She is lying on the bed with welled up eyes over a painful argument with her husband. After a really long day, juggling with the many responsibilities, an otherwise casual question on priority broke the camel’s back.

The littlest one is cuddled up with her, while the rest of the family is on the table trying to eat a peaceful meal. The little-big girl runs to her mother in spite of her father demanding her back on the table, and requests her to come eat, which the mother vehemently refuses, seeking the desperate help of a tummy hurt. The little-big girl goes back to the table, says her tummy is hurting, she needs a break, comes back to the bed and curls up with her mother. The littlest one senses something is not quiet right, puts her little soft hands over her mother’s eyes and mouth, makes that pouted lips and says – My Dlittle baby sad. Dlittle urt.

When will this sentimental fool grow up, put up a strong front and learn to let go. For the sake of saving her kids from these emotional turmoil.

When we moved to Bangalore less than a year back, the husband was pretty adamant on not buying the TV. The LH is a man of his own values, and adheres to them earnestly, no matter what the world makes of him. Me, on the other hand, lives by the rules, likes moderation and believes in balance.

Acknowledging the fact that me and the LH don’t converge on any said topic, and to save our kids from the constant dilemma, we made a conscious decision to let me have the final say on parenting issues. Not because I am the better parent(Hell no!, the husband is the epitome of patience, more well read and well traveled, all of which attribute to better decision making ), but simply because I am the more involved parent as far as providing consistent, predictable time with them and their day to day activities. And thus I self proclaim myself as knowing them better

So, when the LH had declared that we won’t get TV, I was game for experimentation, convincing self that I could always find a reason and force him into to getting one if-and-when needed. D and Dlittle hardly watched TV while we were at our in-laws place, as they were used to watching pbskids in the bay area, and could not relate much to the programming here. When they did not seem to care for the existence of the idiot box, I cared less. While youtube serves me well for the likes of Tere mere beach mein, Google news and the morning papers serve their purpose of instilling the little worldly knowledge that I need.

It is close to a year now, and we have survived without the idiot box. We still don’t feel the necessity to have one.

However, the influence on kids, by taking extreme measures of not having the TV in the house Vs allowing restricted quality viewing, while 99.99 percent of the population we relate to has one, is the question of concern.

Allow me to digress here, for the only way I know to get my point across is by quoting happenings and analyzing the after effects. What made me choose this topic for the weekend post is something that happened the day before yesterday night. A good lot of our family and extended family kids(10+ years) are on twitter, we have successfully phased the younger ones out of facebook and orkut(Some had faked their age as 13, just to get a facebook account. I had written about Social Networking some time back and still believe that it is not a safer place for younger kids to hang out without parental monitoring). We got them on to twitter, some have even started blogging. I feel twitter is much more simpler and transparent and makes it is easy for us parents/guardians to keep a watch.
(My dear handful of readers, before you judge us to be a crazy internet addicted family. Let me tell you that our business revolves around social networking, we have 2 software engineers in the making, one JEE zone topper, all die hard fans of their chacha’s/maama’s bindas attitude on life life-is-short-do-only-what-you believe-in-and-what-gives-YOU-happiness and entrepreneurial capability and keep asking for fun projects to do. So, it is not entirely our fault that our family’s primary mode of communication has become direct messaging via twitter instead of phone. phew!).

Before I go on, let me first formally introduce my nephew to this blog. Babio, as Dlittle lovingly calls him, is my 13 year old nephew, a very very sweet kid, staying with us and studying here. Babio came into the office room asking if he could open a twitter account for his sisters. You guessed that right. An account for D and Dlittle. That’s when it hit me that I had taken a twitter account in D’s name in early 2007 and even tweeted one mere line. Call me nuts, I did it. And conveniently forgot about it. I opened up the twitter page and D was supremely excited to read her name there. In less than 2 minutes she demanded the page background be changed pink, to be made very colorful like a rainbow.

Then comes the defining moment, leading to this heavy duty post.

She spots her name on the browser url – http://twitter.com/hername, selects just her name using the mouse and asks –
If I type Dlittle’s name here, her page will come?

“P.A.G.E?”. You said PAGE?

When I told her that I had not created Dlittle’s twitter page yet, she says in these exact words.
Sign up, mumma. Sign up.

S.I.G.N U.P????

Where in the world did she get that? S.I.G.N. U.P. Still remains a mystery. When asked, she simply said, I was imagining about it. Whatever imagination has to do with knowing “sign up”.

One other time, Firefox crapped out and she refused to use Safari. Saying she only likes Firefox, the orange colored thingee. Yes, thingee. Nothing else.

Yet another time, madam was installing adobe plugin. When I happened to see it and asked what in the world she was doing, she says that the video will not come unless she does it. She just has to keep clicking the second button on the right and it will work after that.


Which brings me to these points to ponder. Are my kids getting more than the needed dosage of computer time? Have we unconsciously s u b s t i t u t e d computer time for TV time. If yes, is that a good or a bad thing? Should we continue without the TV, or should we get one for the heck of it. If we get one, with our ever increasing demand for time, will we be disciplined enough to restrict the timings? Will my kids feel left out when their friends discuss some popular TV character? Is that something to even care for?

It is not that we are completely deprived of movies and we plonk ourselves in front of the computer the minute we wake up. D hardly gets half an hour of computer time, 2 – 3 times a week. Every now and then, we get the projector from our office(thanks to owning office assets ), dvd’s and project the movie on the h.u.g.e wall we have in the living room. Spice it up with ice cream or popcorn, the kids have a blast. Idea is to make it a special once in a while event instead of a routine.

I don’t have answers, but I do believe that my kids would have sooner or later got into the internet/computer world, just based on the nature of our job. Based on them being exposed to a home office server, 3 laptops, big screen monitor and the likes. Based on us preferring the computer(internet) to communicate long distance. Based on them watching us running to google baba for anything and everything. (Seeing us printing maps, looking up directions before going out. Checking out restaurant reviews. The other day she asked me something , I said I am not sure. She says, type it in google, it will tell you).

So, are we going to acquire the idiot box or not? The dilemma continues!

It makes me wonder if it is typical of a 4-6 year old, to show interest in topics related to life, death and spirituality. I have read at least 5 blogs related to this topic in the past month, all of them having kids in this age group. The email newsletter from babycenter few weeks back has this highlighted. It does make me feel better to affirm D is not talking nonsense for her age. But no matter how I try to explain, it paves way to a million unanswered questions. To her, to me.

D was little over 3 years and Dlittle was just old enough to sit on the high chair, when we unintentionally got into the culture of dinner time talks. One of the reason was to get D interested in eating by herself. She definitely showed more interest in eating, when that was not just another chore to complete, but a family time, where we all ate together with a lot of chit chat, laughter and silly talks. Now, the kids look forward to this time, and are stepping on each others shoes to tell how their day went. Good, bad and ugly. Even Dlittle with her limited vocabulary pitches in.

Getting back to the context of this post, couple of months back, one evening we had assembled at the dinner table as usual and D suddenly asks -

Mumma, you know M’s daadi is dead.
I was a little shocked to hear that word explicitly from her.
hmm.. okay..
Why did she die, mumma?
Not sure beta. She must have been very old.

Conversation was on hold, while the little one’s mind was churning with thoughts. I could see her lost in her thought and was expecting the next series of questions, but nothing close to what she ended up asking.

Mumma, you will also die when you get old?
hmm.. yes..
She starts crying her heart out. No, you can’t die. You are my mother. You have to take care of us. Dlittle cannot even eat by herself.
At this point, I was overwhelmed as there was no pretext to this topic whatsoever.

Tried telling her that she is not old enough to understand all this. We can talk about this when she is 10 years old. Obviously, of no vain. Ended up telling her as a matter of fact, we all will die one day. Mumma, paapa, everyone. When we get very very very old. Super old. By that time, you will be a naani yourself and will have your own daughters and sons and they might even have their own kids. That much old. And you wont need mumma to take care of you, you will be taking care of your kids instead.
I don’t want boys. Only girls.
ok. Point noted for future discussions.
I so prayed this discussion would end here. But no.

Over the next few days, this had been the hot topic of discussion, no matter how hard I tried to deviate from it. Multiple versions of the question and answers.
But, why we all have to die?
That’s how God has created us beta. There is only so many people earth can hold right. So for a new baby to come into the world, old people have to die, go back to God and come back as a baby. Also, when we get old, our bones break, we cannot walk properly, we cannot see properly. Then we get tired of old age and tell God. God thank you for giving us such a wonderful life. And smart cute daughters. Now, they are old enough to take care of themselves and I am ready to die. Please make me a baby again.

She seemed convinced with the answer for the moment. Ironically, this was about the same time when my father fell down and broke his hip bone. Had to go through a replacement surgery and was bed ridden.

D’s questionnaire got active again.
Mumma, we will have naana in our house for some days. Then can you please ask him to go somewhere else?
I was shocked to hear that and after repeated futile talks that it was not right to say like that, said pretty sternly – He is my father, just like the LH being your father. Would you like your father to go away somewhere else?
Poor thing started sobbing and said – I just don’t want him to die in our house. I will be very scared and that’s why I want him to go out.
I did not know how to handle the situation, I asked her what made her think naana is going to die?

Old age – bedridden – not able to walk – broken bone. Ah ha!!

I tried to explain her that we don’t get to choose when we want to die. God chooses that for us. Mumma is always there with her and nothing will happen.

Don’t know if simplifying death as die-tobe-reborn as a baby- was any better. For it definitely led to this conversation.

Don’t do that D, Dlittle will get hurt.
She will die?
No beta. But she can get really really hurt.. Like blood coming out, going to the doctor for shots.
Let her die mumma, then she will come back as a baby. She is very cute as a baby, I want her as a baby.
Telling her coming back-as-a-baby is not in to our own house, some other house we wouldn’t know and we will never ever be able to see her again. We will never get to play with her, hold her. Would you want that.
Honestly, I had my foot in my mouth dreading a YES!
No, no. I will take care of her gave me peace of mind for the moment.

When I chose the title of the post, the intention was to write on the enlightenment felt on staying fit, eating right for old age, something I feel we owe to our kids. But, looking the length of the post, I should do that another time.

The birds and the bees is another topic of interest these days. God, spirituality is another. Will pen this also another day, for now leaving you’ll with some of D’s dialogues –

God does not have a house, thats why he is everywhere?

God is everywhere, so if this wall breaks, he will jump from there?

D, be nice to papa, beta. He works hard so that we can make enough money to eat yummy food na? No, mumma, papa does not give us food. God gives us food and toys.

Why papa did not grow me and Dlittle in his tummy? Because he does not have guggu baata to feed us?

10 years of marriage, 11.5 years of togetherness, 1 failed production, 2 successful productions. Pretty good. What say?


There has been many ups and downs in the journey so far. Still, at the end of 10 years, it makes the journey worth while.. wanting more of the same..

When the sight of each other at the end of a long day brings an instant smile on our faces..

When we both look at our happily sleeping kids and unconsciously hold hands to enjoy that moment..

When he steps into the elevator, I ask him how these 10 years have been, and he comes back to give us a hug..

When a day is all we can go without talking to each other..

When, even at this age, we can land our head on the other’s shoulder and break down like babies at any emotionally disturbing juncture..


In spite of the zillion differences between us, something somewhere must be going just right. Here’s to many many more years of togetherness. Happy 10th to US.