Rigved

Rig’s exams are over and so are the days of writing with a pencil. Now he will write with a pen! He is very excited about it and yesterday he did a page of copy writing on his own, despite of an ongoing vacation, with a pen.

Yesterday was his birthday and the regular ordeal took place where friends were invited a day in advance using a flyer, kids turned up, exchanged gifts for a return gifts, games and prizes, music and as usual hardly any boys! Here is the flyer

Last week, on the day his exams got over, he left for his Dadi’s house in Belapur where he had a blast with his new friend Parth, an 11 year old very well behaved boy who gets along perfectly with Rig. I ve noticed that Rigved is easily friends with guys older than him and girls of any age. He just cannot stand stupid and bad mannered children and he will try and keep them at bay. The last two days at Dadi’s house were not so good for him as he was with one such child. But its over now and Rig is back home and very happy with his toys, movies, books and Shoobie(his pet turtle) who has grown up to a little over 2 inches now. We have decided not to enroll him any class the way probably every parent in this city is doing. We have decided that this is his holiday and that is exactly what its going to be…

On Saturday night Rigved came up to me and said if a sleepover was allowed. I did not know what that meant. So he told me that a friend comes over and spends the night at our home. I asked him who is this friend and he said it was Shirsha, a new friend from the neighboring building. She is a year younger to him but a couple of inches taller than him and loves reading just like Rigved. They ve been exchanging books recently and they get along pretty well. She is probably the only sensible girl in the area we live in, the rest is cattle.

I was a bit surprised that a girl is coming over to spend the night with Rigved, and wondered if her parents will actually allow her. Rigved personally cleaned up the house and was dressed neatly when she arrived which was much to our surprise. They watched a movie, read books and laughed out loud till about 1:00 am. They slept in the computer room and till 5 AM I kept coming to the room to make sure everything was alright. After about 3 AM both the kids were in deep sleep and they looked like 2 puppies sleeping innocently unaware of the proverbial big bad world outside.

Shirsha woke at 8 AM and woke Rigved. Her mum came to pick her soon after and Banda just had to tell her how well behaved and mature her daughter was.

All in all Rigved’s summer vacation is going great. The scholarship class that had begun was abandoned in mid May as the teacher, her home and the rest of the kids there didnt create a welcoming atmosphere for Rigved. Also we realized that this is his summer vacation and the feeling one gets in these days is unparalleled to any other feeling in one’s life so why ruin it under the name of constructive utilization of holidays. The objective of the vaction is to unwind, take a break and forget the school, teachers and studies by playing all day and sleeping peacefully at night. These days will never come again and neither will childhood.

Last Saturday I contested for the PTA member on Rigved’s behest. He thought as a PTA member I will get a license to destroy kids who trouble him. I don’t need to be a PTA member for that! Anyway, there is only one boy who bothers him with what is known as the ‘One finger shock’, something fun to do but annoying to be done on! It basically means to tickle with one finger. I have more or less ‘advised’ against this to most children who used to do this to Rigved and only one boy remained. His name is Praful and he is about 3 times the size of Asad who is the healthiest kid in Rigved’s class.

I told Praful once to not to do all this and to be friends with children in his class but I think he did not get the message. Ultimately Rigved took things in his own hands and tackled the problem quite smartly. Rigved has a little rash on his right hand near the elbow. He went upto Praful and showed it to him saying, “I have got Chicken Pox, so if you must do ‘One finger shock’ to me, then you must realize that you are choosing to get Chicken Pox for yourself as this is contagious!” On hearing this Praful ran away never to bother Rigved again.

Anyway, I did not win the election and lost by 2 votes. It was quite a feat considering there were only 3 men in the room rest(about 55 of them) all being women. I got 33 votes. The woman who won is Akash’s mother and she seems like a nice lady unlike the previous PTA member who was totally sick. Thats bad considering she is a doctor. A dentist actually.

Day before yesterday Banda came home from office in the evening and told me to write this. There is an old slide and a half circle shaped see-saw in the building now. She saw Rigved and Sanjali(his same aged friend who lives on our floor) both sitting on one side and Shraddha (a 4 year older girl from the neighboring building who is fat) sitting on the other. Rigved had a cute expression on his face. The way I envisioned this is, they are not sitting on a see saw but in a Jacuzzi, like little celebrities whiling away time thinking of nothing much.