Children!

On Sunday morning, I walked the maid to the Church of God prayer hall in my colony not sure if she would enjoy the Tamil service. But she returned happy and chirpy since the pastor and his wife are Malloos and they were many from Kerala who attend the service which is right now Tamil and Malayalam combined until the construction of their new church next door is over.
As a result I babysat the kids while V went to church. In the evening, however, we attended as a family the anniversary prayer meeting and dinner of our area in the church premises. The food, partly Kerala Syrian Christian fare, was great. Ash was very itchy in the first half of the meeting and his dad had to take him out and away from the curious glances, but returned to watch the latter half.
The kids provided moments of mirth and embarassment. On seeing a balding young man behind him, Ash told his dad: "Look Appa, there stands another mottathala (bald head) like you!" While one bald head smiled apologetically, the other looked embarassed.
AshAnd when families who had stood out in attendance and other matters went up to receive prizes, he told his dad: "Vinod M.., see, they just called your name. Go get your gift". Ash's latest fascination is for stuff that comes gift-wrapped, so we had to keep his (and Mira's) Christmas gifts under our lil Xmas tree a week after Christmas. He was disappointed however that he missed Santa bringing it.
Mira, who had by then recovered from the previous day's food allergy rash, loudly wondered when I was going to receive a gift like the other grannies.
Ash's other recent queries are why the new maid is so small and why I cant take him to school on a scooter like David's mother does. That is his latest desire, and he is egging his dad to teach me the ropes of two-wheeler driving. Mira's desire is a water bottle like her classmate Domini's and she wants me to visit her class to have a look at it tomorrow.
How different from the days we grew up - we drank from the taps in school and never carried a waterbottle or anything that resembled a bottle; we had just steel tiffin boxes and aluminium cases/woven plastic bags (and later cloth bags) that served us for years until they gave away, and shoes that were mended until they could no longer stand the strain.