Still missing 'em

My kids are not due from their vacation for another 4 days. I'm missing them terribly, especially the noise that keeps reverberating all around the house, them playing football, Sheela yelling at them to study, my mom asking them if they've prayed. Our house usually resembles a suburban railway station at rush hour. These days its a bit like Parliament debating a motion to increase MP's pay. Not a peep. Rummaging around in my computer, I found this piece I had written a year or so ago. I love my blog. It never raises its eyebrows and says what is this muck you've written. It unquestioningly hosts it.



Kids can be so difficult to answer. Especially when they are eleven and nine respectively. We saw this movie "Salaam Namaste" The plot broadly is a man and a woman have a great live-in relationship and then she gets pregnant. The man doesn't want the child, the woman cant bear to lose it. Lot of soul searching and then the happy ending. It was laid back, cool and funny, we had heard, and took the kids along. They laughed at all the jokes and thoroughly enjoyed the movie. We had dinner at a restaurant and came home. Great evening out. And then the questions started.

Gautham is the major inquisitor. Vyaas is a little close to puberty and is fast acquiring the teenage penchant for maintaining long periods of silence when parents are around. Gautham, however, has an analytical mind and answers to his questions usually beget more questions. The first one was what they call a fast in-swinging yorker.

"How did they get a baby if they're not married?"

"If grown ups sleep together, they get babies". Sheela.

"Dad and you sleep together. How come you dont get babies?"

Sheela is stumped. I'm trying hard to keep a straight face. Then she finds a reply.( I didn't marry her for nothing.)

"People get babies only if they sleep without clothes on." I'm suffering from a great fit of coughing.

"How does that happen? Do they have to remove ALL their clothes?"

This is getting too close for comfort so Sheela decides to go on the offensive. She is a bit of a disciplinarian so the kids are afraid of her. Much more than me, whom they consider a sort of fifth rate world power fit enough to speak only in the UN assembly.

"If you boys would see more of National Geographic and less of Cartoon Network, you wouldn't have to ask these questions. Whenever I see the TV, its always switched on to Cartoon Network. I'm going to call the cable guy and disconnect it once and for all. "

A tense silence indicated that the threat had found its mark and everyone was quiet for a couple of days on this topic at least.

A couple of days later, Sheela stepped into the living room. As it happened, the TV was switched on and the channel was Cartoon Network. Gautham quickly changed it to National geographic.

Sheela sat down to read the paper. Gautham found his voice " See that bunch of monkeys, Amma?" There was a program about chimpanzees on National Geographic. Sheela said "Yes?"

" I've been watching them for days. They still haven't had any kids."

Distinct sounds of a father asphyxiating himself.

And so it goes on. Mercifully the questions are never directed at me because I'm known to be a person of insubstantial intellect. Whatever my childrens' faults may be, no one can say they are not great judges of people.