When Raks tried to hypnotize

Raks trying to hypnotize us

While I was writing something very important, she came all the way to my desk on her tippy toes and slid a hand to grab the audio dock. While I pretended that she was invisible, she proceeded with her plan.

"Your eyes are getting heavy."

"You are feeling sleepy."

"You will only listen to me now."

While I struggled to keep a straight face, I was also curious to know as to what she is going to turn me into. So I pretended to fall asleep. Man! Her gleeful expression at my hypnotized state was worth it all.

She thought for a while as to what to hypnotize me and decided on a dog.

"You are a dog."

"You will bark as a dog."

And since her hypnotizing has worked so very well, I started barking. After barking for a couple of minutes, I came out of the hypnotic state and asked, "What happened?"

With a bemused smile, she patted my shoulder and said, "Mummy, you have been working so hard. You just fell asleep because I gave you a massage." Saying thus, she tried to massage my neck, while I pretended not to notice her ecstatic expression that declared, "Eureka! Experiment successful! Let me try it out on other people now."

So while her father was reading the paper, she formulated her plan. Since I had hidden the audio dock from further hypnotizing experiments, she had to make do with a brinjal that had a long stem.

She slowly inched towards him with the brinjal hidden behind her back and proceeded to charm him.

"Appa, what are you doing?"

"Reading paper."

"Ok."

Then with some studied deliberation she brought out the brinjal and proceeded to hypnotize him.

"Your eyes are getting heavy."

"You are feeling sleepy."

"You will only listen to me now."

Since I had forewarned him about her latest experiment, he quickly caught on and got hypnotized. Was she ecstatic or what? 

"Appa, you are a duck."

"You are going to quack like a duck."

So he quacked, rather violently that made her change her intensity of hypnotism. Swinging the brinjal rather hurriedly she said, "Duck, quack slowly."

So he quacked slowly. She looked as if she had achieved her life's achievement.

Now that the experiment with hypnotism was successful, she proceeded to try it out on her grandparents which didn't work. I don't think she was much disappointed by it because she believed that she had her parents under thumb (literally!).

It was a day rather like any other school day where I had scheduled about two hours in the evening for reading, homework and writing.  In the meanwhile,  she had successfully extracted the audio dock from the hidden hollows of my desk draw, while she pretended to sharpen her pencil at my desk. Armed with her powerful astra, she came and tried to hypnotize. This time around, it was not about ducks and dogs. It was truly about survival.

"Your eyes are getting heavy."

"You are feeling sleepy."

"You will only listen to me now."

I pretended to be hypnotized, all because I was curious about what she would make me do now. 

"You will do my homework now."

"You will put the TV now for me."

Aha! Very clever indeed. Was she in for a surprise or what when her hypnotizing failed and I made her do the homework. She shook her head a couple of times and tried to check my eyes. After the homework amidst much sighs, she wanted to watch Ninja Hatori to perfect her ninja techniques that included lessons in hypnotizing.

Raks and Dasavatharam Part 2

We continued the story later in the night...

"Churning for amrit is a long process....

"How long?"

"The time that you take to finish one bowl of chochos in the morning!" That got a frown from her and she bid me to get back to the story.

Poisonous vapours came out but Shiva drank them all to save the Devas. And then finally Danvanthri came holding the jar of amrit.

"What's amrit? Does it taste like Jelly?"

"Ha ha ha. It tastes like milk."

Raks was horrified. Why would anyone want to lift mountains, drop them in the ocean and churn it, to get milk in the end, of all things? She barely listened to the rest of the story when Vishnu dons the mohini avatar. To her mind, people should go through all these efforts to avoid this 'amrit'.

Next came varaha avatara but she didn't have any special insights for the divine boar. Next came Vamana. And I was waiting for her to ask the following question, "Mummy, how did he grow so big? And my answer naturally would have been the wonder milk that mother Aditi was giving him. But no, her question was, "This vamana asked for stupid things as a boon. I would have asked for a trip to fun city, a large bowl of ice cream and unlimited episodes of Doreamon."

Next came Narasimha. And this is what she says. "Mummy! What will you do if I call Narasimha when you are chasing me with the milk?"

Gulp!

Parashurama came and went without an incident and then Rama. While I read through the part where Ravana is waiting for lakshmana to leave the cottage in search of Rama, raks whispers to Sita. "Sita! Sita! You also go with lakshmana. Then you can fool ravana."

Ayyo! So much for culture. I think I better check out that sloka class instead.

An excursion with Raks

Was I ever so excited about going on excursions? Probably yes. My excursions from school in those days were to Mahabalipuram, limca bottle factory (or was it coke? can't remember), snake park (yikes!), vandalur zoo (sans motorized drives so it was all walk, walk and walk) and we lapped it up with all the excitement that we could muster.

Raks's excursion was at Choki Dhani - a recreated rajasthani village with camels, horses, bullock carts, dance, music, sand and all the exotic trappings that one can expect from rajasthan. There were mehendi artists, drum beaters, camel rides, games, a hindi astrologer and many other nooks and corner where Raks could hide and give me a panic attack.

After a traditional welcome from the ghagra choli clad woman, we were ushered inside the reception where we took photos. Raks started trying the turbans that were kept on display while my mom tried to get her away from there. (Yes. I took my mom along thinking that two pairs of eyes would be better to keep her in sight).

For the next one hour, raks posed and posed with her best friend(s) and planned camel rides, while my mother wondered aloud whether the music troupe would play a song from Balika Vadhu.

After the welcome drinks and snacks, the games began. A set of coupons were given to all to play games but Raks had her sights on the camel, so we abandoned the games and went for the ride. There was a huge queue there, so I had to pacify her by sending her on the camel cart and the bullock cart.

In the meantime, the hindi astrologer attracted many customers despite the language handicap. And when people discovered that my mom knew hindi, she became their official translator. After repeating virtually the same predictions for all our hands, he insisted that we buy a yantra to shed the bad luck that was sticking onto us and promised to supply it himself. Sadly, he lost a large gang of customers who were interested in getting their fortunes read but they had stopped at the mehendi tent. The astrologer berated his fate and told them to come to him after an hour.

By the time, we vacated his cottage, Raks had gone two rounds in the giant wheel and was very angry about the fact that she was not taken on the camel ride. But the camel ride area was crowded with school students from at least three schools. After solemn promises to take her there once the crowd thinned, she pointed towards the rickshaws and ran towards it to get in. Wow! a ride in the rickshaw is Rs. 50.

"This is my cinderellla chariot and he is the pumpkin."

I shushed her and hoped that the rajasthani rickshaw driver didn't understand. He beckoned her to get in and asked if "Maaji sa' (that would be my mom) would come too.

My mom was amused and happy that he didn't call her 'dadi sa' and said 'no'. With an elated look, raks went around in the rickshaw and came back.

Now it was time to honour my promise, so I headed towards the camel ride pavillion with two of her bosom friends. It was still crowded with older kids from three different schools. After a lot of pushing, pulling and shoving, we stood near the line but the throng of crowds didn't move. And Raks decided to take matters in hand. She shook the hand of the nearest boy, who was standing in the front and said, "Uncle! Please let me and my friends go on the camel next."

Oh! God! Though he was a tall one with small wisps of hair on his upper lip he probably was in his 10th standard and his face fell.

"Dei! Uncle, Navuru da!" Said his friends and the path cleared.

Raks got on the camel with her friends and went on a memorable ride, while I stood waiting for her return amidst chattering students (who were having the time of their life pulling the boy's leg) wondering whether I should apologize.

Raks and Happy Birthday

No this isn't a blog about rak's birthday or mine. It's about a birthday party that I can never forget and I am putting it down for posterity, in case I get stricken by Alzheimers and forget where I lived.

Raks was almost two years and had precisely four teeth, which she used quite prodigiously to bite the TV remote, the milk bottle and myriad other things that I forget now (good thing that I am writing the rest. I probably have early signs of alzheimers). I remember being very reluctant to breast feed her, as her teeth were sharp enough to draw blood (Twice ouch!).

And we were invited to a 'birthday party'. Raks at that age, knew that birthday parties meant bouncing castle, ice cream, blowing of candles and of course return gifts (they better be good!). I still remember the cutesy white coloured frock that she wore with small buds and florets. She looked so angelic and lovely that I got ready for the compliments that were going to come my way.

The party was for a five year old boy and there was a car shaped cake. Raks went around checking out the entertainment; bouncing castle - we had to tempt her out of it with an ice cream, after she bounced on it for half hour, missing the cake cutting ceremony (Giving gifts for others were not her finest moments even then!). She got a tele tubbies tattoo, done on both her shoulders and had four spoons of ice cream before she ran off.

Left to polish off the ice cream, I sat down watching her, as she went around with girls of her size and suddenly there was a piercing scream and I ran towards the scene. One of raks's instant friends was crying pointing fingers at my innocent daughter. With my motherly instincts up, I picked up raks and asked what the matter was?

"She bit me." said the girl

"No. Rakshah wouldn't do any such thing." I declared but the witnesses were unwavering in their statements. So I took the offender back to the seat but I have never been able to get raks to sit in one place, unless the idiot box was on. Soon she meandered off and this time with a couple a boys her size. And I followed her. She joined the boys at the bouncing castle and soon were safely bouncing with a cute chubby boy. I felt indignant at the girls, who had condemned her and my heart melted when I saw her giving the cute little boy a kiss and within a second, all the gooey feeling was replaced with horror. In the guise of a kiss, she bit him yet again.

"Bah bah bah...."

Oh God! I quickly yanked her off the bouncing castle before anybody could notice. Thankfully, my husband joined me and I berated him for leaving me alone to deal with his 'vampirish' daughter. We resolved to keep a close eye on her but even as we discussed, she had slunk off after a cute girl. With my husband on the watch force, we tracked her down fast before she could deliver the killer kiss.  But by then, word had spread around and parents who had cute little boys and daughters were on their guard to pick up their kids, if raks so much as looked at them.

And to my mortification, I heard conversations where, mothers were warning their kids to stay away from raks. With this and more, I was ready to leave but my husband was half way through dinner and the hostess was insistent that I have dinner. With two ice creams and three balloons I sat down with her in a corner keeping her away from all the kids.

I was itching to get to my computer and research about why kids bite other kids, fearing what the results would throw up. What if it is a disease ending in 'iasis'? Will this require therapy, counseling? What if they throw her out of the school for biting her classmates?

The end of the day, raks was very happy. She got two goody bags of presents from the hostess, which was all very well because we didn't grace any party, birthday or otherwise for the next one year. (Thankfully she got over the habit within a year. Phew!)

Rak's toys and buyer's remorse

I know I have been absent since new year. Thanks to Vaikunta Ekadasi, Pongal, Kannum Pongal, Maatu Pongal, native place (husband's) temple festival and finally rak's birthday, my itinerary was full. Here is a blog that has been pending so long...


Buyer's remorse is nothing new to me. I could relate sagas about toys that we bought for raks in our enthusiasm and the way we repented for it in leisure.

Music Fish

A musical fish. Now how cute is that. It  rushes through the floor with a melodious music flashing its tail, this way and that with some bright lights. We imagined, raks playing with it serenely sitting in the middle of the play area watching it move around (while I got some work done on my laptop). Fat chance. In the first place, the music that seemed low toned in the shop blared its heart out at home. And raks's reaction reminded me of Jaws movie, where people scrambled out of the beach fearing a shark attack. And raks trampled on hanuman, krishna, hanuman (number 2), cooking set oven (that survived with a dent), grandfather's arm before she settled on my lap to escape from it.

We parents are a worst lot I think. We still wanted our money's worth from the toy. So the musical fish became the boogeyman to threaten her, if she confiscated our mobiles, vegetables, utensils, grandfather's watch or my books. After about ten days or so, the fish broke its tail and ended up in the bag that read 'can be resurrected if raks created trouble'

Bow and Arrow

Now I have nothing against bow and arrow. I have played it with it, during the hey days of epic serials on DD. Raks insisted that she loves the bow and arrow and wanted to learn archery. My husband immediately commissioned me to check out archery academies in the city, hoping that this plastic bow and arrow, might jumpstart raks's lifelong sporting career as an archer.

She got the bow and arrow but instead of the plastic target that came along with it, she aimed at our rear ends, delivering with unerring precision, arrow after arrow. After being pelted with a barrage of arrows, the bow and arrow vanished into the bag that read 'confiscated and dangerous'.

Fishing Set

And do not ever take your child into a toy store, especially when you are buying a birthday gift for somebody else. You will just end up buying yet another toy for your darling.

That's what happened that day. I was late for a birthday party and had to enter a toy store with an excited raks in tow. And I had to make eyes at the shop assistant to make him understand that I want to buy a barbie set. And I hoped that he would understand all the unsaid things that I dare not voice (please gift wrap this barbie set and give me the bill) And raks in the meantime was trying to sit on all the cycles that were on display and was probably planning to run away with them. But there is a golden rule that says, you cannot enter a toy store without buy anything for raks. I told her that she needs to pick something that we do not have. (What was I thinking?) And she picked the fishing set.

It had one of those magnets in the end, while there were a couple toy fishes that were supposed to float around and raks could deftly pick up them up from the ground with the fishing hook.  It worked fine for a few days, barring a few accidents when we were pelted on the head by the overenthusiastic fishergirl.

And one day, a delegation from the temple had come to formally invite my father-in-law for the temple festival that we host every year. And the friendly priest engaged raks in conversation, even while she was catching the fish.

"What are you doing?"

"I am catching fish. I will make fish fry for you."

"Narayana!"

While we hushed and shushed her, the priest looked grim and looked around suspiciously. I don't even want to voice what he must have thought. And that was the end of the fishing saga and the entire set got slotted into a bag that read 'not to be played in public toy bag'

And the most recent acquisition of hers is a boxing set, which my husband insisted on getting for her. So far, its been working fine, as raks has abandoned the punching bag and has been using her father as one. Will update that saga sometime in future.