Once when I ended a theological argument with the sweeping statement, “God can do everything,” my son mischievously said, “God can’t do one thing, which man can do.”
“What’s that wise guy,” I asked.
“Pray to God,” he answered smugly.
When I gave him a blank look, he continued, “We can pray to God can’t we? But I don’t think God can pray to himself!”

***

My son has a priceless concept of Action Replays in real life. Anything you missed him doing or he did in school is enacted out in a painstakingly slow action replay from different angles.
Once when he was playing cricket with his friends and batting, an argument broke out on whether the ball had hit the stumps or not. “Wait,” he told his friends, “let me show you the action replay.” He did such a convincing action replay of the ball just missing the stumps by a whisker, that his friends actually believed him and he was declared not out unanimously.

***

He made me find out on the Net the name of the largest dinosaur that ever walked on this planet. When I told him, he ran to his mother and said, “Jaldi khana do, mere pet main sauroposeidons daud rahe hain!” (Give me food fast, there are sauroposeidons running in my stomach!)

***
I was watching a song of Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore, when my son asked, “Who are these people?” I told him that one was Akshay Kumar’s father-in-law and the other was Saif Ali Khan’s mother. He looked at me and said incredulously, “No way!” He doesn’t understand how that can be possible. But after that day, every old movie is starring Kareena Kapoor’s grandfather or Sunny Deol’s father or Ranbir Kapoor’s mother… If a yesteryear’s star is not related to one in today’s Bollywood world, he finds that pretty odd.

***

After I explained him all about cloning, the only thing he said was, “When I was born, why didn’t you make a clone of me? He could have done my homework while I could play all the time!”

***

© Sunil Rajguru

• It was Children’s Day, so I decided to take care of my son’s every whim. Video Arcade Games. Pizza. Toy. The usual Pandering Stuff that any Suffering Parent will understand. But by evening, I was fed up as he and his friends were driving me up the wall.
On what felt like his thousandth request, I lost it and yelled, “I’ve had it with you rotten people.”
My son looked up, smiled and said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “Well father, today happens to be Rotten People’s Day so you’ll have to continue listening to us…” and promptly went on to his next demand.

***

• My son says that we have a Bigg Boss House. My Wife: Bigg Boss. My Son: Little Boss. Me: Contestant.

***

• On seeing a road sign that said No Free Left Turn:
“Do have to pay money if we turn left?”

***

• He first fought with us trying to convince us that there was such a thing as a tooth fairy. We relented and he kept his broken tooth under his pillow and as expected, we had to replace it with money.
In the evening when his friends came, he yelled at them:
“Hey dudes! I sold my broken tooth to my parents for two hundred Rupees!”

***

• When the train journey just seemed to be going on and on leaving him very tired and sleepy….
“Dad, we are not living right now, we are just surviving, right?”

***

© Sunil Rajguru

• Question of the Son: AFTER getting the Nobel Peace Prize, can one do as much violence as one wants?

• My son says that it’s necessary for small kids to scream every now and then for no reason to reduce the stress in their life…

• “Son, whatever goes up, must come down”… “But Papa, that doesn’t hold true in space, right?” Sigh! Today’s kids: Try telling them anything at your own risk.

• My son calls me Tiger! Then he adds the National Geographic fact that tigers sleep about 20 hours a day and are irritable and angry during their waking hours.

© Sunil Rajguru

My son hates sitting and watching TV. No, it’s not what you think. He likes TV, but he hates sitting. Even if you tied him up on the sofa, he’d probably break free like Houdini. This is how he watches TV: He dances and waves his arms, running from one end of the room to another, eyes firmly glued to the TV. No matter how far or near he is; there’s an invisible thread running from his eyes to the TV screen.

Then there’s the beanbag. He keeps it in front of the TV and uses it as a Drop Zone: Jumping and falling on it non-stop. (Even his small friends have perfected that art) The beanbag has been repaired endless times. If it had any legs and life, it would have run away long ago. The rectangle in front of the TV is an irresistible playground that gets activated once you put on the idiot box.

Now all this makes my poor wife quite dizzy, especially the Hopping Maneouvre. That’s when he does a hopping marathon all over the room, till my wife can take it no more. So it would be apt to say that my son loves playing and watching TV. I should do a YouTube commercial “Walk when you watch” (TV) much like the “Walk when you talk” campaign.

While all this is fine (at least he’s not a couch potato, but a Jumping Potato), I dreaded the thought of taking him to the movie hall. How would he sit in one place for hours on end? Wouldn’t he get quite fidgety? In his fifth year of existence on this Earth, I decided to brave it and take him, just father and son. I was pretty apprehensive, I must say. All my life when I watched movies in halls, I was the first person to glare at parents of noisy/crying children and even indicate that they leave the hall if they couldn’t shut them up. Here was my bad karma ready to do a rebound and come down on me like a ton of bricks.

I failed to convince my son how watching an animation movie on a big screen was better than TV, but he agreed to come along as the multiplex was housed in his favorite mall. At the entrance to the hall, he asked me, “Do we really have to go in?” I’ve never seen a kid that less interested. Once inside he looked around and said, “So this is it, eh? Why is this place so dark and gloomy?” He then proceeded to run and slide all over the place. I lost my breath as I tried to keep up with him. (I don’t know why I bother)

“People will protest. They’ll kick us out of this place.”

“You always say that, but no-one ever says anything.”

I grabbed hold of his hand and said, “Time to go in.”

“Do we really have to go in?” he repeated.

Once inside he said, “This place is even darker and gloomier.” He then proceeded to run up and down the giant steps. This time, I exercised my will power and ignored him. When the movie finally started, I grabbed hold him and made him sit next to me. It lasted for maybe a minute. He was off again. I whispered loudly at him and stopped as a few people glared angrily at me. I watched helplessly as he started arranging the fallen head cloths of all the empty seats (and there were many of them!). No one seemed to notice or mind as he went past them in his marathon arranging expedition all the while saying loudly, “What a cinema hall! Nothing is in its right place.” (His grandmother’s strict fussiness for cleanliness and order fully coming to the fore)

I decided to brave it again and dragged him next to me. This time I succeeded for almost 5 seconds. He saw that one of the exits had been chained and locked. He ran to it, grabbed hold of them and started screaming on the top of his voice, “Let me out! Let me out!” This would have been a very cute scene at home and a heart-rending scene in a tragedy movie, but here, I was sure that we would be thrown out. Funnily the guard didn’t bat an eyelid and everyone else continued watching the movie in ignorance bliss. I hadn’t been to a hall for a couple of years. Had things changed? Were people more tolerant nowadays?

Then Praise the Lord! He finally decided to sit next to me. And I soon regretted it. It was “A question a second time”. While I still manage to handle his questions, the problem is that they would begin with a shrill and loud “Papa!” (Reminded me of the time when he did the only solo act of his Montessori class on a stage. He tapped the mike and found it to be off and screamed “Papa! The mike isn’t working!” just as it was put on!) And this time people did start staring at us, but more out of amusement than anger. When I felt that my head was about to explode, I whispered threats in his ear. He kept quiet but had an amused look on his face.

I guess he went to his next plan and started laughing at the top of his voice at every dialogue. He laughed and laughed and laughed and soon I couldn’t hear a single dialogue. Imagine a large dark cinema hall with everyone sitting in pin drop silence and one solitary child in the centre erupting in shrill laughter during a serious scene. The cringing father sitting next to him is me… (And still no-one threw us out)

Luckily it was interval time. I told him firmly that we were going home thanks to his behaviour. He looked at me condescendingly and said, “I never wanted to come here in the first place. You dragged me!”

When later his grandmother asked him how the movie was he said, “The bathrooms were nice bright and airy.” (The only thing he liked about the whole (mis)adventure)

***

After that I stopped taking him to movie halls, but my wife took up the challenge. Thank God he’s not indifferent now: He gets totally immersed in the plot. He watched open-eyed and open-mouthed Hrithik Roshan’s antics in Dhoom 2, wailed like if he was attending a funeral at Shah Rukh Khan’s death in Om Shanti Om and his shrill laughter still pervades the atmosphere of the hall when there’s a comic scene. The questions come loudly and frequently. He still takes off unexpectedly every now and then in the middle of a scene: Once a Jumping Potato, always a Jumping Potato.

Things weren’t any different when I took him to the planetarium. This time the man sitting next to him kept staring at us. Every question got a stare and I finally whispered to my son, “Keep quiet. See, you are disturbing that poor man there.”

The man leaned towards me and said, “Let him ask questions no! They are very interesting! Even I am enjoying them!”

Another round went to my son and I felt as if I had just lost the right to ask him to Shut Up at any hall for life.

© Sunil Rajguru

My son goes around posing as an authority on the happenings of our lives much before he was born.

“I know that, you don’t have to tell me.”

“You did this because of that.”

“I saw you doing that!”

…and so on.

On being told of the absurdity of it all, he tells us: Where do you think I was before I came here? I was in heaven with God. I could watch all of you whenever I wanted.

An example: Once when we were driving along Old Madras Road, a car trailer passed by. My son told my father-in-law, “Your car also came in such a trailer.” My father-in-law started laughing and parted with the crucial bit of information that the car he was sitting in was bought before he was born. So how did he know? My son folded his hands and gave a knowing glare.

“One day when I was playing in heaven, God called me and told me, “See that Hyundai trailer going down there? That’s carrying your grandfather’s silver-coloured Accent.” Touche!

I decided to end this game. So I caught hold of him once and asked him, “Describe this heaven of yours!”

“Ah it’s a primitive place in the heart of nature full of babies and gods….”

“Gods, I ask, “not God!”

“Well do you think even God can handle thousands of babies together?”

(Point)

“One god is assigned to 15 babies and…”

“Sound a bit like a school full of teachers to me,” I interrupted.

“No, the gods just watch over us, we spend all our time doing… nothing! We have a clear view of Earth and all the people who live there. We can watch every person when and how we want.”

“And what do you do there?”

“We don’t have to do anything at all and at the same time we can do everything we please. Every thing! Now doesn’t that sound like heaven?”

“OK, OK, then how do you come down to Earth?”

“Well we get to choose our parents. We look down and tell our god: Hey I want that woman to be my mother and that man to be my father and that’s how you two got together!”

(Kids always eventually get their way with their parents. But before birth too…???)

“So I don’t decide who I get to marry and the match isn’t even originally selected by god either. You matched us up?”

“Yes,” he replies smugly.

So there’s God’s Will. Then there’s Wife’s Will. And now there’s Son’s Will. I guess for a poor ole man like me, there really is no such thing as Free Will.

***

Another example: “Why are you so naughty and hyperactive, can’t you calm down and relax a bit.”

“I can’t,” he says…

(And I know another Heaven Story is coming)

“When god was throwing Naughtiness Dust on us…”

“What,” I ask, “is that?”

“Well the gods want us to be naughty. It’s a positive trait. We become naughty thanks to Naughtiness Dust which they keep throwing on us. Well, I went and raided the whole stock and that’s why I am the way I am.”

My wife looks shocked and asks, “What did god do when he found out?”

“He still doesn’t know,” sniggers my son.

My wife continues, “But won’t he get angry when he finds out?”

My son slaps his forehead and says wearily, “God is not like a teacher or a parent. He never gets angry at us. His job is only to guide, encourage and help us. He never gets angry. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

***

My son has a habit of shooting rapid fire questions in the night when me and my wife are about to fall asleep.

“What happens when you put a ton of ice in a pool of lava?”

“What if there’s a Black Hole outside our window right now? Can I check?”

“What if tomorrow doesn’t come when we get up tomorrow?”

“What if our whole life is actually a dream? What happens when we get up?”

“Can we go to Disneyland for our next vacation?”

“Can you buy me another Transformers action figure on your way back from work? I won’t ask for another toy for 10 years!”

They keep coming like an incessant waterfall.

Once he broached the topic of death.

“What happens after death? Where do we go? Why do some people go early? Why don’t you check the Internet for that? You check the Internet for everything anyway…”

I got really bugged and asked him, “OK, you’re the wise guy. You came from heaven. You once asked that god be requisitioned to start an email service between heaven and earth. You knew god. You tell me how we go back there after death.”

“But why would you want to go to heaven,” asks my son calmly.

“Don’t we all go to heaven when we die?” I ask exasperated.

“No!” he says firmly.

“Why?” I ask “sleepily.”

“You come from heaven to earth. So why would you want to go back to a place from where you came?”

(My reserve patience runs out at this stage)

OK, you tell me quick: What happens after death?

My son thinks for a second and says, “The soul splits into many pieces and every piece goes to a different world, a different universe and a different existence.”

That’s too deep for me. I can’t take it any more. I have to go to sleep.

Good Night!

© Sunil Rajguru

1. What if President Pratibha Patil is made the Prime Minister of India after her term expires?

2. Poor Pluto. After it was stripped of planetary status, what changes came in its atmosphere, rotation and revolution?

3. What if due to some reason Mercury and Venus are also stripped of their planetary status. Then won’t Earth become the first planet from the sun? Can that make things a bit hotter?

4. Is Hrithik Roshan real or is he just another fictional character like Tom and Jerry?

5. Army ants are planning to migrate from Africa to India. Generation after generation will settle closer and closer to India. Then they’ll hitch rides on birds and planes. They’ll get onto elephants and buffaloes to get across rivers. For some strange reason, their ultimate destination is India in general and Bangalore in particular.

6. If I somehow manage to live for a billion years, won’t I die when the Sun explodes?

7. Why can’t my grandmother give me company in my old age?

8. There are currently more believers than atheists in this world. Tomorrow if there are more atheists, then will God cease to exist?

9. People say India will become a Superpower tomorrow, but is it at least a Power today?

10. Marriage looks to be too tough to handle. So like many small boys he’s decided not to get married and definitely not to have kids.

And two things he’s not worried about…

The expanding universe and the ultimate fate of the universe
Doesn’t that mean much more space for everyone as the population increases?

Global warming and the rise of oceans
Bangalore might finally get a beach!

© Sunil Rajguru