy another new pair. I remembered the mochi’s services too when I polished my son’s shoes before his all important convocation. No matter how hard I worked, I could just not get the mirror like shine that he obtains so effortlessly with just a few strokes of his brush.
But perhaps I missed none of my specialist helpers in America as much as I missed Pappu, my dhobi. He’s at my door every morning, with an armful of starched and crisply ironed clothes, and takes away the bundle of creased clothes that await him with a winning smile. He takes very few days off, and works overtime when I need ironed clothes to be readied for sudden trips. But I must add, our relationship is not always smooth sailing. Once in a way, a bed sheet, or a shirt vanishes from my pile of laundry, never to be seen, or heard of again. This leads to stormy scenes, and causes some tension between us for several days. But time eventually obliterates all offences, and as memories of my lost laundry fade, we always resume our usual cordial relationship.
When my son told me why he likes America, he explained that it was the opportunities available that excited him the most. ‘Anyone can chase his or her dream to become an entrepreneur here,’ he exclaimed excitedly. This really set me thinking. Perhaps I too can aspire to become an entrepreneur some day, managing a firm of people offering unique specialist services. Of course, I’ll have to talk to the specialists concerned, but who knows? Perhaps someday soon, you’ll read that Pappu, and my mochi, and the ‘Altration specialist’ are living the great American dream.
