Crime & punishment

Some of you live in countries where corporal punishment is a major crime. But we still believe in the theory, "Even if you have only one child, you should beat him/her with an ulakka" (pestle, the long thick piece of wood used in our part of the country in olden times to grind grains). Though schools in Chennai avoid caning and other forms of torture, even mental ones, (though from what my kids say, I understand teachers do pull up extremely difficult or mischievous pupils by the ear or a light slap), domestic corporal punishments still help rear the kids in the right way. And at our home, we have inculcated in the kids a fear of the chooral-vadi, the bamboo cane that was a regular prescription in the schools I went to in Kerala.
Yesterday at lunchtime, maddened by a fight for the TV channels between the duo (one wanted to watch Mr Bean and the other something on Chutti TV), I wielded the chooral kashayam at Mira who has been getting too obstinate and bossy for our liking. Even otherwise, being the stronger of the two we punish her more than we do Ash. She refused to leave her perch on the diwan while the maid fed her lunch and spilled part of it on the sofa, much to the merriment of ants collecting food for a rainy day. And while I have been trying to make the kids learn to eat at the dining table, the maid somehow wants them to eat by hook or crook, and what better seats than the sofas in the drawing area where the television blares kids' programmes endlessly.
I won the seating contest. The maid was upset because her darling ward was in tears. Anyway Mira finished her lunch at the table, and Ash too.
And kids being kids, Mira forgot and forgave the punishment as I departed for work soon after. She planted a kiss on my cheek and asked me to return early.
And most nights as we look at our sleeping daughter, we rue punishing her for her rebelliousness and kiss her tenderly.