A child's playmate

 Nevaan has turned a caustic interrogator now. With his little steps liberating him from childhood dependencies, he is nicely climbing up the teasing scaffolding of boyhood to further enlarge his sphere of influence. As I use the toilet, he stands outside the door and sternly asks, ‘Mama kya kar rahe ho?’ There is a weird nuance in his tone. He sounds like a policeman in this enquiry. ‘What will a person do in the loo?’ I mutter guardedly like an irritated thief in the jail. My tone is rudely soured for being asked such an obvious question. Now, they are smartphone-honed, extra-smart generation. They are discerning and insightful beyond their years. Before we realize they have already acquired critical perspectives. God forbid, if he already—just at the age of five—has some idea about the other side of the story that sometimes unfolds inside loos and bathrooms. If it’s so then it’s quite worrisome.

There is a dry, crooked branch of tree lying in a corner in the yard. With a cynical certainty, it becomes a sword, a gun, a stick, a spear, a policeman’s baton as per the role adopted by him. In all these instances, it’s a super-hero’s weapon of dispensing justice against the evil, the bad guy. No need to guess, I’m the all-bad guy, thoroughly enmeshed with thuggery, who needs a child’s weapon to mend his errant ways. My primary crime is asking him not to watch too much of cartoon programs on television. So there he is on a mission to reframe my persona into someone who is comfortable with children watching cartoon programs on television for endless hours. You can say he wants to mold me into a good guy.