Tiny Tots? Who?

Note: All characters are real, aged 6-7years and are street-smart. 

“Thatha the audio is ON don’t call me “Putta:; my friends are listening” 

“How do we turn it Off, nange gothagthilla Putta” 

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“Alla kaNo, it’s 1:30PM and you ma’am hasn’t come; avrige time sense illa”

“Riiiii audio ON ide, check it please” 

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“Maam I want to say something” 

“Yes (insert a kid’s name)”

“Can I adjust this chair, I can’t reach the laptop” 

“Yes you can my dear”

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“Hi ma’am I want to talk to you”

“Yes”

“You are very nice”

**all kids alert**

“You are very nice”

“Your dress is very pretty”

“You are very beautiful” 

Maam can’t stop smiling! 

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“Someone Galaxy Tab One kindly change it to Child’s name” 

But it remained same for the rest of the class. 

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“Children, next class you all have to wear a dress of your favourite colour”

“Maam that time I said my favourite colour is green; my mumma asked me to change it to Blue; so I will wear that only” 

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“Hi Bhavani what are you doing”

“Nothing I am watching you in this laptop”

“OK”

“OK”

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It's been attending online classes that Kanva and Kshema are part of. I now know the kind of nautankis these kids are! They are meeting the class teacher for the first time and all of them, trust me all the 15 of them including my boy said and I quote "My favourite teacher is **xyz** ma'am"; I went whoa!!!

So I asked Kanva why she was his favourite teacher and he says "Everyone told she was their favourite and if I change that poor ma'am will feel bad" - Damn validations! 

The issue Kshema has is that she follows "mute" always and "unmute" when talking policy as instructed my her teacher; but all her friends keep going "yes ma'am" "no ma'am". 

I am back to being a child again; I tried the right-hand/left-hand salute/thumbs up game along with the kids and lost badly! How is lockdown treating'll?

ಹಳೇ Paper

This is a paper bag that the local angDi gave eggs in. What’s so special you May ask? It’s just a paper bag that will be discarded. Yes, it is! But do you see what’s written on it? It has been made from someone’s maths work. Back in childhood days, my fav activity was to read such paper bags, what they wrote, how they wrote, were they loving the subject or did they hate the home-work. 

I once had found a note in one of the English rough saying “nam miss bad-u”; wonder what his/her ma'am had done to receive hate! The handwriting most probably was the reason the English ma'am gave fewer marks. 

It was not just the paper bags I received, but I also used to wonder about the stuff that I gave away to the radhi-wala. Would my worksheets be part of someone's pakoDa, or would they be wrapped around 100gms of dhaniya; I'd never know! 

After 38 days of lockdown, we all begin our day-to-day lives from tomorrow. I hope and pray, all the clutter, the junk has gone away and what we now have ahead of us is either making using of the clutter productively or beginning a whole new life. 

Prema >>> Dwesha

I was in 8th std when the Kannada movie 'A' released. Someone told me that this is Upendra’s story from his real life, and the actress in question was Prema. Out of nowhere I started to hate Prema, not that I liked her prior to this piece of information; but I didn’t at least hate her too. I used to find her annoying when she sang “nenapugaLa maathu Madhura” and for me the movie “Chandramukhi Premasakhi” never worked coz Prema won over Bhavana. I have laughed when her movie Z tanked in box office. All of this because I adored Upendra and his style of movie making!!! 

Why am I writing all of this now, you may ask; few days back it was her birthday and all of these memories came rushing by. Today, while I cringe over fan boys trolling Rashmika’s professional life coz she made a personal choice, I think it is my responsibility to be apologetic towards my naive behaviour towards Prema back then. 

Because it is never too late to realise our mistakes and it is certainly not late to accept the same. This is for you Prema, a sorry from me!