A toast to young minds....

Little man looks at the world so differently.
He's making me see things I never noticed before.
And ordinary, every day stuff I take for granted
Seems so much more beautiful, suddenly.

When I make him toast, I lavish butter on it.
And he calls the end product, 'butter bread'.
To me, that sounds so much lovelier
Than plain ol' toast.

I gave him raisins to eat this morning,
He offered me some too.
Now, me I really don't like 'em.
I prefer raisins in cakes.
But little man told me
"Amma, have one, it's very 'honeyliss", (as in delicious)
I totally loved that word.

Describes the sweetness of a raisin perfectly.

How do children do this?
Get to the heart of a thing or an object.
And see what we adults don't.
That it's a thing of beauty, and joy.
So what if it's only plain ol' toast?

Comments

Wasteland

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turtles in our own shells

Sometimes silence can be beautiful and humbling. On World Disabled Day, I went to Cubbon Park's Bal Bhavan for a government-organised function. It was the usual kind of event -- you know, where babus give dry speeches about existing schemes, unused funds and so on and where corporate types stress the need for 'partnerships' (involving big monies and big projects for their own corporate entities!). It was pretty dry, pretty predictable. Then something happened.Some of the deaf and mute adolescents standing on the fringes started carrying on an animated conversation among themselves. As I watched fascinated and a little shamefaced to be such an flagrant observer, the young men laughed, joked, kidded each other -- all in complete, absolute and perfect silence. Hands waving, fingers flaying, eyes rolling, they talked. Of what, I don't know. But I saw their joy. Their utter camaraderie, and harmony. And seeing them, I, in my 'normal' world of speaking tongues and ...

Life lessons from little people

Sometimes children say and do the darndest things. And help you learn something new about life and living.... When little man was just over a year old, he ate a cockroach egg. Or at least, he tried to. But my husband noticed and hurriedly got it out. Baby probably had a taste, though. Ugh. Why did he think he could eat something like that? I realised children don’t subscribe to our notions of ‘good’, ‘bad’ and utterly yuck--till we actually (like I did), have a mini meltdown and yell that they absolutely cannot just pick up shiny, brown objects, just because said objects look interesting! But then children are so open in their approach to life. So trusting, for one thing. For a long time, when he was a baby, he would happily exclaim "Ajja" or ‘Ajji’ (Kannada for ‘grandfather/grandmother') whenever he spotted a white-haired gentleman or lady. He would hold his arms out with a winsome smile. The recipients would coo and respond in kind. Till, my husba...

deviousways

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