hair today gone tomorrow

It’s only going to be a matter of time when Jispa will start kicking our butt. She already has a strong opinion on a lot of issues. The tough mind that we tried to build into her is now going to come and bite us in the back. Better bite us than her I’d say.
This weekend was a day we spent a lot of time together and I ended up scolding her quite a bit. We having more than our fair share of run ins. She listens to me and then forgets and then does the same stupid thing again. Oh god it’s really frustrating. These are times when parenting is really tested. Also to add to this, she does really feel bad at our scolding. Even when she gets a rap from me, she doesn’t really get hurt. After our fight, which I ensure is brief, I tell her – you don’t really get hurt or feel bad, don’t you? And I smile and she breaks into a smile – no I feel. But then she adds, but no so much. Not at all, I think. That’s Jispa.
I have seen this in parenting. Every once in a while the truce is broken and we have our share of run ins. This carries on for some time till both of us grow up and decide that this is enough. It requires both of us to grow up and decide enough is enough. Sometimes the pressure just gets to you. How much can you scold your kid and not feel bad about it. It’s just a crazy pressure on parenting. It is unsustainable. I think that’s the reason you need two to parent. It is not possible for one individual to remain focused all the time. When I end up scolding, Jasmine must be patient and when she is letting loose, I get in.
It’s taken sometime to even understand that when I am telling Jasmine to calm down or vice versa, we aren’t necessarily saying – you are wrong and I am right. It’s us telling each other that we are both parents – just that, and by virtue of being parents we are both wrong and right at the same time. We just need each other to see a side of it that Jispa, in her antics has blurred. Like I was telling Jasmine the other day, when we decided to be parents we didn’t know that this constant adjusting would a part of the job requirements. Dam. To add pressure to the woes, issues can come from all sorts of wrong places. Things that you have not anticipated. In fact you get stuff from things you thought you had covered.
Around a week or so back, Jispa decided to get a haircut. Normally jispa likes long hair, but given her swimming schedule and her general distaste for combing her hair, it’s almost an impossibility to keep pace with for Jasmine. So Jasmine is always after her to cut it. Jispa can fend off only till a point after which she agrees. So technically its Jispa’s call, but really it’s her mommy’call – that’s jispa’s version. Jasmine’s version is the exact opposite. “I never force her” is what Jasmine says. Sometimes we fathers do walk think lines.
So now where to get it cut? The Saloon that Jispa liked is shut, the other one was too kiddish and the third one is the one Jispa hates and is Jasmine’s preferred one. Arggghh. So under imaginary pressure, (Jasmine says there is no such pressure and Jispa believes there is) Jispa agrees to the last option. And the horror story happens. Jispa hair is cut well lower than what she instructed. Oops the bad haircut pain lasted a couple of days. It was quite bad. She was really really sad and she did not want me or anyone to tell her that she actually looked good. I even told her some stories of me as a teen wanting to get my hair cut at different places in the hope that I somehow look good. I probably couldn’t accept the truth that it was me not my hair cut that decided my looks. I remember once even going to the Oberoi hotel – a huge thing in those days, just to get a hair cut. If I am not wrong Jasmine even funded that haircut. Nothing turned good for me. I always thought only if I had enough money to get myself a good haircut, I might have looked good. The things we believed in those days... haircuts make you look good, or facials solve your acne issue. Anything went. I told her that in reality nothing mattered. Today when I can possibly afford any haircut in Mumbai, anywhere, I go to the same silly saloon I went as a kid. Surely it matters more to you today than me today, but the truth is that you like people not because of their hairstyles but because of who they are and how they behave with you.
Well said, but no effect. She was pissed as ever. She did not want to talk about it. At all. Even a mention of ‘jispa you look cute, met with a curt reply’. There are these days when you realize your child has grown up and that’s that. She has her mind and she has decided to use it.
Now after a few weeks, she has learnt how to comb it or she has plainly accepted it. This Sunday, I told her – aha…. ‘I think all you needed was to let your hair cut grow a bit. Sometimes styles can take time to grow on you.’ I was mighty relieved she did not snap back. She was ok. she even let me click a pic. Here you are…



I told her that next time she can have a haircut wherever she wants. In the best place in Mumbai. No expense spared. She was a bit zapped. I told her she could blow a few thousand bucks if she so wished. I think it’s for her to decide and learn if the hair dresser really makes sense. And if it does give her something she is happy about – chuck it. I wanted to go to a saloon that was expensive. In parenting we try to not make the same mistakes. We only search for new ones.

lucky chic

Jispa considers herself lucky to be born in 2002.
As I have blogged earlier, I have some great times with Jispa telling her stories from my life. Some older stories of me as a kid. I then build on it and talk about it and our conversation progresses. Last week we were staying at this amazing place called the hermitage guesthouse. No electricity, no phones, no network. Awesome fun. I am quite proud of the way Jispa is now easy with the leeches. She just picks them up, rolls them and flicks them out. A real pro. One day we went hiking up the highest point of the area. At a 1000 meters above mean sea level, it gave some of the most spectacular views of the region. Jispa is quite the enthusiastic climber. Light with strong legs she manages to reach up and keep pace. It was coming down she got tired. On her way back she wanted to rest and was tired.
I then used the trick that seems to be working these days. I told her that if she kept walking I would tell her stories from my life. And I told her stories from my life and she kept walking. I told her about how when I was in fifth standard, when we were at Ahmedabad to attend a weeding when dad got his first heart attack. How an attack works. How the heart is a muscle and how the arteries carrying blood get clogged by cholesterol and stop the blood form flowing. How the heart loses power and then works at lower capacity. And we spoke a whole host of things. Soon enough, we reached the base of the hill and that brought us to end that conversation.
During the drive back home later, we also spoke about Hero ink pens and E=MC2. Don’t ask me how it got there and when she understood from it. But yes we did discuss electrons, neutrons and atoms and molecules and some part of the periodic table.
A few days back while waking her up I was speaking about an story. How when we were younger and growing up, we did not have any brands in the country – no coke, no addidas, no MacDonald’s, no lays, no kurkures nothing. Not even faber castle crayons or stationery. We had no book stores like crosswords and we hardly had books. All we read was the amar chitra katha. And I went on and on. I said that that time India did not want these foreign brands to come into the country and we were scared of them and hence we had very little choice. Then in her half sleeps she asks ‘this is because of what they did to us?’. Huh? “What who did to us?”. “This is because of what the British did to us”. “Who told you that Jispa?”. Her standard reply in these cases – “my brain”. I was pretty skeptical. I quizzed her further. She told me that he teacher had once explained that the British had come to trade with us and then ruled over us and then she connected the dots and voila – this is what her brain told her. Excellent deduction. My baby is growing every day. I guess a nine year old has a decent logical deduction power. We just don’t make them use it enough.
Just the other day I was discussing with someone on the education system; CBSE board or ICSC board or IGSC or the good old now maligned SSC board that I studied in. My belief is that all this curriculum importance is a bit over stated. What is more important is the quality of teachers. I have had my share of really sweet teachers who taught complex subjects well and the idiots who could make any subject dull and boring. Somehow it’s always the Hindi teachers who have been the worst of the lot. A close second come the history and geography teachers. No wonder we have a warped and view of history and our memories of geography is limited to coloring some northern part of Russia blue to denote the tundra region or something.
So coming back to Jispa and her mornings. She summed the conversation aptly by saying – “I am lucky to have been born in 2002 and not earlier”. I think she was almost pitying me. Tch tch.

wake up ball

It’s always a struggle to wake Jispa in the morning. Not because she is reluctant to wake up, that is definitely the case, but more so as she is a nice warm cuddly that I want to cuddle along and use to wake me up. It’s such a sin to wake up someone so beautifully asleep. Which heartless creature would want to disturb an angel, warm and asleep?
But on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, when you have to wake up at 5 and leave home at 5.30 am, all the warm fluffy feelings go for a toss. You just literally drag her from the bed. HI Jispa wake up time and pop, I have to pick her up. This is something that Jasmine invented. It takes a mother to invent something like this. Before jispa knows what is happening she is half way to the bathroom. And while she opens her eyes, she is in front of her mirror ready to brush. There is little time or scope for negotiation. I found it cruel at first but it is the right way. If I allow her to gain senses, she starts negotiating. And when she negotiates with her arm around you and says, “Dad one minute please. It won’t make a difference”, then I just melt and it’s time for us to get scolding form mom. GET UP NOW. YOU ARE GETTING LATE!
So it’s a yank and pull wake up three days of the week. No fluffy teddy for me. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays it’s the return of the teddy! I max these two days. I get into her bed and then cuddle up and then begin the process of waking her up. So I have to hunt for new things to wake her up. Because merely cuddling is not enough. She can then sleep for hours like that. And while the pressure is lower, it is still not absent. I still have to get her up and ready in time. So I start talking to her. Start asking her questions and other stuff. That lasted a couple of times till one day she said, ‘dad, don’t irritate me and ask me questions nah. Don’t do that in the morning”. So now that is effectively ruled out as an option. Her highness the teddy refuses to talk rubbish in the morning.
A few days back I hit on a new thing. I get into her warm mattress and start talking about my life. Nothing big or dramatic but simple stories that I find most amusing or talkable at 6 am. The last story I told her was about the games we played during the break at school. I was in Dubai till the third grade and moved into the fourth grade here. My first memory of the first break is when my new found friends said, ‘chal, join in, we all play aaba-dubee. What you mean Abu Dhabi, I corrected him. You see I was fresh from Dubai and the capital city for UAE is Abu Dhabi. No no. It’s not Abu Dhabi, its aaba-dubee.
This conversation today reminds me of the little prince where everyone told him, it’s a hat and he corrected them.. no no it’s a boa constrictor who swallowed an elephant.
Forget that. So my friend, if I am not mistaken Amardeep it was, says, its aaba-dubee we are playing. he had a rubber ball in his hand so I figured that’s got something to do with it. It was the first time I had seen a rubber ball, popularly called rubdy ball in Mumbai. In Dubai a ball was always a tennis ball. I soon learnt that tennis balls were really expensive– pre reform era, remember? – and this ball at 2.5 bucks was IT. So how do we play the game. We take this ball and hit other people with it. Ok. I was waiting. It sounds like kings. We used to play kings where in, there is the denner and his job is to hit someone with the ball, then they both together get the third one and so on till we are all out. You can’t run with the ball. That’s the only other rule in kings.Amardeep then explain aba-dubee to me. You only hit anyone else with the ball. And yes you can’t run with the ball. So, ‘who is the denner’ I asked. There is no denner in aba-dubee. You just throw the ball high in the air to start it. Then whoever gets the ball has can throw it to hit someone and then whoever picks it then throws it at someone with an aim to hit him and so on. It’s not a sport; it’s not a game, its mindless action. It has no end. You just keep throwing the ball. The playground has no boundaries, no one to judge, nothing. IT WAS AWESOME.i remember playing it forever. You rush out at the bell and throw the ball into the air and you start and continue till the bell rings to get us back in. short break, long break, you just play like crazy.
i never understood we boys would just rush in and try our hand at getting the ball. That is always a high risk high reward strategy. To get the ball you always compete with one or two other guys and then if you get it first then you have two really close targets. If not, then you are one of the two really close targets. Also the trick if you miss it is to get really really close to the guy with the ball. He can’t really throw a hard ball at you if you are an inch away. At around three to four feet distance, you are a sitting duck. So it’s a stick or run early strategy. So in a game where there are 20 to 30 kids playing you are not likely to get hit more than twice. Aim has to be right and you have to be stupid. I remember only once a guy called Ashish Kaul got hit five times in one session. I remember singing happy birthday along with the others. It was his aba-dubee birthday.
So I explained the brain dead game to Jispa one morning while waking her up. She found it most amusing. A game with no real point and that doesn’t end. She soon woke up. Now to think of more stories from my life to tell her. Some from college, some from school, some from Dubai, and possibly some stories will be hers, things that she would have done as a younger kid. It’s like a talking blog every morning. A Tog?