Of Fairytales and Nursery Rhymes in the 21st Century - Poem 1: Jack and Jill

Original poem:

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

To fetch a pail of water,

Jack fell down & broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after

Modern day concerns:

■      Social Service & Child Affairs: Why were Jack and Jill sent unsupervised to the hill? Who is responsible for the accident - their parents or the well owner or the Government which is supposed to take care of the hill?

■      Opposition party: The Government did not provide water in their homes. That’s why Jack and Jill were forced to go to the hill. If the Government had done its duty, we would not have seen this unfortunate condition of Jack

■      Minorities spokesperson: We are of course, concerned about Jack. However, our first question is, ‘why was Jack wearing a crown?’. Are the upper-castes allowed to do this? Would the incident have been reported if Jack was NOT an upper-caste boy?

■      Woman activist: Was Jill forced to go to the hill with Jack? If so, lets cut off Jack’s xxxx. Serves such perverts right!

■      Bollywood aficionado: I don’t watch English movies. So I really don’t know about the ‘Jack & Jill affair’. Ask me about Kareena, Karishma, Katrina, Kameena….

Revised poem:

Jack and his sister Jill,

Voluntarily & with permission from parents,

Went up the hill to play,

Due to no fault of the Government,

But solely due to temperament,

Jack slipped and hurt his head,

So did Jill and she landed up dead!

■      Poet’s concerns: Where is the lilting tune? The words are so difficult!

■      All in chorus: Shut up! This is the ‘politically correct’ poem.

■      Lone dissenter: But Jill is dead – we cant sit quietly and let this happen. Lets hold a candle march to protest against our dear ‘Jilli-behen’. What a fine girl was she!

Lesson 8: Filling Time 'Productively'

One of the most critical questions that I always grapple with on weekends or when on family vacations is ‘how to help my kids spend their time in a constructive, creative and productive manner’. This involves coming up with all sorts of games, activities, books and trying to make sure they are not bored at all. When on vacations, I am always inquiring about the kids play area or activities that kids can do for several hours that do not involve i-Pads, mobile phones, video games and TV. I had almost started priding myself on my ability to keep coming up with newer stuff for the kids to do.

On a particular weekend, I was getting really worried and stressed – I had not found anything for the kids to do. I was fretting and doing all kinds of random things like searching the internet for new activities in the area, reading blogs for inspiration etc. My wife was relaxed – I asked her, “What will the kids do in the afternoon? We don’t have anything for them. I don’t want them to watch TV”. My wife almost ignored me – seeing that my agitation was just increasing, she said, “They will find something to do. You don’t need to worry”. Really??? I was thinking how is that possible – they will get so bored. They wont have a good time at all. Seeing that I was still flustered, my wife said, “Why do you think that their time is your responsibility every time? If they don’t find something, they will face the consequences i.e., feel bored.”

After that, I gave up trying to ‘plan their free time’. In the afternoon, even as my wife slept, I could not contain myself. So I peeped into the kids play room and was totally shocked. Ehaan was playing with his toy animals – he had organized a party for them. Asya was writing a ‘family story’. They were so engrossed in their own games that they did not even notice me coming in and then, leaving. Since then, I have given up trying to find things to do for them every time. Of course, we still try to do new things and have fun-learn in novel ways but my stress has reduced. As I have stopped doing this for them always, I have also observed how they come up with stuff on their own –

■      Observing stones and leaves of different kinds, trying to paint the stones or draw faces on them

■      Cut paper into all kinds of shapes and create a ‘parallel paper universe’

■      Watch a spider for 1 hour without any interference, just observation

■      Clicking photos using the selfie stick and then arranging them into a file titled ‘Family’

■      Coloring anything that does not move

■      Nail-polish (for boy and girl)

■      Listening to the noises that utensils of different shapes and sizes make

■      Pillow-fights (and other similarly violent and potentially ‘cryable’ activities)

■      Jumping on the bed, falling down and cracking up in laugher

■      Telling the same joke 100 times (favourite one: Shall I tell you a joke? Your bum broke. Ha ha ha!)

My reflection: Kids are creative and resilient. They find things to occupy their time within the constraints set for them – this is an important part of their growing up process. They learn to take responsibility for the most important resource in their life – time! I think in today’s times, adults do 2 mistakes – 1) Try to ensure that every second of the kids’ waking time is utilized productively and meaningfully (and hence you have the 4+ classes/trainings per day – after all, the kid has to become an Einstein, Sachin Tendulkar and VS Naipaul all rolled into one, while still being able to play the piano and excel at public speaking) or (2) Ignore the child’s time – better still, give a gadget in their hand and let them do whatever they want.

Don’t know which of the two is the lesser evil – I have seen tired kids coming home from yet another coaching dying to take rest only to be given a glass of milk and told to bugger off for the next training. I have also seen kids at restaurant tables or in flights glued to their parents’ mobile phone or iPad paying no attention to the world around them. A kid I know cannot even sit on the potty seat without his iPad in hand. It is almost as if the scenario in the movie, Matrix is panning out, just that instead of tubes into our brains, we have devices in our hands which are controlling us.

Lesson 7 - Are 'traditional subjects' still relevant in the education of today and tomorrow?

My daughter loves to paint – she is quite good at it but most importantly, she enjoys it. Once we took her to an arts gallery and she saw lots of paintings. Below each painting, there was the name of the artist and besides it was the price tag. She enquired about it – I explained that these artists sold paintings to earn money. Innocently, she asked, “Baba, why don’t they work like you do in an office?”. I replied that arts and painting was their ‘work’ and that it was the means to earning money for them, just like what I did in my office. Her eyes lit up and I could sense the wheels turning in that little, yet fertile brain of hers. I braced myself for what was coming.

Over the next few days, she started ‘selling’ her paintings – meaning, she started putting price tags on her work and insisted on holding impromptu exhibitions for guests who came home. The tags had no correlation to anything. Some paintings were for INR 300 and others were for INR 2000. She started talking to guests and tried to sell her stuff – during this process, she got asked questions like, “Why is this painting costlier than the other one, if it is small? Shouldn’t smaller be less expensive?”, “This painting has more colors and must have been difficult to paint – so why is it priced the same as the other one?”.

As she was answering these questions, she started adjusting the paintings’ price tags -  for things like how beautiful the painting looked, how large/small was the canvas, how much time/effort it took for her to make and what mediums/ colors she used. After a few more days, she started including things like the cost of the canvas and the colors used as a reference point in determining the cost. Later, I saw that she was changing the price tags – when I asked her the reason behind it, she said that a few paintings were not getting sold and she thinks it is because of the price – so she was reducing it for some paintings. Finally, I was amazed one day when I asked her the cost of a house she had created. She replied, “Who is buying it? If it is you, then the painting is INR 2000, if it is Poonam Tai (our maid), then it is INR 200”.

I said, “Asya, why should the painting price differ based on who is buying it?” to which she responded, “I know you have the money but she does not. So if she wants something, I will reduce the price for her.” In just a matter of days, she had learnt so many things on her own – economics & the law of supply and demand, behavioural sciences, demonstrating empathy, behavioural economics, mathematics and of course, arts! I did not think it was possible for a child to learn all these multi-disciplinary concepts in such a short span of time through the medium of painting – it was almost like several business school courses crammed into one, albeit with a lot of underlying practical edge to it.

My reflection: It is very difficult to pinpoint what and how children will learn through their life experiences. What was meant to be a simple arts lesson, devolved into a multi-dimensional learning situation! As I reflect on the education needed for tomorrow, I think it will be imperative to break down the silos of ‘subjects’ – in language class, you learn languages and in Maths, you do Maths. This is so archaic – through gymnastics, my daughter is learning geometry (shapes like pyramids to stand on each other, physics (principles of balance and weight) and biology (importance of stretching, need for nutrition). How I wish there were schools which just had ‘time-slots’ throughout the day and the actual content was determined very differently – based on say, a song that was being played on the road, or from the fact that a kid got hurt and blood was spilt on the floor. Such experiences are far more memorable for kids and can be used as learning moments for ‘lifelong education’ rather than the artificially created constructs taught in a structured manner.

This also reminded me of the epic book, Totto-chan (a must read for all parents with school-going kids and all teachers), by Tetsuoko Kuroyanagi, wherein the Headmaster teaches kids based on actual events. For example, he tells them about flora and fauna from different surroundings by asking them to get ‘one thing from the sea and one thing from the hills’ for lunch and the class has a great discussion on the sea and hills! Similarly, a walk through the garden after lunch helps the kids not only to digest food but learn about flowers and plants in a playful environment. He also uses a ‘visit to a ghost temple’ as a means to remove the fear of ghosts and demons from the minds of kids. The Headmaster truly redefined what ‘teaching and learning are’ – the best learning happens outside the formal classroom, textbook and maybe even outside the school?

Lesson 6: The Past is History, Present a ‘real present’

I (think) I am a very patient person. It takes a lot to hassle and anger me. Yet, both my kids are able to do this quite successfully every once in a while. And this ‘success’ implies that all logical entreaties, outpourings of love, assertive statements to get them to comply are of no use. We have reached the final stage – that of anger and shouting or even more, of using physical punishment (often a slap on the bum or getting them to do 50 sit-ups or 50 jumping jacks).

Now in this final stage, both kids use various strategies to get me to dial down the escalation level (e.g., start wailing till the neighbors ring the bell, change their face to reflect the innocence of 50 rabbits, apologize profusely, run to their grandmother). However, I don’t relent – I insist on going through with the ‘stated punishment’ and I win (most times) since I am an adult and they are still kids. After getting beaten or after a set of sit-ups, they cry or sulk for 10 mins max.

What happens afterwards is truly miraculous – they come back to me and ask, “Papa, will you read this book to us?” or “Shall we play [xx] game?”. The impact of the punishment and its aftermath is over almost as if it never happened. They are fully in the zone and have moved forward – whereas, I am still thinking about my behavior – feeling guilty partially, feeling a sense of remorse or even vindication at having corrected a wrong! So I am still caught up in the past, whereas they have moved ahead in life…

This is true not just about the interactions with me but also amongst themselves. In one moment, the two siblings are each other’s worst enemies, pulling hair, taunting and teasing each other. A few minutes later, all that is forgotten and they are the best of buddies, collaborating to make something or playing contentedly in silence. By the time, I decide to intervene in a tense situation between them, the situation is normalized as if the crisis had never happened!

My reflection: As adults, we are living a large part of our life in the past, sometimes the past is years old (often decades). Enmities and grudges of yore are nursed to this day – children just look ahead. Even the immediate past is but a memory for them – and yet, as we grow big, we forget ‘how to forget’ and learn to ‘keep scores’ for eternity.

In the Hindu scriptures, one of the tenets is that God is like a child and that children are reflections of God. Of course, this has several interpretations – children are innocent and guileless like God, children are pure like God etc. One of the most profound concepts, going beyond some of these obvious interpretations is that Divinity is all about ‘living in the present’ – not sulking about the past nor agonizing about the future. And this is exactly what kids do! How I wish I am able to let go – and more importantly, how I hope that my kids learn to keep doing what they are doing now – LIVING THE PRESENT MOMENT!

Enjoy the struggle as much as the result

Ehaan loves to run – and boy, does he run fast! For him, running gives him a sense of freedom and joy (I think!). He also participates in lots of races at school and in the track-and-field class that he goes to in the evenings.

Whenever I go and watch the race, I am always urging him to run faster. If there is a ‘themed race’(e.g., back-and-forth, relay etc), I often yell ‘strategies and tactics’ at him so that he can win. He never listens to any of it. After the race, in case he has won, I congratulate him. In case he has lost, I often ask him (stupidly) things like “why didn’t you run fast?”, “where was your focus?”, “you could have run faster in the closing 20 mtrs” – essentially, observations which are correct but totally useless to him. I am amazed by the responses he gives me as follows:

■      “[competitor who won] ran so fast – zoooooooooom”

■      “I had such a good time. Can we come again tomorrow to run?”. “Can we come again tomorrow to run?” My response was, “No, tomorrow there is no race.” He retorts, almost surprised, “So what if there is no race. The ground and track will still be here. So we can run.”

■      “I saw you cheering me – who was the other Papa beside you?”

■       “Sir clapped so loudly. I heard him shouting my name”

■      “Who runs faster – Flash, Lightning McQueen or me?” I think Lighting McQueen since he is a car”

It’s almost as if he has shut me and my random instructions out completely. He never focuses on coming first, though I know in the heart-of-hearts, he wants to win. Not because the trophy is important but because ‘his Papa says so’. Or (sadly), it is because ‘Papa’s behavior is different when I come first and when I don’t’.

My reflection: We make kids aware of the fact that ‘winning is more important than losing’ as opposed to getting them to ‘Enjoy the moment – outcomes are what they are’. No wonder then, that in later life, they fall prey to competitive pressures – they have lost the joys of the journey and only the destination matters. Now as parents, this does raise lots of questions around ‘is it wrong to push for excellence’ and ‘mere competing does not make kids tough for the eventual big-bad world out there, ‘improvement is critical – hence criticism is important so that the kids know what to improve on’

Several years back, a friend proudly told me his strategy to push his kid – whenever the daughter would come home with her grades, he would just question her WHY. For example, if she came back with an A, he would ask, “Why not A+?” If she came back with an A+, his question was “Why not first 5 in class?”. If she came first in school, his question was, “Why not first across schools?”. He felt he was constantly pushing his daughter towards becoming a better version of herself. Few years later, I heard the news that his daughter tried to commit suicide after she had gotten through her medical entrance. Reason – she had not scored high enough to get into the ‘most prestigious branch of medicine at the most prestigious institute’ but could only get the ‘2^nd best branch at the most prestigious institute’. She felt like a failure in her own eyes since that’s what her father had conditioned her into – NEVER BE SATISFIED, KEEP TRYING HARDER…. BUT TO WHAT END

Lesson 4: Fear and the art of 'Nike-ing' it

My son is very afraid of water, or atleast was till sometime back. Actually, this is an understatement. He used to hate water – even water splashed on his face would bring tears to his eyes. His sister, on the other hand, is a very good swimmer and can do all kinds of acrobatics and strokes in water. And boy! She loves to show this off to her parents and relatives, especially in front of her brother to hog all the accolades.

My son realized that every time a swimming coach (or his father) push him to swim, they will invariably make him put his head in the water and force him to take out bubbles inside. He used to howl a lot and used all kinds of tactics to avoid it (e.g., crying in advance, promising to do a lot of other things in return for not having to put his head in water) but no luck. More than me, his swimming coach kept pushing him to do it since that is the ‘right way to swim’.

In a matter of weeks, he started doing it for 5 seconds at first, then 10, then 15 secs and now for over half a minute. He is still as afraid of putting his head in water since he has yet to master the technique but he just ‘does it’. He knows resistance is futile and has now trained himself to do it before anybody tells him. He still shakes when water is splashed on his face during bath but instead of crying, he smiles and laughs it off, almost saying, “Bring it on, I am not scared”.

What goes for swimming goes for other things too – he does not like to eat healthy food and prefers junk (pizza, pasta, chocolates). However, given that he is grossly underweight, on the advice of doctors, we had to give him one boiled egg very day at breakfast. On the first day, he threw a massive tantrum that shook the house but he was forced to eat it. The second day, he tried to demonstrate retching and also vomited – but we fed him another one. When he refused to eat the egg, we refrained from giving him anything else. For over 4 hours, he starved himself – and then, he went into the kitchen and asked for ‘his boiled egg’. Next day on, we had no complaints at all. And now, he actually looks forward to his egg. He has started linking eggs to his favourite super-heroes – “How many eggs does Hulk eat each day to become strong?”, “Does Thor eat more eggs than Captain America?” “How can Flash run so fast if he does not eat any eggs? If he eats eggs, then why is he so thin?”. Since comics have come into the mix, we were rest assured that eggs wont be a problem henceforth.

My reflection: Kids seem to be able to expand their comfort zone so easily through various ways – an uncanny sense of ‘realism’ (or inevitability) seems to be amongst the top one. They do not over-think it nor do they keep reliving the same fear indefinitely. As adults, we are nowhere close to exploring things outside of our zone – well, for kids, like Nike, they ‘just do it’. This often reminds me of the various motivational themes like ‘Don’t have a Plan B’- so that Plan A succeeds since there is no choice.

I was reminded of the story of the great Maratha warrior, Tanaji Malusare’s uncle, Suryaji from the stories of Shivaji, the great king. Tanaji was a brave soldier who sacrificed his life trying to win back the fort of Kondhana from the Mughals. So long as Tanaji was alive, it seemed that the numeric odds of 5:1 (5 Mughals for every Maratha soldier) did not bother his troops. No longer did the news of Tanaji’s death spread, than his troops started fleeing and dropping weapons. It was at that very time that Suryaji (who was also Tanaji’s no.2 man) stood up and announced that the path to retreat did not exist – he had cut off the ropes which the Marathas had used to climb the Kondhana fort in stealth. So the only way out was ‘death or by defeating the enemies’. Faced with no choice, the Maratha army fought like tigers and defeated the Mughals. Like my son said, “If you have no choice, you will have to do it. And if you have to do it, you may as well enjoy it”!

Lesson 3: The Answer lies in the Question

My kids love the iPad. They love to watch a lot of TV. They like to eat a lot of junk food. They know several ways to ask for these – sometimes, it is a ‘reward for good behavior’, at other times it is a guilt trip (“You were away for so long and now you are tired and want to sleep – atleast let me watch TV”) and sometimes it is just an irrational demand (“If you want me to do X… then I need to play on the iPad”). They have learnt this behavior from their surroundings – watching other kids keep playing on the phones, PS2 and endless Temple (or Ninja) runs.

Now, my wife and I are both strict and yet considerate (or so we like to think and believe!). We have explained to them the drawbacks of too much TV, too much iPad and too much junk food. We had tons of conversations on the pros-cons of these issues – some of these debates lasted for minutes (ended by a loud wailing) and others lasted for hours on end. Neither side wanted to give up and we were at a quandary as to how to get our kids to ‘comply without using a loud voice or tough hands’. What amazed us was the kinds of questions our kids asked us during these debates (and they must have harassed us with hundreds of these) –

■      If TV is bad, why do you watch [favorite serial season X] at night? Lets measure who watches more TV – us, grandpa or you?

■      If iPad is bad, why does everyone we know have not one but 2-3 iPads? On vacations, we don’t get to take our iPad but [xx, a close friend’s son] always gets his

■      You tell us too much junk food is not good for our health and still, we saw our family doctor in McDonalds with his family. How is that possible?

■      Why does grandma watch her serials for 2 hours every day and we are not allowed to do what she does ONLY on this matter? Why don’t you put similar restrictions on grandma – she watches 2 serials every day…

■      Why are you glued to your mobile phone for so long but we are not allowed the iPad? If the mobile is good, then why not the iPad? Actually, the iPad is larger – so it is less harmful to the eyes

■      Why is playing on the Nintendo PlayStation (even an action game which involves moving the body vigorously) not like exercise? We can play tennis, boxing, running and even skip rope on the PS2 – then we wont need to go to the playground

■      Why is watching news channels “good” but watching cartoons “bad”? We are also inspired by seeing super-heroes do good deeds – is that wrong?

■      Is good or bad decided by who is doing it? Or by what is being done? So, if Papa talks a lot on the phone and so do I (kiddos), it must be equally bad or good

Of course, we tried to push back using the logic of ‘everything has to be done in moderation’, ‘not everything adults do is good for kids’ and ‘there is a right place and time for everything’. Our kids then not only started complying and ‘doing things the right way’ but also over time, turned the tables and created home rules (incl. for us), like  

■      No TV during dinner for Mama-Papa also

■      No mobile phone when kids want to play with Mama-Papa; concept of mobile-free hour

■      Distinguish between iPad for entertainment and iPad for education. The time on the two is NOT fungible

■      De-stressing involves cuddling and not switching on the remote

■      Equality between movie time for adults and movie time for kids

My reflection: Engaging in questions (however uncomfortable) enables kids to learn and imbibe at a different level and also helps them create their own logical system. Now, technology and its usage gives rise to so many questions and yet, it is imperative to engage in dialogue with kids. They have the right to question various things, especially when the answers to many of them are going to form the basis of several foundational values in their life e.g., balance over extremes, questioning is important – answers may not be to your liking but the right to questions is a basic one. On a different note, how I wish I had asked more questions in my childhood, rather than focusing on finding the best answers for questions asked by others!