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 eff...

 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...

  I first met her 17 years ago. Our parents had contacted each other after going through a newspaper advertisement in a matrimonial section. It was four years since I had completed my MBBS and had got into a well-paid government job. Apparently, these are the basic qualifications needed to earn the title of “eligible” bachelor in the matrimonial sections. Luckily, my future in – laws also agreed to this basic premise, and the two families, after a lot of meetings, decided that time was ripe for the “boy” and the “girl” to meet and approve each other. We met over some snacks and a bottle of cold drink, witnessed by two and half sets of families. I did not take any time to show my eager approval, and my future wife was too shocked at the turn of events for a negative response. We got married a year and half later, while she was still studying towards completing her graduation. Aadya came into existence a few months after my wife’s graduation, and Shaivi arrived in time to celeb...

                The monkey looked tentatively as I continued my walk.               For the past few days, I have been getting up early in the morning and been going out for my daily dose of sunshine. While I am frequently on my cycle, I had decided in favour of jogging this morning and had commenced my labored running. I am a moderately fit person who is somehow not used to too much of planned exercise. In fact, I hate exercise, and my morning activities were actually due to an official compulsion, which I had decided to take advantage of in order to improve my fitness. Monkeys lined up for their daily errand on my boundary wall               The route that I take is a favourite playground of a group of monkeys as well as at least seven different tribes of stray dogs, each with well de...

       “Moana’s father had lost a lot of weight,” Aadya told me. “He had taken the entire family of Moana to another part of Motunui which was completely barren.”               “Was it the same island where they lived?” I enquired.               Aadya was telling me about a funny dream she had last night. She normally does not remember dreams, but she surprised herself by vividly remembering every detail of this particular one that she had during her exam days.               Her exams were very interesting. After having completed an online test conducted by the school, the students were informed that the exams should be treated as practice test only and that her unit tests would be conducted in a “multiple choice question” format while using "zoom" for invigilation. Her...

“You are a sorted person.” A lady I had befriended a few months earlier surprised me one pleasant evening by calling me up, and we were in the phase of catching up and recalling good qualities about each other when she shot the above words which challenged my very notion of grasp of the English language. She went on to explain that she felt I was very clear in my thoughts, did not have any airs, and did not behave as though I needed to convert every acquaintance into a profitable opportunity. While she did not use these exact words, I translated the sentiments to suit my ego. I never discussed the above conversation with my daughters. I never got the time. Shaivi, my younger daughter, has a very peculiar style of conversing with me – she starts talking incessantly on a topic till she runs out of things to say, and while I think about what to say in reply, she shifts to a completely new topic with equal fervour and gusto. She has not allowed physical distance to change her styl...