I have always maintained that nursery rhymes shape you for life. Superstitions, scoff the disbelievers, but look at my case. I used to recite ‘I am a little tea-pot, short and stout…when I get all steamed up then I shout’ in an appealing prattle. Everyone loved it, especially as I was unable to pronounce the hard ‘T’, but I grew up into a short and what is worse, stout individual, prone to flying off the handle and shouting. How I wish now that I’d stuck to ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’—perhaps it would have wrought a miracle that rained diamonds on me.
Mummy was the most doting mother in the world—she would dash off into the kitchen at twelve midnight if you were hungry—but conversely, also a disciplinarian. I remember when Manoj and I were walking back from Ranchi Colony one day; we decided to buy a lemon drop each. These were kidney shaped sweet-sour toffees that were stored in a big jar and the cost of one was five paise. It wasn’t a princely sum but in good ol’ days, no one had heard of pocket money. Since Sukul ji who ran the paan-dukaan recognised us well enough to be assured of our credit-worthiness, we bought two lemon drops. The home-front was another story altogether. We asked Mummy for the money, saying that we had been unable to resist the sweet temptation. I seem to remember that as being the only time ever that I got a slap from her. I’m certain Manoj can’t say the same, because he was forever into and out of scrapes, but meek, inoffensive ol’ me sure hadn’t bargained for Mummy’s anger. ‘You will eat toffees on credit?’ she asked in a furious tone. To date I have not forgotten. I use my credit card so sparingly that I get a joyful sms from the credit card company welcoming me with open arms whenever I make a paltry purchase.
I tried off and on to be a model child beginning with trying to be unselfish. That entailed not taking extra portions of dessert but invariably all good intentions flew out the window when the time came. So Manoj and I would ask casually whether there was any dessert left. Mummy would discover right then that she’d eaten far too much and it was impossible to accommodate dessert; resolutely we would refuse to look in the general direction of Jiji (big sis), who we knew would be glaring at us, and would happily tuck into the helping from Mummy’s share. Today’s children suffering from plenty, rarely behave in this fashion but I can’t say I would trade our days of less miraculously becoming more, for anything in the world.
'Think before you speak' was, for me, limited to the odd English lesson on proverbs. On one occasion, a plumber had come to repair a section of the pipe and after he'd finished the job, requested me to give him a note to that effect. I asked him the spelling of his name in English--I think it was Baleshwar-- and he replied with some embarrassment, that he did not know the language . That should have been the last we heard on the subject. But yours truly, not content with one display of utter foolishness, proceeded to narrate the incident over dinner. Peals of laughter could be heard from all present, interspersed with a clever comment from Manoj that I should have asked him what he thought of the US President. I stormed out of the room in a huff that day and barely managed to live it down thereafter.
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