It started out harmless enough – a way to keep little Aakash in good humor [read ‘NOT-bawling-when-mommy-is-away’]. Other friends who are parents said it was over-rated and takes too much time, effort, and imagination. Why resort to it when you can use DVR and put Caillou in endless loop or have a turbo-charged McQueen or a benign Thomas do 273 laps on the toy track?
Then there was my wife’s and our parents’ mistrust [and my own misgivings] if I had taken this enterprise a certain way. That mistrust [and those misgivings] stem from my stunning lack of ‘knowledge’ about Hindu mythology. I put knowledge in quotes because as with some other things such as names, people, and places, I delude myself that it’s more to do with remembering – or not remembering, in my case. That I’m in fact a good Hindu parent who knows all there is to know about Indian gods and goddesses and other assorted Hindu myths. That using the power of stories handed down generations; I can somehow make my son a good TamBrahm boy [and myself a better human being in the process]. But alas, that’s as untrue as it is true that Rukmini was Krishna’s queen [before you go Ooooh, disclaimer that I had to verify even that simple fact with Usha]. And then of course Usha. Why even mess with that genre of story-telling when the other parent is a present-day incarnation of Ved Vyas? At the risk of being dismissed as both a skeptic and a sexist, I have always found it difficult to reconcile that a male could be such a prodigious story-teller.
So anyway – get to the point; stop beating around the whole damn forest. Right? Much as I made my case against it, this blog is about why I still consider myself a story-teller and how my son and I have had hours of eye-popping enjoyment around it.
Take last night for example. After a whole day jumping, running, and sliding at Chicago’s Winter Wonderfest, the moral thing would have been to feed and tuck Aakash in. But then there was a sleepy plead for a story which I could have easily ignored, that’s how drowsy he was. Before I knew it though [and much to Usha’s chagrin] and as I was making it up, both Aakash and I were going ooh and aah over this tall tale of superheroes behind the Haagen Dazs counter at Navy Pier. Spiderman was using his web to pull together butter-pecan, vanilla, and strawberry mounds to concoct a tall ice-cream cone stack for Aakash. Superman was zipping at super-sonic speed from store to store to bring the missing ingredients for his friend Atharva’s double chocolate chip ice-cream. And in the absence of coffee, Transformers used milk, sugar and tons of magic accompanied by lights and hissing to produce a cup of cappuccino for Amma.
My favorite [and I have a hunch Aakash’] stories are simple enough and sans super-heroes. Those are the ones where I put Aakash and a group of his friends in an adventure. It’s slice-of-life but adventure for them because they’re independently doing what they’d normally be accompanied by adults for. Such as taking a vacation to India. It’s only Aakash, Rishi, Spruha, and Neela that are doing it – NO parents allowed. Rishi calls American Taxi to book the cab to the airport, Aakash is in charge of all their passports, Spruha and Neela the more responsible task of talking to the authorities during check-in and immigration. They [I love it even more when Aakash’ friends are around to hear the story too] get such a kick out of it, it’s not funny. {Look around you, kids of Aakash’ age are always asking what they would and can do when they are 19 yrs old, 34 yrs, amusingly 99 yrs; and you’ll know why it’s so}. To continue the story - when the kiddy gang is at several thousand feet, what do they see flying outside the plane but a character in red and blue. Who then flies in and offers to give each of the kids a joy-ride on his back, zipping alongside but faster than the plane. Super-heroes can be ubiquitous, eh?
Many stories of course have a Wonka-esque quality to it. Those are the stories replete with roads made out of orange jelly, houses made of chocolate pudding, and dogs made of lick-able and likeable candy.
And then there are the stories which may have you going – what kind of twisted parent are you? It may be because Usha and I are such big fans of Lord of the Rings that Aakash has taken a fancy to the character of Gollum. [I know, I know. A big apology to model parenthood]. These adventure stories have the kids being stalked and chased by Gollum only to have them outwit the ogre in the end. This is also a call-to-action or maybe call-to-imagination as it were as I ask each kid to think [aka Home Alone] of a ruse or idea to trap the evil Gollum.
There's a personal, very selfish cause-and-effect I have surmised. I think I owe my renewed interest in writing to the creative bursts from story-telling.
What use, otherwise, these tall tales? I shall not launch into long-winded support of it. Only to say you know there’s wonderful payback when the art is used against you – “I can’t finish my lunch Appa. Gollum is coming to the kid’s library and Superman and my friends have to make him go away”.
Then there was my wife’s and our parents’ mistrust [and my own misgivings] if I had taken this enterprise a certain way. That mistrust [and those misgivings] stem from my stunning lack of ‘knowledge’ about Hindu mythology. I put knowledge in quotes because as with some other things such as names, people, and places, I delude myself that it’s more to do with remembering – or not remembering, in my case. That I’m in fact a good Hindu parent who knows all there is to know about Indian gods and goddesses and other assorted Hindu myths. That using the power of stories handed down generations; I can somehow make my son a good TamBrahm boy [and myself a better human being in the process]. But alas, that’s as untrue as it is true that Rukmini was Krishna’s queen [before you go Ooooh, disclaimer that I had to verify even that simple fact with Usha]. And then of course Usha. Why even mess with that genre of story-telling when the other parent is a present-day incarnation of Ved Vyas? At the risk of being dismissed as both a skeptic and a sexist, I have always found it difficult to reconcile that a male could be such a prodigious story-teller.
So anyway – get to the point; stop beating around the whole damn forest. Right? Much as I made my case against it, this blog is about why I still consider myself a story-teller and how my son and I have had hours of eye-popping enjoyment around it.
Take last night for example. After a whole day jumping, running, and sliding at Chicago’s Winter Wonderfest, the moral thing would have been to feed and tuck Aakash in. But then there was a sleepy plead for a story which I could have easily ignored, that’s how drowsy he was. Before I knew it though [and much to Usha’s chagrin] and as I was making it up, both Aakash and I were going ooh and aah over this tall tale of superheroes behind the Haagen Dazs counter at Navy Pier. Spiderman was using his web to pull together butter-pecan, vanilla, and strawberry mounds to concoct a tall ice-cream cone stack for Aakash. Superman was zipping at super-sonic speed from store to store to bring the missing ingredients for his friend Atharva’s double chocolate chip ice-cream. And in the absence of coffee, Transformers used milk, sugar and tons of magic accompanied by lights and hissing to produce a cup of cappuccino for Amma.
My favorite [and I have a hunch Aakash’] stories are simple enough and sans super-heroes. Those are the ones where I put Aakash and a group of his friends in an adventure. It’s slice-of-life but adventure for them because they’re independently doing what they’d normally be accompanied by adults for. Such as taking a vacation to India. It’s only Aakash, Rishi, Spruha, and Neela that are doing it – NO parents allowed. Rishi calls American Taxi to book the cab to the airport, Aakash is in charge of all their passports, Spruha and Neela the more responsible task of talking to the authorities during check-in and immigration. They [I love it even more when Aakash’ friends are around to hear the story too] get such a kick out of it, it’s not funny. {Look around you, kids of Aakash’ age are always asking what they would and can do when they are 19 yrs old, 34 yrs, amusingly 99 yrs; and you’ll know why it’s so}. To continue the story - when the kiddy gang is at several thousand feet, what do they see flying outside the plane but a character in red and blue. Who then flies in and offers to give each of the kids a joy-ride on his back, zipping alongside but faster than the plane. Super-heroes can be ubiquitous, eh?
Many stories of course have a Wonka-esque quality to it. Those are the stories replete with roads made out of orange jelly, houses made of chocolate pudding, and dogs made of lick-able and likeable candy.
And then there are the stories which may have you going – what kind of twisted parent are you? It may be because Usha and I are such big fans of Lord of the Rings that Aakash has taken a fancy to the character of Gollum. [I know, I know. A big apology to model parenthood]. These adventure stories have the kids being stalked and chased by Gollum only to have them outwit the ogre in the end. This is also a call-to-action or maybe call-to-imagination as it were as I ask each kid to think [aka Home Alone] of a ruse or idea to trap the evil Gollum.
There's a personal, very selfish cause-and-effect I have surmised. I think I owe my renewed interest in writing to the creative bursts from story-telling.
What use, otherwise, these tall tales? I shall not launch into long-winded support of it. Only to say you know there’s wonderful payback when the art is used against you – “I can’t finish my lunch Appa. Gollum is coming to the kid’s library and Superman and my friends have to make him go away”.
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