My Dad is Hairy...

My dad is in the hospital. My wife wants to visit him and wants my daughter to take down the details. (For those who don’t know, I’m out of the country and my daughter has a mixed accent.)

“Paap, so what’s grandpa’s full name?”
“Its H. B. Wijesekera, H as in Harry and B as in Bravo…”

Then I hear her shout at the background:

“I got it… Grandpa’s name is Hairy Bravo Wijee-si-keyra..!”

Being Happy in Paradise...

So there we were. A regular weekday evening at my place, my two kids watching television while the grown-ups discussing life at large.

Like any good old Sri Lankan tête-à-tête, the conversation begins with politics. As we progress and discuss the new happenings, we swear at the idiots who ru(i)n the country. We curse them and their mothers for the misery they have brought upon us. Paradise ruined, in front of our very own eyes – almost within a short period that is slightly longer than the life cycle of an amoeba.

One says that the islanders of Paradise are amongst the happiest people on earth – even though there is misery, death and man-made disasters surrounding us everyday, dominating the news headlines.

From there, the conversations weaves in to discovering what “HAPPINESS” truly means to us.

The kids have their eyes glued to the television, but their ears are interested in the adult conversation. They are the new generation multi-tasking kids, who are capable of handling 5.4 tasks at any given time, according to Martin Lindstrom – the author of Brand Child.

Sitting in my lap, my little one throws-in her two cents: “Paap, paap, this home is my happinest” she quips, and promptly returns to her favourite programme on television.

A shocked silence amongst the adults prevails for a nano-second. My home is my happy-nest!

We are yet again amazed at the Kindergarten wisdom.

---

There she was, with her eyes glued to the television...

Divided or United under One Flag?

I’m sure almost every Sri Lankan must have seen the famous Independence Day picture that comes out in the papers and posters every single year. The cliché – kids representing Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim communities under the national flag.

My little daughter sees the picture in the paper and points her little finger and shouts with a big smile of achievement on her pretty face:
“Paap, this girl is Tamil, this boy is Sinhala and this girl is Arabic..!”
Well, she’s too small to know that we call them the Muslims, in Paradise.

Aren’t we emphasising our differences and promoting division in this picture? Shouldn’t we be all anonymous under one flag?

I keep learning from the kids everyday, but this one is hard to crack.

Dubai Kids discovering Sri Lanka

My son was six, and my daughter was three – too small to remember her previous visits – when we left Dubai for good. We arrived at the airport early in the morning and drove to my sister’s place in Colombo suburbs. It was a pleasant morning – the sun shining and the birds chirping... as usual.

The car enters the house, the doors open, and kids jump out. Elisha starts running around the garden screaming in sheer delight: “jungle... jungle... we are in a jungle...!”

She was shocked and pleasantly surprised by the lush green, and the beauty that is Sri Lanka.

As time went by, they began to see the ‘real’ world. Discovering, exploring, au naturalé.

And they gradually realised that:

• mangoes didn’t actually grow in supermarkets in boxes. They grew in trees – throwing a stick or a stone to pluck some is a whole lot of fun.

• however colourful they may be, plasticine or modelling clay is not fun. The mud patch by the paddy-field is the real deal.

• even though they are big, one can actually feed a cow, they don’t bite or chase kids.

• the wrinkled, toothless and fragile creatures are not monsters from cartoons, they are actually sweet old people – just like their grand parents.

• the big-grey animals browsing the paddy fields are buffaloes, not elephants.

• baby elephants at Pinnawela would not fit in to a shopping bag they took from home.

• the dirty and exhausted-looking kids on the street are not retuning from a game of football. That IS the natural look of a homeless child.

• being a poor kid living on the street is sad. Not getting a new toy every month, isn’t.

• not every stone that shines is a gem and exchanging their toys for these “gems” is not a very good idea.

• the “river of gems” (menik ganga) is flowing with water, not gems.

• its fun to eat with fingers.

• you can build a “spider hotel” with some strings in the bush, but spiders still prefer their natural habitats.

• the rain is not a once-a-year affair.

• lizards cannot survive for long in a plastic bucket under the bed.

• geckos climb walls, but crocodiles don’t climb trees.

• mice are like people, they follow their footpath. Just like Ratatouille.

• language is no barrier when it comes to having a good time with other kids – it doesn’t really matter if you are Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or multi-racial.

• Pokemon cards have no value for kids in Bandarawela.

• one could feed the monkeys without actually putting them in a cage.

• Sinhala-Hindu new year traditions are so much fun, especially if the money is good.

• it’s good to have a large family, specially if there are many cousins to play with.

• Thomas the Tank Engine is not a fairy-tale, trains do exist and not everyone travels in a car.

There’s an aura of surrealism that surrounds Dubai; making it a materialistic-heaven for those who are driven by their dreams. Dubai is attractive; but it’s a bubble that warps one’s perception of the real world. No poor or the aged, no sick people in the vicinity – pretty much like Prince Siddhartha’s life before the Great Departure. Too clean, too organised, too good to be true. Compared to Dubai, our island paradise is more conducive to children and their upbringing, no amount of money could change that I suppose.

Yesterday was Friendsday

I’m sitting in front of the idiot box – aimlessly staring at the picture frames – planning my long day ahead, running through what needs to be done in my head. My little daughter Elisha crawls out of her bed and trots along rubbing her sleepy eyes, searching for me. She finds me, and a pretty smile lights up her face. She looks cute and quite huggable in her pink mermaid-pyjamas.

She gives me a big hug and hops in to my lap. Says, “good morning paaap, its time to call all your friends...”

“Friends..?” I am puzzled. “Why Elisha, isn’t it too early in the morning to call my friends..?”

“Yeah paaap, but its Friends’ Day today...!”

“Friends’ Day? What Friends’ Day? I don’t know anything about Friends’ Day..!”

And then she looks at me with her pretty smile, starts counting her fingers:
“Paap, look:
Sunday...
Monday...
Tuesday...
Friendsday...!”

Oh yeah, she has been learning the days of the week at school. And of course, Wednesday DOES sound like Friendsday, and its not such a bad idea at all.

We keep learning from our kids everyday, don’t we?