Traffic

 

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The other day we were on our way to the bollywood dance class that my kids attend. This travel is very intimidating to the kids, with the unending pot holes, and stagnant endless traffic, it takes for ever to reach the class and back home. Most of the times they get nauseous, So, to distract them from this, we end up playing games. We play,  “fill up the sentence by guessing what the person had in mind”, given a few clues, or the billboard game where the other person got to spot the bill board , given a few words from it. Trust me, there are hundreds of them for every step so, its quite challenging, and many other impromptu games.

Sometimes, we have “Amar Chitra Katha” quiz also known as “Test your Mommy’s cultural awareness” quiz, where the quiz master, Neha (with input from Poojha and Kauvya)  gives a preview of the story in question. And I need to guess the characters of the story or what the title of the book is. These questions are quite challenging even for me with the million stories that there are from Indian mythology, and Panchatantra etc. All the same, I am happy,  they have gained so much knowledge in all this. They are aware of most of the characters of Mahabharat, Ramayana, Bhagawatam, the mythological epics of Indian culture.

All these activities have proved to be a hit with the kids. The other day, we were stuck in traffic for 40 minutes, at the dirtiest spot of the city (in my opinion) but, we didn’t even realize it because we were engrossed in our game. And by the time we reached our destination, the driver announced that it had taken us an hour and a half to come to class. And on another day, when we were half way to home, ( with another 30-40 mins to go), Poojha had to go potty so badly, she almost stood in the car and started to jump trying to relax her ….. Distracting her attention through one of the games, we were able to reach home safely without her having to soil herself. :-)

They have become ardent fans of Indian soaps like “Ballika Vaadu”, “India’s got talent”, “chak dhoom dhoom” , “Dance India Dance”, and such. They know the timings of the show, the names of the characters of each show. During one such conversation of TV shows, Suddenly Poojha announced

“Neha loves Balika Vadhu, All that romance….”

“Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii”, Neha shouted out to Poojha to shut up feeling embarrassed.

“I’m making kitchen championship”, Richa, my 3 year old, says, making some action like she is cooking.

“ You need to watch less TV”, I was thinking.

Sometimes, we talk plain. The driver of our car, I can see, enjoys all this conversation between the kids, with his occasional grins. There are lots of curious questions from them. During one such talk, we were talking about our wedding and..Poojha asks…

“Were we there at your wedding?”

“Were we still inside your tummy?” Kauvya asks innocently.

And I answer “Yes”

“At least half of what you are, was inside me”, I think.

“Ah…that’s not fair, why can’t we be there in your wedding?” Poojha cries.

“Mom has to be married so we could be born, Poojha”, Neha says.

“My friend M, was present at her mom and dad’s wedding when she was 4 years old, she was a flower girl, why can’t we have been there at your wedding too”, Poojha continued.

“We don’t need to be married to have babies??!!!”, Neha exclaimed, realization dawning.

“So, when I grow big, I can have a baby just like that”, She said

“You don’t need to, if you don’t want”, I said.

Somehow, she realized that her talk has reached uncomfortable limits, as the driver was listening to all this and she became quite.

Even though, I wouldn’t want to be in such traffic, I’m happy, its providing us an opportunity to talk to them without any distractions..to all our hearts content.