I am teacing my son to lose

My son's daycare has been conducting competitions for the year, first there was the fancy dress, then coloring contest and now the sports day is here. Every child must participate, in all events,so I could not choose to send my son to be 'the audience' for any event. As this went on, my son won a few prizes lost a few and dint seem to bother about winning or losing.

Lately the spirit of competition in him has hit a new high. He has to win in every game at home!!!. If he did not, he wept. "I won!" "I did not lose!"

Then it dawned on me that winning became more important to him than deserving to win.
I tried hard to understand the basis of this desire and then slowly I began to see that all of us have the desire to win. Win when we do, we know how to take the praises. We like the fact that we are being applauded. And when winning becomes a pattern, then we hate to lose. We fret, we dread, we let shame consume us when we lose. Losing affects morale, self confience and self dignity. When we lose we feel insulted and disappointed. In short most of us think that winning is more important than deserving to win.
He must learn to lose....., my son must learn to lose.
"I will win", he said this morning and I said I would be happier if he lost. He started whinning "but I will win, I will win". "What difference would it make if you lost", I asked. "Nothing will change, mum and dad will love you just the same, your teacher would teach all the stuff she teaches to the winner"- I tried to reason with him. And then I told him what Pierre De Coubertin said "it is not in winning but in participating there is the true spirit of sportsmanship". "So shake hands with the girl or boy who wins today and say well done!". "Run to win but be prepared to accept defeat by one better than you".
It seemed above his age to tell him that losing gives more reason for striving to win than winning itself. After losing we work towards winning, but after winning we hate to lose and that is bound to happen.

Someday my son will read Kipling's 'IF' and understand what I told him today.

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;...........................

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"

The Smiling Mad Man!!!!

Mad people have always intersted and intimidated me.
I have often wondered if to the mad the sane seemed just as mad. They seem to shake their heads endlessly and mutter to themselves always. Perhaps they are sorry for us -the so called sane.

In one of the bus-stops that I commonly used, was a mad man, a genial and unintimidating one. He saluted you and bowed so courteuosly, before he put out his hand for alms. His eyes and his smile where never vacant or meaningless. If you refused him money he did not curse!!!. This mad man did not seem to mutter too.

I watched in wonder as he used a drinking straw as a cigar holder and smoked his beedis away.

New-comers to the bus-stop tried to run away from him, but the others just accepted him as an intergral part of the bus-stop itself. Years went by and suddenly one day he disappeared!!!!!!. Many like me would ask around, 'what happened to that mad man?'. No one seemed to know. If he died I hope he died smiling and carefree as he lived.


I have moved to another city, but when at my home town, and when at the bus stop I still look around hopely for a familiar face- The face of the smiling mad man !!!!

AHhhhhhhhhhhhChu!!!!!

I am at the lift lobby waiting for for an elevator to open its doors. A string of people join me, all looking up for the lights atop the elevator doors to glow. Ting Tong and the elevator doors open. I step in first and then.... there is the fragrance of a rose, ah chocolate aroma next, wow the sweet scent of lavendar! What was that now, smelt like cheddar cheese :). Who's the dacoit!!!, I can smell musquito repelent.

I look around and find not people, but staues cast in stone, staring at nothing. What ever happened to the ears-stuck to the - mobile whisperers this morning ?. 'Are'nt your noses tickling people??????. Oh come on, rub your nose, sniff a little or least bat an eyelid- There are no fumes in here alright but there are purfumes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.', I yelled on the inside.

I am breathing hard, 'can we close the doors please' I say to myself. But not yet!!!.People are still walking in and it felt like I just walked under a lemon tree,then under an apple tree, then near a blue berry bush.
Boy!!! the doors shut and we start moving up.
The elevator stopped at the third floor, I step out and sneezed Ahh..ahhh... chhu!!. 'Bless you' said a kindly soul. I screamed within me"Bless the man that has to climb the 11 floors in the elevator". He will be SCENTOFFOCATED!!!!.

He left his best with me

City breds that live in joint families- a fast disappearing breed,I am one of them. Brought up in the heart of an industrial city, my sister and I lived with four uncles, an aunt, grandparents and a whole lot of visiting 'relatives', who walked in and out all through the year. Those where the days when visitors gave children fresh one rupee coins before they waved bye bye. The fun in the parents' resisting and the guest insisting and the child simply staring- it will soon be unheard off I am sure.

Despite all the talking,laughing and playing that was so much a part of the family, silence and mystery shrouded my Grandad. No one chit chatted with him, no one laughed with him, no one asked him questions, no one scolded him. The only thing I remember somebody doing ' with him' was to play chess. The lone friend who called on him was Mr. Singh, the only friend that called him up was S.R.Naidu.

He was an active man though- took a walk in the morning, prayed fervently, chopped wood for the fire, cycled to the store, read voraciously, smoked or chewed tobacoo a little, undertook frequent civil engineering surveys and slept a sound sleep.

My first interactions with him began when I was three and started going to Pre-KG. He walked me to, and from the school. Thus started for me an enduring relationship- one that grew stronger by the day and lasted 30 years. By the time I was seven, I was running to the petty shop to buy him cigarrettes and 'nizam lady' (chewable tobacco). In a year's time I had learnt the names and prizes of every brand of local cigaratte that existed then. He took my sister and I on a little trip to ooty when I was 10. He took us to a very unlikely children's spot. The church yard of St.Stephen's church ooty. The number of epitaphs I read on that one single day out number all the epitaphs I have read ever since. Then he showed me the most important tombstone there- the tombstone of Mrs. Henrietta Sullivan. John Sullivan was a British collector of coimbatore who founded the queen of hills in the 1800s.

When I turned 12 my grandfather told me "try and memorise Mathew chapter 5, 6 and 7, and whenever you do it I will give you a prize". I never promised him I would and have not done it till date. Wheezing struck be down badly when I was 16 and he told me "the power of the human mind is immense, keep telling yourself that you will recover and you will not worsen". He had introduced me to the concept of autosuggestion. Suddenly one day I asked every adult in the family, "when is grandad's birthday?", they said the did not know. So I walked up to him and asked him, he told me 'five days before yours'. Then for the next 12 years I called him on every one of his birthdays and he did the same to me.

During the five years of collegiate education, I visited him once every week. He had by then taken me for a dear friend and confederate. Within the locked doors of his tiny room week after week, he sang songs, told tales, shed tears and bragged victories. It was then I learnt that he had been a sheperd boy, tea estate laborer, trench digger, soldier, shikari and a draughtsman in the Highways department of India. I heard how he losts his mother at infancy and his dad at teenage. He very fondly told me about the woman who treated him, as a mother would treat her own child. In that tiny room I heard him confess his follies and defend some and got to know why he had two initials to his name.
During one of my weekly visits he said 'Hannahma I may leave many things to my sons, daughters and grandchildren, but I want to leave this with you- the book The Sermon on the mount by C.F. Andrews". As I read the book, I realised why he had asked me to memorise Mathew chapter 5,6, and 7.Those were the best days of our friendship.
A job took me away from my hometown and after a few more years, marriage took me to another state. One day news reached me that he had dementia and that parts of the family wanted him away at an institution. I went to my home town and went to his house, where I found him sleeping on the sofa. My aunts and uncles told me, you have to help him recognize you. I said "Thatha this is Hannah". He said "oh you've come, how have you been?". Then with no trace of dementia he explained to me how he fell ill, why they amputed one of his toes and how he was feeling then. The whole family was stunned and he never went to an institution.
My son was fortunate to have sat and played on his lap. After a trip to the UK, I heard that his memory was fading soon. Again I visited him and said "Thatha, Hannah". He asked me "so when did you return from England?". His brain was attempting to forget his errors I knew, and we called it dementia. A couple of months before he died, he visited my house- he rarely left his own house. He died a peaceful and sudden death. You could call it luck, but I know it was providential grace that I was in the city that day.
When his death certificate was to be applied for my family called me up to ask questions like what was his given name?, what was his date of birth ? and so on.
Then I knew that when he died, my dad and his siblilngs lost their dad, my grandma her husband, my cousins a grand dad, his relatives an uncle .
But I lost a friend. A dear and remarkable one.
I never visit his grave, I never will, for he is not in there. But whenever I remember my grandad, I pick up The Sermon on the Mount and read it.

Then I tell myself, he left his richest possession with me.