Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Speak foul, sweetly

Short, colour streaked, dirt rolled legs come into view. One small hand wound back at the hip, smeared with black-green patches holds a bunch of pens too large to be mere sketching pens. Other hand obeying the slightly tilted head that is fully concentrated on embellishing it's strokes and scratches on the canvas up it's front. And the canvas- my washing machine.  "Oi! Don't!! Put.That.Marker.Down." No response. "Skanda!! Here's your drawing book. Don't scribble everywhere else!" Never mind answering. Let me go and pull that hand away "HEY! (Turns around. Big frown, beady eyed stare and a pouted mouth ) "I-was-just-drawing-that-bear!" (Has so far managed what looks like scattered bear-fur) "Bear my foot. Come away now, you little monkey!" "YOU'RE a donkey!" "you're a goose!" "you're a duck" "you're a piglet" "you're a zebra" "you're a nut!" "you're a cashewnut!" "walnut" "coconut" "Mango" "Papaya" "Strawberry" "Banana" "Babycorn" "you're a... (looks around at the posters on the wall. There's a picture of a fruit-bowl) Apple!" "orange" "Grapefruit" "Kiwi fruit" "Hmmm...? You Potato!" "you tomato!" "you carrot!" "beetroot" "Pum'kin!" "Chilli" "capsicum"..... now we run out of fruits and vegetables.... then it dawns... "you're a Ben-10!" (dunno what's the big hype about it but 'm afraid he may not know a Popeye or a Scooby-Doo... maybe when he'll grow up to do a thesis on archaic cartoons...) "yay! you called me BEN? That's a HEEERO!! If I'm Ben, you're a Gwen!" (goes on to explain that Gwen is Ben's female sidekick... never 'foul' mouth a modern day superhero (or super cartoon) worshipping kid without doin' your homework on them first. :P ) Happily exhausted we both abandon the colors and the drawing book and gang up to watch tv. All that 'foul' mouthing sure helped. I'll never snatch things from his hands again nor will he ever draw on my washing machine once more (maybe next time it'll be the wall he'll be trying his artistry on, but let's face it when it comes :D)

It was a nice little lesson on de-worming myself of abuses I could normally hurl when angry. Maybe next time I'll remember more of "blistering barnacles" than "bloody b*%#@!"
 

4 comments:

  1. I'm ROTFL!! It is such a refreshing respite to have kids around and more so if the kid is our Skanda. Ben-10??! Seriously Archakka! What were you even thinking?? I now understand what you have always meant when you tell me that kids actually bring about a fresh perspective. It is time I started looking at them through your eyes.

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  2. I somehow am not tired of reading, re-reading, re-re-reading, re-re-re-reading, re-re-re-re-reading (OK! you get the drift...) this post of yours. And everytime, it is the same reaction: Rolling on the floor laughing and remembering Bharani and Shankari (my nephew and niece, Vidyasagar's kids) and getting nostalgic. Skanda is so much like them or probably kids at that age are similar yet different in their own right. As I told you last night about Guhan... It starts right then! Put Guhan and Vishwamanyan in one cot and we'd be amazed how similar yet different the two are!
    Once we grow up, we are so involved in the monotonies of everyday life that we forget what makes each one of us so special... We ought to learn from them every now and then.

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  3. Hahaha!
    I'll take fruit names any day over colorful foul nathings :)

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  4. Long time no post Archakka...
    Waiting :-)

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