Father of two daughters

                 I have two nieces. And then there is the head niece. Together with my nephew, they formed the bunch of terrorists in my house. And I was their favourite target for their acts of terror. The years were around the turn of the millennium, when we used to stay at my hometown. I was a hosteller, and whenever I visited home during my term break, I used to look forward to being ambushed by them. Typically, in the evenings, or in the late, lazy afternoons when schools would be over and there was nothing better to do, they would ambush me and start troubling me with all types of questions. Most of the questions were one-liners – “why?” The purpose was never to extract information but to keep asking till one gives up. Surprisingly, I used to succeed almost a half of the times into forcing them to break the monologue. My most common technique used to involve tickling them, after which they would run after me to return the effort in kind, and the verbal terrorism used to con

 Parent's note: Below is a piece written by Shaivi, to be submitted as part of her homework. I do not like school. School is always so boring, and the teachers are mostly strict. But, I would like to go to school if a few changes were made. Here is how I would want my classroom to be. It would be fun if there were no school uniform, and the desks floating in the air. There would be a wooden box attached to the desk so that we could keep our bags, and ladders to go to the desks. There would be a huge black cloud instead of a blackboard, and 10 colours of never ending chalk. The desks would have a section inside which had a supply of things that were needed for crafts, paintings, some books, and other boredom busters. The walls would be decorated with jokes and riddles that changed every day. I wish that when Coronavirus would be over and schools will have started, the classrooms would transform something like this. Manuscript of Shavi's essay (I hope the teachers are listeni

Aadya is bored. She has been caught up in a routine of regular, boring stuff, and is greatly bored by the lack of change. When she went to her Grandparents’ house yesterday, my mother – in law remarked that she was looking and behaving a little off. The normally chirpy girl had refused to crack a joke, or had not creates any ruckus for almost half an hour after reaching the house, and that was most unusual. The council of responsible adults consisting of my mother – in – law and my wife got together for a serious discussion, and concluded that the young teenager was just a little off. They decided not to take any special action. Aadya has never faced such humdrum regularity in her life. Every weekday, she gets up in the morning and gets ready for a non – challenging academic session. Thanks to the greatly curtailed syllabus, she is generally ahead of the class. There is hardly any online interaction between the students. The limited phone calls between friends are typically made wi