By – Em Jay
My hubby Channa had a Super Supermarket checkout moment with our son Niklesh recently. It had been a crowded weekday evening at the checkouts with lots of tight-skirted/tie- wearing, Aunty-Netta-type English speaking busy bodies de-touring to grab a bite for dinner, gedara yana gaman.
Niklesh had examined Channa’s place of pride, blissfully oblivious to his whereabouts and any social implication, and of course in his usual very conspicuous, high-volume, high-pitched voice had announced “ahh.. mey thiyenne thaththige choo eka..!” (ahhh… this is where my father pees from)
Channa promises he went violet in face (not sure how much of it was visible as he was born rust colored anyways ) and coughed as if he was suddenly suffering from an unbearable bout of whooping cough to dilute the situation. You ask what the others at the checkout said and how they responded to the moment, Channa wouldn’t know.. Cos he had been “paa wenawa” (airborne) out of sheer embarrassment.
That was Channa’s moment. And he will carry it to his tomb. I had mine recently. It was different.
I had lectured Niklesh of the behavior he would have to adopt in a crowded environment and had taken his promise of discretion before we took him to the same supermarket 2 days ago.
There we were again at the checkouts. It was just as busy as the previous fateful day. Channa was unloading our groceries to the conveyor belt and the unassuming gentleman who was next in line adjusted our packet of eggs before it risked falling off the belt.
There goes Niklesh again. “Uncle oka allanna epa, oka mage thaththige!” (Uncle, stop touching my father’s goods) It was the ‘uncle’s’ moment to go violet in face and he really apologized to the twit, mumbling something half-audible like “apoo nehe nehe, mama oyaage thaththige badu allanne nehe” (No,no I will not touch your father’s stuff) This was the cue for me to go violet. I looked at Channa who laughed loud maybe to dilute the situation again as I couldn’t see anything remotely laughable there. I was livid. I took Niklesh's arm and in an equally loud and a stern voice chided him, of course in my well-acquired English “Putha you don’t say such things. That was very bad of you. Please say sorry to uncle now”. It was not all in vain for Niklesh was all ready to apologize with a playful smile he sang “Sorry uncle”. The poor man avoided or maybe couldn’t bear to look in the eye of either of ours or our child’s.
Nik would throw his alphabet books on the floor and you ask him to pick it up he wouldn’t. He would throw a tantrum that he wouldn’t eat his lunch, mostly the only meal he has the whole day, and you ask him politely giving him all the baits under the sun and he still would come up with a firm, headstrong “epaaa”. He would hurl his hefty toys at his grandparents and you ask him to stop it and he would throw the next available brick at them. There have been uncountable moments where Niklesh would act obstinate and would drive both of us mad with impatience and the inner struggle to smack him square if not for all the parenting tips and assertions we have come across by professional child psychiatrists and like-minded friends. Sometimes ever so rarely it gets the better of me and I would strike him across his pudgy bum which he would tolerate and softly say with so much character in tone “Ammi epaa!” meaning ‘I don’t want you’.
The best Channa could devise was “the naughty corner”. The hinging - corner of the main door to our house where Nik would have to stand and wait for our clearance to come out following bad behaviour. First I was skeptical of the whole idea. Ok, you select a place; you call it a naught corner, but what is the assurance that my intractable 2 years- and- 5 months- old, would accept it as a punishment, better yet, would he stay there if you ask him to?
It worked wonderfully. Weird as it may sound, you threaten him that he will end up in the naughty corner, and he would check his attitude and behavior. But not too long before I noticed something very disturbing in his usual independent attitude. He started fearing doors. Any door. He started fearing the engravings of the colossal entrances to hotels and restaurants that we took him to. He feared Oval shapes. Because the door that he stands cornered at home has the engraving of a huge oval on it. I have now decided to slowly phase him out of the naughty corner concept that gave us the sense of satisfaction of discipline with Nik.
Nik is brilliant with colors and shapes. In his pyjamas, ready for bedtime he asked me to stay with him until he falls asleep. With a pantry-full of dirty dishes and un-brushed teeth, I was struggling the urge to shutdown myself as it is normally the case with being his bedmate. My fingers stumbled on a pink, plastic- coated paper clip lying on the bed and tried my tricks with it while Nik looked on. I straightened out the clip as much as I could in to a crooked rod and fashioned it in to an almost heart shape and waited for Nik to recognize it. “Heart” he said. I curved it in to an almost crescent and he said “Moon” I fumbled with it again and Nik said “ rectangle” identifying the shape with utmost ease. Then he took the plastic piece from my hand and showed me the kinks that it characteristically had when it was still in paper clip form, nonchalantly put the two ends together and said “Sri Lanka”. Try doing it yourself and see how a jaffna-less Sri Lanka emerges from the unsuspecting piece of wire-plastic ..
I watched my bright, naughty son in his sleep that night. His cherubic cheeks, thick black hair cut to no.0 for his comfort that made his facial features stand out distinctly. His lush long eye lashes curving upwards at the ends, his marked eyebrows, so black that it sets his fair smooth baby skin out so finely. Lips so pink and the snubbed nose that I never could make right with daily cream massages to the dismay of my mother and mother-in-law. They think he inherited it from his mother.. Me..I watched him in his sleep and made a mental toast, “here’s to me, to have been able to form this creation. Here’s to me who can put up with all his mischief throughout the day. Here’s to me for another identical day tomorrow and as long as I live!”
Here’s to all mothers struggling to stay psychologically afloat in their children’s varying stages of metamorphoses.
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