I felt a lump in my throat as Arvind and I drove back lost in silence, both of us engrossed in our own world of thoughts . Last Thursday was Atul's last day at his school. The day was filled with all the fun things that he associated with school – Play ball, Show and Tell, pizza for lunch, and his friend A had come too. We handed over the treats we had bought for the kids and the staff, took some class pictures and extended our heartfelt gratitude to the teachers for making him feel at “home”, and for their contribution in molding his personality this past year. The teachers had made a beautiful scrap book for Atul as goodbye gift. It had pictures of Atul with silly faces, playing with his favorite toys, and being pally with A. Knowing Atul's liking (rather obsession) for stickers, they had included a couple of sheets of stickers for him. It was very touching. A treasure that he will cherish in the years to come.

As I pulled into our driveway on Thursday evening, I asked, “Atul are you sad that you will not be going to BH any more?”, to which he said, “I am sad because my teachers and friends will miss me”. I think he was going through mixed emotions that day. Losing the familiarity of his old school and friends made him feel insecure, but by the same token the novelty of the new school, and new toys excited him. I assured him that if he wanted, we could visit his old school to say hi to his teachers and even have play dates with old friends in the weekends.

The day also made me realize how much I counted on his teachers to be there for him - to give an extra nudge during lunch time, to teach him to stand up for himself, to comfort him when he is hurt, and to encourage him to share and care. Some days I have worried that he was missing out on the one to one interaction, but the guilty consciousness almost always vanished the second I entered his classroom in the evening for picking him up, when he would refuse to leave, and would plead for staying for “last 7 minutes”. I consider that as a yardstick to gauge how happy he was spending majority of his day away from parents, at school.

With the shift in schools, Atul will officially exit the day care environment. Bestest of best wishes to my little one. I know you will shine, wherever you are. 

When I was younger, I used to have this notebook in which I jotted down some of my favorite quotes, sayings and articles that I came across first hand or through friends. It used to be a powerful tool to me back then. If I had a particularly rough day or was struggling with a situation that I couldn't grapple with, I would take comfort in the words hidden in those pages. I would fervently skim through the collection to pick some quotes to include in letters to my pen friends. I would eagerly look forward to the monthly edition of Wisdom (or was it fortnightly, my memory fails me) or the Readers Digest that my dad bought from the old book shops. I remember paying close attention to every word that came out of my very eloquent high school English teacher, so that I could put some of the pearls of wisdom in that notebook. If a friend visited me, I would show it off as my most treasured possession.

Today, when I dusted the notebook and swiftly turned the pages and glanced through the faded handwriting, I re-discovered the strength and inspiration that I drew from these words not so long ago.
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One of the sayings that my very eloquent English teacher often told in the class was on age. He would often say, "For some, wisdom comes with age, and for others, age alone comes",  to  a class that roared with laughter. Even after more than a decade, this saying keeps playing in my brain on and off . I was mulling over this topic last night as I was slurping the Thai take out we had ordered. In my mind I feared that I will get older without becoming any wiser. That I will not learn from my mistakes. That I will not act with a better sense of maturity. So on and so forth. After a while, the mood lightened and I forgot all about it. Once dinner was over, we reached out for our share of fortune cookies, eager to read what "fortune" was in store for us. (Reminds me of the "fortune" that the weighing scales at the railway stations used to predict back home).  Want to take a guess on what mine read? "It is better to be happy than wise". Hehehehe.... I think the universe is trying to tell me something - to chill out and not  take myself so seriously!
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While I am at the topic of words and sayings, why not quote a favorite phrase that I came across through a friend a few years back. Ever heard of the phrase, Throw your hat over the fence? What this means is, once you throw your hat over the other side of the fence, the only option is to go get it.  (The other option is to leave it, but keeping with the spirit of the post I am not going there). I may not know how to get that hat, but it doesn't matter, because once I make a beginning I will figure a way out along the way. It doesn't matter what deficiencies I have because I will learn to overcome them as I get closer to the hat. I love the wild optimism in this phrase. It tells us to blindly believe in ourselves and to just go reach out for our dreams.

Orkut helped me to get in touch with a couple of my childhood friends last week. My twin brother, Arun, and I studied in the Virugambakkam (in Chennai) branch of Chinmaya Vidyalaya (CV) from first to fifth std. That too in the same section. So the school is special to us in more ways than one.

CV is where I developed some of my very first friendships. S, P & H were cousins. All of us studied in the same section and lived in the same neighborhood. So memories came flooding to mind when I saw profile pictures of S & P on Orkut. Come summer vacation, all of us (S,P, H, Arun, myself and a couple of other friends) would gather at S's house with grand plans to enact a skit, sing songs or play board games. Since her house was on the way to the bus stop, we would throw curious glances at her house whenever we passed by it. In those days, our classrooms in CV had none of the fancy buildings of today and we were pretty much housed in thatched roofs. I remember getting thrilled whenever it rained because the leaky roof was an excuse for us to sit down on the floor next to our friends. Learning at CV was very closely linked to religion. Every Friday, we would have balavihar sessions, wherein we would recite a bunch of slokams in a certain order. On the day of Vijayadasami, kids would do padha-pooja (washing the feet) for their mommy dears. Arun and I would always fight for amma's right leg with me losing the battle most of the times. I would console myself by saying that since heart was on the left side of the body, that must be the better side! Later we moved into a flat of our very own, which opened gateways to other friendships. This post would be incomplete if I don't mention the yummy bread-butter-jam that amma bought for us from a local bakery whenever we missed our evening bus. Good old times!

Since appa was in a bank job, he was transferred when we finished our fifth standard. I remember feeling heart-broken at the thought of losing my friends and wondering if I would make any new ones at the new place. It turned out that we kept in touch on and off for a really long time through letters (I still have every single one of them) and even visited them during our Chennai trips. But somewhere along the way, we were not able to maintain the tempo and we just lost in touch. Thanks to Orkut, I was able to pick up the pieces from where we left after a phone conversation with S this weekend. 

In Atul's class, the topic of discussion this week was Fairytales. The inference from the discussion was that fairytales begin with "once upon a time" and concluded with "they lived happily ever after". With this premise in mind, the kiddies decided to give a shot at writing a fairytale of their own.

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting to you,  A Preschool Two Fairytale , by the budding fairytale writers of Preshool 2 in BH, - "Once upon a time, there was a unicorn and a fairy. They lived in Concord in a hotel. They liked to take naps. One day, while eating lunch, they played and took a nap. And then the blue guy came and stole their kite. The blue guy was playing a board game while the unicorn and fairy took their kite back. And they lived happily ever after! The End"

Hans Christian Anderson would have had a tough time keeping up with their creative juices! Don't you think? :-)
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Although not regularly as I would like to, I do read or narrate episodes from the Ramayana or Ganesha and other religious books to Atul whenever I get a chance. When he was younger, Atu's interest was in the breadth of the story. His interest was in naming the different characters and familiarizing himself with the story from beginning to end. But now the focus has turned to the depth of the story with volley of why and what questions, which, a lot of times, leaves me searching for answers. Here are some sample questions from curious Atul:

- Why did Shiva cut the Boy's (Ganesha's) head? Was He a rude person?
- Why did Ravana take away Sita? Why was Jadayu sad?
- What will happen if I don't do Ommachi Kapathu ? (pray)
- How will Ommachi (God) make my boo-boo better?
- Recently he asked me about his paternal grandpa, who passed away over a year back.
Atul: Where is Kanna thata?
Amma: With Ommachi (God)
Atul: In which temple can I find him?

My task is to come up with answers that do not contradict explanations I have given in the past and will be consistent with the likely answers I will give in the future, because while I am answering him, at the back of his mind, he is connecting the dots and writing a tale of his own!