code decode

One of our family friend’s sister recently passed away due to a road accident. Our friend’s daughter and Jispa are also close friends. So generally I was asking Jispa, do you know what happened to your friend’s maasi (aunt). She said “ya, she had a terrible accident”. “yes and you are aware what happened then”. “Yes dad, she … err… she went …”, Jispa pointed upwards. She obviously was flustered and didn’t know how to say it. “Yes, she passed away” I added.
“You know dad. Now I can understand this better. It is all thanks to Calvin and Hobbes”. “Calvin and Hobbes?” I asked “how did that help?”. “earlier I used to panic or my breathing would get … but after I read Calvin and Hobbes story of the raccoon, I understood about death”. “Is that so?” I asked faintly remembering the story. I remember, Calvin finding the raccoon and then him getting upset about the raccoon dying. “yes dad, in that the raccoon dies and then Calvin is all upset. His mother then tells him, there is birth and death, everything that is born must die. But what is more important is that the raccoon was warm and safe”. I guess that explained to her the inevitability of death.
The magic of Calvin and Hobbes is that it works at multiple levels. It explains some serious philosophy for the evolved reader as well as appeals and explains simple philosophy for the young reader. It’s magical how it connects to both. Its so beautiful. Reading is important. Reading anything is important. Fiction, non-fiction, comics, cartoons, anything. Who would have thought that reading a comic strip would help a 9 year deal with a serious issue like death. The inevitability of it and the life that precedes it.
Here is the series in which the episode pans out. It’s lovely yet poignant.

(footnote - Jispa remembers the mom explaining death but its actually the dad.... Sighhhhh)

Kids understand much more and take in much more when aided with the power of a story possibly seen through another 8 year old. I remember when Jispa would sometimes be a little misbehaved on certain issues and we found it difficult to control her, I would dream of a story where there was papaya papa and musambi mummy, along with a little girl and somehow the moral of the story would bring alive the situation to her and she would then understand. Stories are so powerful.
I read somewhere that Hinduism was under grave threat thanks to the spread of Buddhism and the Brahmins brought it back by retelling the tale of Ramayana and Mahabharata to extoll the glory of Hindu deities. In fact they even conveniently got Balaram out of the Dus Avatars and brought in Buddha as a reincarnation. Funny, for a religion born in some ways against the practice of Hinduism, they incorporated it back into Hinduism. It’s like making the naughtiest guy in class the Monitor of the class. A story well told has many a reaching impact – much more than what we can imagine.
I have been generally been teaching Jispa banking and interest through her pocket money. The other day her monthly 10% interest came up to 140 bucks. I told her that I am reducing her interest rate to 5% per month. That is because she is isn’t spending anything much and I want her to spend so reducing the interest rate gives her a little less incentive to save. A ha. It’s like I am playing central bank. Reducing interest rate to increase money flow in the economy. So she I think now is planning to spend a little more. I think this game is getting far more fun. She earns money by playing the guitar, then spends a little on bubble gum, then she gets interest by saving it and then the central bank is reducing nd increasing the interest rate to control money supply. Let’s see if I can introduce more complexities like tax or something else. It has to get interesting yet simple. Haha.
I think this money thing is also making her a little bit of an economist. Today morning we were talking money and she was wondering how money gets printed. I was telling her that it is a difficult process and that only the government is allowed to print money. If everybody would print money then everybody would get rich. “yes” she added “and then if everybody had lots of money, all the prices of everything would rise”. What on earth. “who taught you that. Did I tell you that” I don’t remember teaching her that. “no, not you dad. My brain told me”. Wow. Old Chinese and European monarchs refused to understand the simple relationship between money supply and inflation. My nine old got it. Pretty cool nah. “yes Jispa that is bang on. It’s called inflation. When prices of things rise, its inflation”.
I am pretty surprised that she got that relation bang on. It is a pretty abstract relationship. It happens due to people behavior and not due to a mathematical formula. It is derived.
I guess having fun and intelligent conversations impact thought process in ways we can’t imagine. Kids learn from anything and make their minds work. We possibly underestimate their ability to sum total entire stimuli and form their own judgments, values and decoding formulas. Be very careful when you answer innocuous sounding questions or expose them to stimuli. You have no clue on the way a kid’s mind works.

Go ahead.. EXPLODE

Going with Jispa to the bus stop every day is just enough bonding time. Anymore and Jasmine will probably throw me out of the house. What problem does she have with my bonding? Well nothing really, it’s the problem she envisages Jispa having with my bonding. I get extra pleasure out of talking with Jispa and pushing her imagination. And Jispa likes to use and apply these concepts.
Like this time around we are high on Einstein. I was explaining to her how time moves slower in a moving vehicle. Well kind of explaining to her. To the best that I understand. She was getting all wired and confused but getting the point as well. Its fun teaching concepts that challenge her brain. The other recent favorite is that it is possible to see the past. All you have to do is move faster than light. But you can’t theoretically move faster than light but if you could, then you would be able to see the past. I explained this to her and she was quite awestruck by the fact. We even discussed this a few days later. That is the ultimate test. If she remembers it and she talks about it then I know the penny has dropped. Full on time pass. She has to take some facts to school on a periodic basis. What’s the point in taking lame facts? All kids read encyclopedias and watch the geographic channels so facts that astound them have to be smart and different. This time Jispa was asking me about taking a fact to school. I was fresh from a book about flight and I explained to her that the aero planes could only be invented after the invention of the petrol powered engines. Otherwise the other engines were too heavy to put on planes. Now that’s a fact that even her teacher wouldn’t have known. That’s a fact that does come as a factoid in a channel or a children’s magazine. It’s an unknown kind of factoid. I keep trying to dazzle her. It’s fun when you teach that run of the mill stuff is just that – run of the mill stuff. It’s not something she took and read from a cut out or something. She spoke it from her mind because she understood the concept. I am dying for her to take the see the past concept to school. This is what I call teaching a kid. Putting advanced concepts in a simple to understand way.
Throw open your mind. Absorb stuff from all around. Keep thinking, keep tinkering. Jispa and I have the ultimate fun when one question leads to another and another and then we wonder how we got where we got. Whoops. I love it when it really challenges me to explain what I know in a manner that an eight year old can understand. That is the true test of knowing. Like my professor used to say – what is marketing? How do you know you know marketing? Can you explain what it is to your mother? Can explain the marketing of the oil she is buying to your mother. Then it is marketing. Yes Professor Navalkar. I remember his golden words. What is the point of all the reading I might have done? I must be able to explain it to the kids in a language that they understand and in a language that they appreciate, learn and remember. The penny must drop and remain there.
The best compliment I thought I ever received when Jasmine today told me that Jispa was telling her “mom, how I remember stuff from long time ago. I remember when I was two or three years old and daddy was teaching me about day and night. He took me to the bathroom with a globe and a torch and in the darkness showed me night and day. I still remember it”. Wow that is cool. I barely remember it. It was around 5 to 6 years ago. Like all proud papas; I took that as a compliment to my teaching skills rather than her memory skills. Haha. In parenting you get a lot of brickbats, you have to learn to take a few positives and gloat on them when they come. I tell, that is a sure way of staying sane.
(the reason
Kids are the most fun. You have to explain to them, use similies, metaphors and really challenge yourself. And you know what, explaining this to others helps you learn it better. You understand it in a way that even you retain it. The surest way to learn something is to teach it to others. They challenge you, ask you and expect you to know it all. So you keep thinking, take some time out, think through, sometimes together and figure it out. That is the best way to learn. You keep drilling concepts into your mind as you drill them into other minds. In office too as I teach / talk about the various concepts, I get to learn them as well. I love it when my team challenges me on the concepts, pushes me, asks ridiculous, innocuous looking but highly dangerous questions that challenge my understanding of them. That pushes me to think much more. Yes teaching is a great thing.
Like one office kid asked me what I think is the thing that I want to do the most. Years of corporate disillusionment has taught me only to remove all notion of ambition. I have no great desire to be the CEO or something. Screw you establishment. But I think of something that I hold dear to my heart. Something that has possibly defined me and helped mould me. Teaching. I want to constantly teach. I want to be in a position where I can learn constantly, where I have to push myself to understand better and then teach people to understand better. I want to see minds open. I want to constantly open mine. The greatest gift of teaching to me is the simple act of a student opening his mind. My greatest pleasure does not come from the guys who come in first in class. It comes from the guy who come into class with a closed mind, least interested in studying and generally believing that this is all shit. When I see him contribute, when I she her raising her hand, challenging me and then when I say, right, good thought, great observation, and then them believing in what is being taught. That is the greatest gift that I can get. An opening of a window in their mind.
After knowing a bit I know only one thing, that I know too little. The joy in knowing more is unimaginable. The joy in teaching that there is a vast unexplored world out there is crazy. One of the reasons why we named Jispa after a slightly inaccessible mountain village is just that. Her name must conjure in her head a sense of exploration. Something that she must seek out. Something that she could aspire to conquer, reach and feel. Something that is high, away and pure. Go on Jispa. Go on… explore. EXPOLDE.




PS: the reason Jasmine worries about all this is because Jispa likes showing her mind off and she worrys that she will show off to her teacher in school and we don’t know how they all react to oversmart students. Yup. We are scarred by our own experiences. But I purposely push her and want to show her that a teacher, any teacher, never knows all. She is only explaining what she knows and that does not make me/her/ she/ him the ultimate know all. Go ahead.. . burst a few myths along the way. Go ahead. EXPLODE

it works

What a tiring weekend. With Jispa’s cousin coming in there was never a dull moment. If there were any hopes of missing a second kid in our lives – those were happily squashed. One is enough. Two multiplies the issue a billion times over. Most of the emotional energy is expended in resolving conflict. Expecting the elder one to behave like an elder one and the younger to also let go.
On the first night they started fighting for using the same bathroom for bath. Believe me, there is nothing in the dam bathroom to fight for. Being the hosts we pushed Jispa to not in demand bathroom. She was upset with us. I then started talking to her. The good thing about Jispa is that at least she listens even when angry. I gave the big shit dialogue of ‘atithi dev bhava’. That got her a bit calmer. What was it? I explained that even in Sanskrit there is a saying that treat your guest like god as they have come to your home. This is also what Gandhi taught us. If he is being silly then we must be good. Only by the power of demonstration can you teach your others to behave better. They will not listen or notice, but slowly they will see what t is to be good. Then they too will respond in kind. That is the only way. You must start by your sacrifice.
As soon as they came out all clean and ready to sleep, the conflict on which bed to sleep on reared its ugly head. Both wanted to sleep on the bed on top. Jispa looked at me and then said ‘Siddhant, you tell where you you want to sleep. Anything is ok. I can sleep down.’ Instantly Siddhant replied ‘anywhere, I am ok down as well’. Jispa looked at me. It was working. It works. The rest of the weekend we saw more such gandhigiri to amazing results.

It did spread peace and harmony. Sometimes we dont realise the futility of conflict, be it between cousins or countries. Here is one amazing statement I really loved.

Recoil Reconcile?

I read on the bus today. The following seat bench is reserved for ‘the old, the physically handicapped and women’. I don’t know women can tolerate this. When they come into office they expect to be treated on par, to be paid equally and to grow equally. I hope to understand the feminist movement, but to then see good strong able women sitting down and classified along with the old and the infirm I wonder. Why would self respecting women accept this? Good educated women must protest, must not seat themselves here and must not expect special favours. Crush hour trains having special compartments, dedicated women trains is probably good, but to classified thus is blow to the feminist movement as I see it.

A small note on Clavin and Hobbes for Jispa when she grows up - Calvin is named for a sixteenth-century theologian John Calvin who believed in predestination; while Hobbes is named after Thomas Hobbes, a seventeenth-century philosopher with a dim view of human nature. Research it up. Its good fun. Do they fit or are they the opposite or it just doesn’t matter and is one of Bill Watterson’s pranks on you.

One of the reasons Jispa loves it is the faces Calvin makes. We should train her thus:-