Lessons for Toddlers

1.Never hide anything under the bed,especially test paper books and answer papers.It is the most obvious site , anyone with a morsel of intelligence is sure to search there in the first place.I learned this lesson quite late, in my tenth standard ,when Amma discovered my Malayalam test paper note,from under the bed,a book that was signed and maintained exclusively by me.Mathew was quick to take in this lesson.He chose the Malayalam shabdatharaavali, a Gargantuan compilation of words,a book that was barely touched and rarely opened,to hide his Social answer paper.I accidently discovered it after one year when it was too late to be used as a tool to blackmail him.

2.Never keep your colour pencils/drawing books near your elder sister/brother.It seems to arouse in them an irreristible urge to hone their drawing skills.I was caught one day at school,my teacher having discovered the inimitable painting of a lady playing Bharathanaattyam in my drawing note along with the clumsy representations of mountains and coconut trees,the only stuff I could manage to draw!The same rule applies to your personal diaries as well.Keep it out of their reach or you may have to face appalling situations as the grammamr mistakes in it being corrected in red ink or worse,in desperate circumstances they would take the book to college to write lecture notes.

3.Never impetuously obey whatever your elder siblings say.Exercise your grey cells,give a modicum of thought to the grievous consequences that may occur.This lesson would be clear when I tell you how I rashly placed my tongue inside the freezer when my wise sister told me about the wonderful feeling you experience when you perform this act(which she told she has done several times and that she couldnt stop herself from doing it again).I narrowly escaped a fatal death that day,only because I withdrew my tongue instinctively.When later questioned by papa she told that she read in 'Young World' that this could be dangerous and just wanted to confirm it!

4.If you have a doubt,better approach your parents than your siblings.They seem to derive a sort of unrelenting pleasure in deceiving you by exploiting your fundamental gullible nature.Mathew was a chronic victim to my fabricated tales in his naive days when he was unaware of the implications of this lesson.Once,the eight year old Mathew consulted me to clear certain doubts he had regarding the origin of earwax,which he said he had in plenty.I explained to him gravely about the existence of a channel named the 'Eustachian canal' that connects the ear with the brain and how when excess clay accumulates inside ones head it flows down this path into the ear.As his eyes welled up with tears at the realization of the bitter truth that he was a moron,I consoled him saying that everybody can't be born intelligent.Also to make the explanation sound more genuine,I added that Papa and Amma were planning to shift him to another school as they have realized that he was intellectually incompetent to continue his studies in the present one.Yet another time,on our way back home from school,I decided to take him through a route he was not familiar with.Mathew was puzzled as he saw the unacquainted road and asked me where we were heading.Solemnly,I let him knew that Amma and Papa have decided to sell him as they had no money and that we were going to his new home,the family that has agreed to adopt him.Also,I have told him umpteen times on how an unforgivable swap occurred at the 'Baby Memorial Hospital'' where he was born and how the 'real Mathews' was living at some alien home.Deechechi looked exactly like Papa and I was said to be a replica of Amma while he did not resemble anyone which proved that he was not the 'real one'.Now,these seem like the cruelest things to tell an eight year old kid,but back then exploiting his pediatric unsuspecting character was the most pleasurable pastime I indulged in.

Little Miss Samaritan

Natasha,wake up!"Papa's booming voice echoed inside my head.I slowly opened my sleepy eyes and saw him standing before me like a dictator.He was holding a sheet of paper and one look at it was enough for me to realize that my whole day was ruined.
"Solve them in fifteen minutes and show me"Papa commanded,handing me the paper.I glanced at the clock,it was already seven,which meant the two hours I had before leaving for school would be spent on a heated arguement with papa on the conflicting views we had about some of the basic mathematical operations.
I hated Maths at school.It was a subject that never made any sense to me.Even at those times when I could correctly manage to find the sum of five and four as nine,the answer failed to give me a quantum of pleasure because I hardly knew what I had done to those numbers on the left side.How could a change in sign between two numbers produce an entirely different answer?What is the difference between addition and multiplication?These were unexplainable questions that baffled me completely.This was especially a dilemma when solving those statement problems where one had to read the question and logically choose the operation to be performed.I answered them blindly following implicit cues like if the question has the words 'how many times'it would be probably multiplication.
"Another gloomy Monday morning"I sighed as I walked to my study table with the set of sums.I loathed Maths even more because in addition to the forty minutes of torture I'd to go through at school everyday,I had to attend daily practice sessions with papa at home which was even more annoying.
After straining my grey cells for half an hour I finished with the problems.Dearly hoping that all the sums would be correct I took my answer sheet to papa.Before starting the valuation he gave me a small lecture on the importance of finishing the assigned tasks on time.He scanned through the paper and found that I'd managed to get more than half the answers wrong (that is the most annoying thing about Maths,a change of single digit was enough to get the wrong answer)Being a man equipped with a patience which was yet to devlop from its early embryonic form,my pathetic performance was more than enough to stir his temper.I'd a short trip to hell in the next fifteen minutes,after which I returned to my table with a pair of swollen red eyes,scarlet red ears,bruised thighs and worse..another sheet of paper with a new set of problems in my hand.
I was totally exhausted after the fiery ordeal that my grey cells were in no mood for any level of intellectual stimulation .I pondered on how I could escape from the next cycle of the nightmare.I decided to sit with the paper for the next half an hour..may be by that time papa would realize that it was time for me to leave for school and would ask me to go and have my breakfast,with which I can sit for another half an hour and then there would be time left only to dress up and leave for school.But this inkling of hope was wiped away immediately by papa's voice from the next door,
"Don't think that you can budge from your seat without finishing those problems"
As all the roads to escape were closed,I decided to work out the problems(this time I'd no hope that I would get them right).After fifteen minutes I entered the lion's lair again.No miracles happened this time as well,my level of performance still touched the bottomline and Papa's reaction was also much the same.I cannot say what I disliked the most..his bark or his bite.He was still adamant to teach me the subject,so he prepared another set of questions and left me with a warning that if I failed to show an appreciable degree of improvement this time the outcome would be disastrous(ofcourse,it was just a warning intended to boost up my performance,but it didnot sound good).These were the moments when I was forced to think about running away from home.With a heavy heart,I returned to my place and started with the problems again.I couldn't even see the numbers clearly because tears were gushing out of my eyes.
It was then that the most unexpected thing happened.All this time Deechechi was sitting beside me engaged in her own studies.As I was deep inside the pool of trouble I'd failed to notice her.Suddenly,she took the question paper from me and started working out the problems.In less than five minutes she finished all the problems and handed the paper back.I was overwhelmed by surprise and happiness at this unanticipated act of philanthropy.As I was not the kind of girl who under such dire situations would cling on to moral values,I gladly accepted the paper with a broad smile.Afte rewriting the answers in my handwriting and waiting for another fifteen minutes,I went to papa with a newfound confidence I'd never experienced before.Now it was his turn to be surprised because even he didnot expect such an impeccable result.

"Randennam thannaal nee ethu kanakkun cheyyum,alle"?He said with a smile of victory.

I had not thought about the possibility of him reaching such dangerous conclusions as I was too much worried about the impending disaster.

I left the room unscathed.But the incident reaffirmed Papa's view that a stick can work wonders as a teaching assitant.
Deechechi doesn't remember helping me with the sums.She says she must have been completely out of her mind if she has done something of this sort.:)